Genealogy
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Sunday, May 19th, 2013Sometimes in genealogy, life gets in the way. Sad I know, but true. This will be a short post in honor of this week’s “living” a.k.a. flood recovery, a gas leak resulting in gutting the kitchen, two grade school band concerts, one little league practice, one soccer practice, one choir practice, one soccer game, four [...]
Words to the Wise
Sunday, May 5th, 2013Words. They are the smallest unit of meaning. The documents we study, the stories we are told are built up of those units. Little bits of meaning are added to each other until some information is conveyed. To understand that information we need to understand the basic ingredients. Do we always know what those ingredients [...]
The Big Stuff
Saturday, April 27th, 2013I love to find little connections between families and history. Often people are sure that there is no “history” in their family. I think it would be a strange family indeed that was never involved in any historical events. Never impacted in a way worth noting, no one who ever signed a petition on some [...]
After the Deluge
Sunday, April 21st, 2013Flooding is a topic that has forced itself upon me this week. Two and a half times the normal rainfall for all of April in 20 hours is something that one notices, especially when the sump pump was already running. So what do floods have to do with genealogy? 1 Floods of information I would [...]
Chaos!
Sunday, April 14th, 2013I always like when I can connect my years as a scientist and my work as a genealogist. This week I got a bit of inspiration in that direction. I was reviewing some genealogy that was felt to be questionable. I have had to agree. There were a few key people who seemed wedged in [...]
Dance of the Sources
Sunday, April 7th, 2013Checking sources can be an oddly enjoyable pastime. At least I think so. That is, I both enjoy it and admit that it might be somewhat odd to enjoy it. I think what lies behind a statement is often even more fascinating than the statement itself. Every conclusion has a story behind it, a sort [...]
Trick Questions
Monday, April 1st, 2013In honor of April Fools’ Day, I thought I might throw out some genealogical trick questions. See how you do. Is it legal in Virginia for a man to marry his widow’s sister? How many birthdays does the average man have? The average woman? Do they have a fourth of July in England? Can a [...]
Content or Context?
Sunday, March 17th, 2013I remember hearing a story years ago of a man who sat in an archive, in Spain or perhaps Portugal, sniffing documents. He was trying to detect the subtle, lingering sent of vinegar. Why? Long ago people attempted to prevent the spread of disease by sprinkling mail with vinegar. A letter might claim “we are [...]
Rootedness
Sunday, March 10th, 2013Why is genealogy becoming more popular? There are some trivial, if important reasons—the Internet makes it easier to get started, software makes keeping track of progress easier, those sorts of things. Sometimes when talking to people, I realize another reason is often sitting just below the surface. We are generally becoming less rooted. We no [...]
The Sense of Self
Sunday, March 3rd, 2013I’ve just run across a study done a few years ago. It touches on thoughts about family history and our sense of self that I have had for a long time, but goes beyond them and shows how family stories affect a child’s development. In 2005 scientists at Emory University’s Center on Myth and Ritual in [...]
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