On a family trip over the Columbus Day weekend, I thought I’d bring along a good book that didn’t relate to genealogy or even history. It turns out that I failed miserably. The book was certainly fascinating but it also kept me thinking about the Personal Past. The book was Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. On page […]
When questioning your documents, there are more questions to ask than just if your Aunt Maude might have “corrected” a few things in the family Bible. Who created it? Did the author have any first hand knowledge? Did the author have any reason for bias? When was it created? Calendar changes and different ways of
Give Your Documents the Third Degree Read More »
Historical documents are complex things. Far more complex than we might first expect. Each document exists as at least two separate things—first as a physical object, and second as a collection of information, independent of any physical form. In two earlier posts (Don’t Believe It! and Genealogy Without Documentation Is…), I’ve discussed a few things
Do Your Documents Have a Shady Past? Read More »
To try to understand the people that I’m researching, I like to try to think like them and to look at my surroundings like a pioneer. Often that means thinking like a pioneer in the forests of eastern North America. The next time you are walking in the woods, try this experiment. Do your best
Seeing Like a Pioneer Read More »
One of the most exciting things in researching any topic occurs when one stumbles across an unexpected bit of information, information that seems beyond the topic but that is interesting nonetheless. In a perfect world we would live happily ever after with our new found fact firmly in hand—but the world isn’t perfect. Authors are
Authors, Authorities and Reading in Focus Read More »
I just finished reading one of those books that can open the eyes to a bit of history that is not so well known. The title of the book, The American Plague, refers to the disease yellow fever. Like many diseases that no longer torment us, we don’t realize the justifiable horror that our ancestors
William of Ockham was a Franciscan friar who lived at the turn of the 14th century. A celibate who lived that long ago is not the most likely of topics for a genealogy article. He is my subject for today not because of who he begat but because of what he wrote. Perhaps his most
Sharpen Your Genealogy with Ockham’s Razor Read More »
You may have run across a phrase something along the lines of “Genealogy without documentation is mythology.” It is a nice catchphrase and it certainly is out to make an important point but I must admit that I don’t care for it all that much. Myth First, I think our catchphrase is rather disparaging to
Genealogy Without Documentation Is… Read More »
The more research I do the more interested I become in what it is even possible to know. It is not an insignificant question. Genealogists, especially beginners, often oscillate back and forth between believing they know the absolute truth to being totally unsure, depending on whatever information has just turned up. Proving anything that is
Human beings tell stories. We can’t help it. That is how we order our world—in narratives. We tell stories about ourselves, our family and our friends. Some stories lose their interest after days, months or years while others become favorites we tell our whole lives. It is those that become the stories children hear over
Humans as Storytellers Read More »