Descent and Alliances of Croslegh, or Crossle, or Crossley, of Scaitcliffe

What good is there in a pedigree? What is the use of tracing your descent from a distant past? It is not my intention to attempt to prove that a register of such descent has value. I assume that it must be a help to a man, when called upon to refuse the evil and to choose the good, to know something of men and women who have made the good choice before him, and to remember that their blood is coursing through his own veins. It was no consideration of utility, however, which led to this compilation. It was love of kin which supplied the motive. It has always been an indescribable delight to me to go back in fancy and affection to my dear old kinsfolk as I knew them in my childhood, and to recall the pleasure with which they were accustomed to dwell on the days of their fathers and the old time before them. Accordingly I began, while still an undergraduate, to make a collection of such scraps and anecdotes relating to our family as I could pick up from older people.