Last week I wrote about looking at preserved landscape to get a glimpse of what our ancestors saw but last weekend I had some personal experiences with preserved buildings, so I will turn from the natural to the architectural landscape. My family and I went to the village parade, which is always an “Americana Moment,” […]
Building for the Past Read More »
I have been giving quite a few talks of late—three in seven days in fact. One was “Quantum Mechanics for 5th Graders,” which my wife and I did for our daughter’s class at school. The kids were excited and asked a lot of good questions and had a lot of good answers as well. It
The Stories at the End Read More »
Back in March, I wrote about a wonderful conversation I had over the phone with my dad. I was looking at a Sanborn map that showed the neighborhood where he was born. I had a few questions about it for a presentation I was preparing and thought I would give him a quick ring. I
Interview with Dad Read More »
I just gave a talk about understanding and using maps. Most of my examples were from maps of North America but some were from countries that contributed immigrants to this side of the Atlantic. That is, they were maps of “the old country.” It is an interesting phrase because it sounds like a nickname for
I’ve been preparing a new talk about maps and one of the things I will discuss is using Sanborn Maps. I have the images for my father’s home town from a few years before he was born. I also have the census that was taken a few months after he came into the world. Censuses
Taking Walks with the Census Taker and my Dad Read More »
When I mentioned the reuse of the names of deceased children in a recent post (Geneanthropology), it got me thinking about naming patterns. As genealogical evidence goes, I wonder if evidence from naming patterns, onomastic evidence, isn’t both one of the most underutilized and most overly valued indications of relationship. It is valuable if given
Making Names for Ourselves Read More »
So many years ago that I don’t quite remember where this took place, I was in an art museum with a friend or two and we came across a strange family portrait. I happened to know why it was so strange and so I got a chance to play tour guide, if only for one
One of the most important things to realize when thinking about the past is that there is not only much to learn but also much to forget. What we know blinds us to what we could know. We understand that this or that was different yet fail to see how the world itself was different.