Forgotten History
Next Entries »Anachrotopia
Saturday, February 20th, 2010What makes a place a place? While writing A Very Porous Border I couldn’t help but think about what we mean by the concept of a place and, after that post, the natural example for me to use comes from the two largest countries in North America. Today we take the existence of Canada and [...]
A Very Porous Border
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Watching the Vancouver Olympics, it seems quite natural to both cheer and be excited both for your country and for whoever turns in a great performance. Sometimes we confine ourselves to our national borders, other times an amazing achievement transcends any man-made boundaries. Searching for the history of our families can also be a time [...]
Veterans Day
Monday, November 16th, 2009I wonder how many people remember why we have Veterans Day when we do. After years of war, on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” the guns fell silent on the Western Front and for all practical purposes, World War I—The Great War, the War to End All Wars—came to [...]
Memphis, 1878
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009I 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 [...]
Locusts on the Plains
Friday, August 14th, 2009Is it easy to recognize historical reality versus that charming “tall tale” exaggeration that was (and still is) so common? “Streets of gold”, for example, were certainly exaggeration. Other exaggerations can be nearly as obvious. Some cases, though, can require research and careful thought to determine if they can be taken at face value or [...]
Space-Time for Family Historians
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009I 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 [...]
A Seemingly Insignificant Place
Monday, August 10th, 2009I spend a lot of time contemplating what we can actually know about the lives of people from the past and how we can know. When trying to rebuild a person’s experiences, it is important to remember to wonder about the little places. Not just to wonder about them in the sense of realizing that [...]
Next Entries »