When people think of creativity they often limit themselves to art. Painting, literature, music and dance are the kinds of things that come easily to mind when one thinks of creativity. Other activities come less often to mind when we think of creativity. For example, people often believe that science is not a creative endeavor, […]
Presumably everyone reading this has heard of the Renaissance—the great flowering of learning and investigation that followed the medieval period and went back to and improved upon Western Culture’s classical roots. Few know that this was at least the second try at a renaissance since the fall of Rome. The first try didn’t go quite
Paleography and the “G-Word” Read More »
People who study statistics often talk about distributions. They are simply the shapes that appear when you turn data into a picture. Each bit of information might be marked down where it belongs on a number line. With enough data a pattern may emerge. That pattern may have many things to say about underlying causes
Wagging the Long Tail Read More »
I’ve seen some pretty impressive walls in my life. I admit I’ve never visited the Great Wall in China but I have seen Hadrian’s Wall. It was built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to separate Roman Britain to the south from the tribes living in what is now Scotland—short on the scale
Thinking Outside the Bricks Read More »
Do you ever think about the occurrences that made you possible? It would be a very, very long list. What if you just concentrate on the odd ones—things with really low probability or very extreme outcomes that are just plain out of the ordinary? What strange things needed to happen to make you possible? I’ve
Timelines can be a great tool for genealogy. Timelines of general history give a quick overview and put events into their proper sequence. They can point out things in the sweep of history that may have influenced an ancestor. They can provide a quick-to-grasp framework for further understanding. Making your own timelines can crystallize thoughts
A Line to Draw the Time Read More »
Now that my Star Wars and Harry Potter characters have gathered their last preHalloween harvest of candy corn and caramels and are fast asleep, I find my mind turning to a time when ghosts, goblins and witches were a much more serious business than my children’s Halloween costumes or a snaggletoothed grin on a jack-o-lantern.
When Witches Said neither “Trick” nor “Treat” Read More »
I’ve been looking at a lot of immigrants over the last week and I do mean a lot. So, I’ve just become interested in pushmi-pullyus for the first time since I was about 8. Sometimes circumstances push people from one country to another. Sometimes circumstances pull people to a new country. Exactly what those circumstances
Anything that isn’t sufficiently complex to look at from many different angles probably won’t hold a person’s attention for very long. There are certainly many ways to look at genealogy and the process of genealogical research. Genealogy, I’ve noticed, has been known to hold the attention of a researcher or two. One rather basic way
Three Steps to a Better (Ancestral) Life Read More »
This week I’m writing about something a little different, a genealogical occurrence but nothing to do with research techniques, wandering cemeteries or interesting records. I wrote this awhile back as something of an act of catharsis. In the end, I think I did what was right. Yet, it still bothers me the way that any
Eleventh Hour Ethics Read More »