Some Americans are old hands at it. Spurred on by Alex Haley's book, others took it up, and now it seems that just about everyone is searching for his roots. "Climbing All Over the Family Trees," this week's Essay by Senior Writer Stefan Kanfer, tells some of the reasons why. "White Roots: Looking for Great-Grandpa" in the Living section tells how to do it--with specific instructions for the beginner. Its author, Senior Writer Michael Demarest, believes passionately in what he calls the "joy of genealogy." But then, to trace the 14 generations of his American ancestry, he has only to drop by the New York Public Library to read two volumes on The Demarest Family, a project first published in 1938 and financed in part by his grandfather. Or he can cross the Hudson River to Demarest, N.J., to visit the family cemetery or the home of French Huguenot David Demarest, who settled there in 1678.

Staffers have also had help in tracing their family trees. An uncle of the London bureau's Christopher Byron spent 20 years researching the family, which includes the poet Lord Byron and Ralph de Burun, an aide to William the Conqueror. Senior Editor Otto Friedrich claims Bismarck's Foreign Minister, Bernhard von Billow, as a forebear as well as the French Dukes of Guise. Senior Editor John Elson notes that an ancestor of his grew the first pineapple in England, from a seedling brought back from the South Seas by Captain Cook.

Of course, not everyone has caught the contagion, and Kanfer declares firmly that "relatives are to be avoided." News Desk Editor Margaret Boeth's father, a Mississippi judge, warned her against putting too much stock in the family tree. "It takes three generations to make a lady, and then she'll spit," he used to say. In addition to many distinguished ancestors, Boeth can also claim a petticoat thief in New Amsterdam (fined 20 guilders for the deed). And Chicago Bureau Chief Benjamin Cate enjoys recalling, among his Puritan precursors, one William ("Whiskey") Cate, who earned his moniker as the watchdog of sobriety in colonial Boston. "During his lifetime, he confiscated many bottles of booze," says Cate. "When old Bill finally died, they found that all those hundreds of bottles were still in the basement--and all empty!"

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