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 »
I’ve recently been reminded of a few things that seemed to fall together into a somewhat oddly named post. What is the Logic?—Begging the Question First, I was reminded of the logical fallacy that goes by the name “begging the question.” Nowadays, that phrase is often used to mean a statement that seems to demand
Begging the Citation Read More »
Though we think of hope as something for the future and memory as something of the past, they are entwined and entangled. Our dreams are imprinted by our past and our memories are shaped by our desires. Hope springs eternal, so the saying goes, and eternity is not only the future, it also includes the
What’s Hiding in a Place? 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
Like many bloggers of yore (in internet terms I suppose “yore” means more than a year or two ago), I’m shocked to discover that my blogiversary is upon me. It has been exactly one year since my first post. At the end of this post, I’ll celebrate a little with links to some of my
1st Blogiversary and The Power of Negative Thinking Read More »
Land records can be a great place to find evidence of relationships between people but I am going to write about a part of land records that normally makes the eyes glaze over. In many places, such as the eastern U.S., land holdings were not specified by the convenient lines derived from latitude and longitude
Knowing by Metes and Bounds Read More »
I just ran across an article in an old newsletter that I found among my aunt’s papers. The title was Quantum Genealogy and as a former research physicist, it caught, or perhaps even grabbed, my eye. The article mostly discussed the author’s research experiences without so many references to the quantum world, so in my
Being a “modern person” means many things. One of them seems to be being as independent as possible of the forces of nature. That is nothing new, after all you could say that putting a roof above your head is a separation from nature and people have been doing that for a very long time.
Migration Routes for City Dwellers Read More »
Independence is an important topic this time of year. Though inspired by that 4th of July kind of independence that is not what I’m thinking about. Instead, I’m thinking about data independence. As we gather our evidence, one question that always needs to be asked is, “is this data independent of the data already collected?”
There is a little bit of unresearch I like to do every so often. It can be a simple what-if or a real exercise in going through my records, notes and thinking. It is not hard to get the idea. You experiment with the life of an ancestor that you think you understand fairly well.
Doing Some Unresearch Read More »