The word “genealogy” is made of two parts meaning “origin” and “study.” It is, at its core, the study of our personal origins. Genealogy is often broader than its own etymological origins because are naturally curious about those who share some of those origins. We want to know who descends from some of the same […]
Nearly all genealogy begins with memories—your memories, your cousins memories, your great aunt Gertrude’s memories. Someone’s family recollections peak someone else’s interest. Grandma gets interviewed. A notebook is filled with Uncle Ralph’s stories about his relatives when he was growing up and then when word gets out that you’re working on the family history, an
Funhouse Mirror Memories Read More »
When I was a kid there was a group of jokes that consisted of nothing more than the titles and authors of fictitious books. One of my favorites was Viewing the Grand Canyon by Eileen Dover. If you don’t get it, just say it out loud, you will. Brick Walls and Cliffs Sometimes in genealogy
Everyone loves a good index. Occasionally, we love to hate them but still have to confess that they are vital. These days when we think about an index, we usually think of a searchable database. When they are accurate they are wonderful because they allow us to find information based on a few things that
Blessed are the Indexers Read More »
A remark in a recent program on PBS caught my attention. A woman who was born into an Amish community showed a picture of herself as a child. It should not exist. In her community you were not supposed to be photographed but she went to a school with non Amish students and so the
The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. -Fog by Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems, 1916 Often in genealogy, one takes great, generation-long strides through the records. If there is census data, perhaps our strides that are merely a decade long. In small
Genealogy on Little Cat Feet Read More »
Do you know where your data originated? Do undocumented writings support what you have found elsewhere or has been handed down in your family? Should you wonder where that data originated? Could it, in fact, be your data? Has research circled around and bitten its own tail? Biting Its Own Tail I was chatting genealogy
What Goes Around Comes Around Read More »
Last week after a presentation one of the audience members came up to the front to say hello. She said that after hearing my introduction she had to tell me that she had been a physicist in the 1950s and that she understood the connection between being a physicist and being a genealogist. She added
As genealogists we mine records for information. Sometimes that is how we see records—as information mines. There is nothing wrong with that as far as it goes. Data about our ancestors is what we need to rediscover the past and we extract it from records. It is important though to go beyond those specifics that
Records that Are Something More Read More »
One of the thoughts that occurs to me regularly is how tricky the word “place” can be. We use it without really thinking about what lies underneath. It seems like such a simple concept. I’m in one place as I write. You are in another as you read. Those places have names. They have latitudes
A Place is not Just a Place Read More »