This week, I need to start where I left off last week, with reproducibility. This week comes a facet to research that overlaps greatly with reproducibility—openness. If reproducibility is central to true research, there must be some way to see inside what someone else has done. It must be possible to understand not just the […]
Holding the Door Open Read More »
What is “research”? It seems like a simple question but it isn’t. What does research look like? What properties should it have? Research takes many forms, has many entries in the dictionary and can mean slightly different things in different fields. It can involve experiment, observation, testing, fact finding and theory development. In my old
Research, Rinse, Repeat Read More »
In the attic I have a small metal device that I inherited from my grandparents. It is a square box, open above and wider than it is tall. On top, there is a cage on hinged rods that run from the middle of the box to one side of the cage that allow the cage
Ancestral Steampunk Read More »
Sometimes things just come together and force a post to be written. Last week I wrote about some stories of a man’s descent from some famous members of the Putnam family of Salem Village. None of those stories turned out to be true in the sense that he was not descended from any of the
The Genealogist’s Memory Read More »
Purely by coincidence I happen to be researching a family connected to the Salem Witch Trials. Honestly it has nothing to do with the approach of Halloween. I’ll confess that I’m writing about them now rather than later because of Halloween but that is another matter. I’m not going to write about the gory details
John Q. Tangential is one of my favorite people in genealogy. He married a great-aunt or bought land next to a third cousin once removed. Then he moved west and was found in the census on the same page as another family of interest that wasn’t supposed to be related to him in any way
The Genealogists Friend, John Q. Tangential Read More »
By all accounts, Kurt was a strange man, insane eventually. He was paranoid and his life came to an end when he starved himself, fearing that he would be poisoned. Kurt was also brilliant. Not many people took their evening stroll from work at The Institute of Advanced Study with Albert Einstein. Kurt was a
Down the Rabbit Hole Read More »
When Steve Jobs passed away a few days ago, the news popped up on my Mac and I read his obituaries online. Somehow that seemed both natural and fitting. There were many, many angles in those obituaries. He was a CEO, technology visionary and showman but what struck me were all the mentions of his
The Hard Part is Knowing What to Leave Out Read More »
Not long ago I finished a book for a client. The necessary research was completed. The boxes of memorabilia had been checked and double checked. The text was all written. The stories had been told. The photographs all laid out on their pages. I sent off the cover art and the main file for printing
The End of a Good Story Read More »
I’m not a great gardener but I always enjoy gardens. Sometimes gardens are simple beds of flowers but they can also be carefully thought through botanical spaces with rock walls, trellises, and paths. Some of my favorite memories of historical homes, castles and palaces are the formal gardens and private parks sometimes found there. They
A Garden of a Forebear’s Five Senses Read More »