A Historian's Tale

I am officially jealous of all genealogists who haven't read the great Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. They have a thrill coming regardless of whether they have ancestors in post-Revolutionary Maine.

Not only is the book a riveting read, each chapter is preceded by the laconic workaday diary entries from which Ulrich recreated a world through research. For those working on certification, in terms of putting a bare-bones ancestor into her historical context, one could view this as the world's best kinship determination project. In my world, anyone who has written a book of this quality can die happy.

I have been a fan for a long time, but it came as news to me that Ulrich grew up Mormon in small-town Idaho, or that she came to history relatively late in life. These days she has a project reaching back to her own roots . . .

(Hat tip to History News Network.)


Harold Henderson, "A Historian's Tale," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 30 October 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

More great history books

Heather Cox Richardson has a wonderful post on The Historical Society's blog, in which she imagines an American history course built around four old classics and four new ones. Of course it warms my heart to hear more about fine books like Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom; Robert White's The Middle Ground; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale; and Robert Mazrim's The Sangamo Frontier: History and Archaeology in the Shadow of Lincoln.

What could be better than seeing old friends appreciated? Learning four more titles that I haven't yet read. I can hardly wait. Now I know where to spend my Christmas loot!