IGHR Samford Day 3

Today Course 6 jetted from the 19th-20th century in the morning and into the 21st in the afternoon. In the morning, we worked on eight genealogical problems that can be solved through law library books. Most of us were able to solve only one or two in the allotted time. Then after lunch, with the help of a gentleman from WestLaw, we whizzed through all eight in just over an hour. (Of course, WestLaw is far from free, but sometimes available to patrons at university law libraries.) The value of reporters and digests, however accessed, is now clear in our minds as a genealogical research tool in itself, quite aside from and in addition to the importance of knowing "the law" in order to wring more information out of recalcitrant records.

It was a good sequence, first being grounded in the physical world and then seeing it in a different light. (I'm told that's how law schools themselves try to do it.) But lack of sleep is also beginning to take a toll now that the week is more than half over.



Harold Henderson, "IGHR Samford Day 3," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 June 2012 (http://michaelhait.wordpress.com/ : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]