Getting into the minds of the people I research is important to me. It can help lead the way to discoveries. It also makes those people so much more real. It also helps to remind me that our ancestors were a fascinating combination of just-like-us and totally alien. If we assume that they were all […]
A Time to Think about Time Read More »
When I lived in France and before I had kids, I had a large map of Europe that I mounted on a sheet of corrugated cardboard. I had it hanging on the wall and every time I visited a new place, I stuck a pin into that spot. To add a bit of information, I
It’s 10 p.m. Do You Know Where You Are Researching? Read More »
I assume that everyone doing British or British Colonial research is getting ready for New Year’s Eve. It’s time to uncork another of those pre1752 bottles you have hidden away, put on your homemade tri-cornered party hat and get together with fellow genealogists. Ok, maybe not, but the fact that New Year’s Day is coming
Happy (Old) New Year Read More »
I was just catching up on the Sunday paper (yes, it is Wednesday, I’ve been a bit busy). The Chicago Tribune ran a story entitled Google Maps inexplicably mixes Chicago’s past, present. It turns out that there are more than a few anachronisms lurking in Google Maps. Some of the places labeled on Google’s version
Ye Olde Google Maps Read More »
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.
I just gave my talk “Space-Time for Family Historians- Time warps and curved space aren’t just for physicists” for the first time at my local genealogy society meeting (Lake County Illinois Genealogical Society). I had a lot of fun with it and I have to admit that by the time people had finished complimenting me
Space-Time for Family Historians Read More »
Ludwig Boltzmann died on September 5, 1906 and was buried in his hometown of Vienna. His monument is dominated by an imposing bushy-bearded bust that stares down glowering. Above that bust is a single line, a mathematical equation first formulated by Boltzmann- S = k log W. Besides the fact that this appears at a