The other day I heard a program that discussed whether or not contrafactual history was “real” history. Some argue that history should only be concerned with what actually happened. Playing with “what if” questions might be fun, but it is fiction, not history. Others contend that analyzing other possibilities, paths that never got a chance to play out, outcomes that were never reached, allows us to see what did happen with greater understanding. What got me thinking was a statement that, when nuclear missile sites were discovered on Cuba, the Kennedy administration was able to think contrafactually about the First World War. What if after that fateful day in Sarajevo, the Great Powers had found ways to pull back instead of choosing to march headlong into Armageddon? What if they could make the choices that were not made in 1914?
This was mentioned as an example of using the contrafactual as a tool, as a way of seeing alternatives. Sometimes when I’m stuck on a genealogical problem, I like to play with contrafactual genealogy. I don’t mean something like—what if grandpa and grandma had never met (clearly they did), but instead she had moved to the forest and built a house of gingerbread with the help of a family of friendly elves and he had sailed away to an enchanted island filled with magical unicorns. That would certainly be contrafactual but it would hardly help. It would take more than the assistance of friendly elves to make that scenario useful.
I am thinking more along the lines of-
- What if great-grandpa disappeared well before I was told that he had? What records would I expect to find if that one “fact” was wrong?
- What if John Doe of Eastville and John Doe of Westville were not the same man, even though I’ve taken that as fact? Where might John Doe of Eastville have gone, if not to Westville?
- What if some of the children believed to belong in a family were actually part of a different family? How would that alter conclusions?
Sometimes such thoughts lead nowhere. Other times they lead to breakthroughs.