I started out to write a post about George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s families in honor of Presidents’ Day. I soon learned that just defining what is meant by “Presidents’ Day” is not so easy. Presidents’ Day The Federal holiday this Monday is officially called Washington’s Birthday, remembering his birthday of February 22nd. Oddly, when […]
I like thinking about thinking. A few lines I wrote and then deleted in a report reminded me of some concepts that come up when thinking about proving a hypothesis. The sentences that I erased went something like this—”Though the year in her birth record is two years before the one claimed or implied by
Two Words, Too Many Meanings Read More »
Like many people in the central United States, I’ve spent the last few days digging out. Clearing two feet of snow is a workout. This storm was a few inches short of being the worst in Chicago’s history. That title still belongs to the Blizzard of ’67. One weather forecaster made an interesting observation in
A Tale of Three Blizzards Read More »
So you’ve found some new genealogical evidence. Time to put it into your database and start the next hunt. Or is it? What if someone handed you a new and strange physical object and said, “Here. This is for you. I think you’ll need it.” You probably wouldn’t just make a note “Received interesting object”
I just ran across a year-old copy of American Heritage magazine. It is a history magazine not a genealogy magazine but history and genealogy continuously impact each other. What has happened affected and was affected by the relationships between the people to whom it happened. In this particular issue (winter 2010) there are thirty-five articles
A Ripple that Spread on this Side of the Pond Read More »
Two events of the past week make me feel that the Fates have decided that this week’s post will be about libraries. I’m a self-confessed library junkie. My local library, only blocks away, shut down months ago for renovations and the building of an addition. In the meantime, there was a “Temporary Library Center” in
Libraries and the Pajamas-Centered Genealogist Read More »
I ran across a quote recently that got me thinking about the extraordinary. In an episode of Cosmos Carl Sagan said, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is a catchy phrase. I think it is fairly clear what that little statement is trying to get across, though it perhaps isn’t so precise. What is missing
The Sagan Doctrine Read More »
Work I’ve been doing for some clients recently has got me thinking about a way that I sometimes do research when connections are hard to make. I think of this method as “painting ancestors.” I don’t mean portrait painting. I mean something more along the lines of house painting. These days painting woodwork with oil
Painting the Past Read Read More »
All the holidays at this time of year have gotten me thinking about interviewing relatives. Part of the art of interviewing relatives is to recognize when the flow of the interview is going in an good direction even if it isn’t where you planned for it to go. It may not be the information that
Holiday Interviews Read More »
I’ve had the privilege of working with some letters lately. Many, many letters. Letters of an age that sent a wave of disbelief through me every time I picked one up and I picked up hundreds. Every letter had a different feel. Some were written on paper so ethereal that I couldn’t believe that they