Review of "The Art of Creative Research"

Those fortunate (or wise) enough to be members of the Association of Professional Genealogists and now read the December issue of the APG Quarterly, which includes numerous relevant articles for serious genealogists, as well as my review of Philip Gerard's The Art of Creative Research: A Field Guide for Writers. The general title is correct -- the book has applications well beyond genealogy -- and my misgivings about some passages don't change the fact that there is a lot to learn here and a lot of good stories as well.

For those who have occasion to look online for the complete list of my genealogy articles, the best way is to look here.

June APGQ -- another magazine on the "must-read" shelf

For those who are members of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the June 2015 issue of the APG Quarterly just went on line. Yes, it's late, but it's looking like a quarterly full of articles I want to read and need to read -- and a real incentive for serious genealogists who are not yet members to join APG.

No, I'm not impartial. My own article, "A Field Guide to Indirect Evidence," is in the mix -- that was supposed to be the reason for this blog post! And I do chair the quarterly's advisory committee (but aside from my article, we had no involvement in the process).

Nor have I had a chance to read through it. But who couldn't find several things to love in the regular reviews and interviews, and the rest of the table of contents?

* Lisa Alzo interviewing four professionals on staying professional on social media.
* Sara Scribner on JSTOR and LibGuides. (Yes, I did say, "What's a LibGuide?")
* Barbara Ball on georeferencing.
* Marian Pierre-Louis on making sure you put your best online foot forward.
* George Morgan on organization for presenters.
* Michael Hait on the difference between a report and a case study. (Anyone going for certification without knowing this? Time to find out!)
* Blaine Bettinger on Genetic Genealogy Standards.

Recycle your writing!

One way to increase your writing output without adding a large amount of work time is to recast the underlying material into a different form. It occurred to me that -- in addition to news about the community (who got credentialed, which genealogy business has bought another), there are basically three kinds of genealogy writing:

(1) technical -- proving identities, relationships, and lineages. Usually this kind stands alone only when it's an especially difficult problem, or in a client report. But it is the foundation for everything else. Examples are in every issue of NGSQ, NYGBR, NEHGR, TAG, and The Genealogist. Each one may contain fragments of stories (#2 below), but they are only present insofar as they provide evidence to construct the proof.

(2) stories -- telling the life stories of ancestors and lineages. This is the stuff all genealogists and many non-genealogists crave, often even when the stories are terrible and sad. Without #1, the stories may get distorted or attached to the wrong people, but this is the payoff.

(3) instructional -- explaining how to accomplish #1 and #2. This is the meat of most popular genealogy magazines (the ones whose titles always start with a number), professional publications (like the APG Quarterly), many blogs (such as Kimberly Powell's at About.com, or Archives.com's expert series), and much of the traffic on genealogy mailing lists and social media discussions. Technology tips fit here too. (Theoretical articles, of which genealogy has few so far, are at the high end of this range.)

Of course all of these are far more valuable when they cite their sources.

Here's the point. Each family or part of a family provides material for all three kinds of writing. Years ago I found my Gedney ancestors on a New Orleans ship list from the 1840s, where their surname had been written "Kidney." That was a humble kind of technical finding (#1), and of course could play a part in an instructional article or talk (#3). But there are hints of stories there as well (#2): my recently wed great-great grandparents, William Flint and Mary Gedney, were on that cramped boat for two months with their extended family, and it seemed likely that her father bankrolled the emigration. Then again, I could tell those stories better if I did just a little more research . . .





Harold Henderson, “From England to St. Clair Via New Orleans: William and Mary Gedney Flint,” St. Clair County (Illinois) Genealogical Society Quarterly 26, no. 3 (2003):141-44.



Harold Henderson, "Recycle your writing!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 July 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

NGS Day 1 Wednesday May 8

Las Vegas is an improbable (and noisy) part of the universe. The day started with one of those serendipitous encounters that make conferences such fun -- a friend and I got on the elevator simultaneously around 6 am and we made a run for affordable edibles to help us last out the week.

Marian Smith told a great story of her quest for the origins of the 1931 Morton Allan steamship arrival directory. "Some projects take years," she said, "Be prepared to be surprised." We were. "When you see a piece that might fit but are not sure, you've got to pick it up."

Tom Jones was stellar in the 11 am slot on "Debunking Misleading Records." He described alphabetizing records (that were originally chronological) as a form of error, because it strips out contextual information that might be used to correct an error. And he advised us that using genealogy programs can cause us to miss a "huge piece of genealogical reasoning," the piece that takes place when you're writing out your proof. He even finished two minutes before time.

I'll let others comment on my APG luncheon talk on advocacy and how to think about it. (Shortest possile version: Don't overlook the regulation-writing process that inevitably follows legislation.) A version of it will be available for the new APG Quarterly editor, Christy Fillerup, to use as needed.

Melinde Lutz Byrne spoke on advocacy for record access. By accumulation of well-known facts, she showed that birth, marriage, and death records are not in fact private -- directly undercutting some lawmakers' arguments to try to make them otherwise. Meanwhile I hear that Kimberly Powell encouraged a lot of folks to use and learn Scrivener.

Lots of interesting conversation at the exhibit hall BCG table late in the day about how many certificants "overachieve," as in producing kinship determination projects 70 or more pages long. Don't be intimidated. Length is not a genealogical standard.



Harold Henderson, "NGS Day 1 Wednesday May 8," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 May 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Genealogy Education on the Cheap

Sometimes you have to spend money to save money -- that would be the case if you're perplexed about how to learn more about genealogy and are not already a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists. The new (December) issue of the APG Quarterly -- a member benefit, not available in stores -- includes my article enumerating more than a dozen ways to learn without spending too much. (I do serve on the board, but do not receive a commission on new memberships.)

I can mention two ongoing good places to look. One is Angela McGhie's blog, Adventures in Genealogical Education. The other -- which I somehow neglected to mention in the APGQ article -- is Archives.com's free "Expert Series" with short articles with all kinds of advice and information. My latest contribution over there is on "Resolving the Paradox of Research Planning."



Harold Henderson, "Genealogy Education on the Cheap," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

2013 Updated List of Paid Writing Opportunities

Read the publication first, then inquire or submit something appropriate. Expect to be edited. This list will be updated as needed, in hopes that it will outgrow the size of a blog post!
** indicates editor is certified by BCG or accredited by ICAPGen.


PROFESSIONAL

Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly

NATIONAL

**Archives.com "Expert Series"

Crossroads, published by Utah Genealogical Association

INDIANA

The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections, published by Indiana Historical Society

Indiana Genealogist (one prize per year), published by Indiana Genealogical Society

TEXAS

Pegasus, published by Dallas Genealogical Society beginning Spring 2013

COMMERCIAL

Internet Genealogy



Harold Henderson, "2013 Updated List of Paid Writing Opportunities," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 3 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Calling All Writer$

Besides the remaining commercial print magazines, I now know of a grand total of three on-line or non-commercial genealogy venues that pay writers for their contributions:

Archives.com's expert series

Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly

-- and now, the Utah Genealogical Association's quarterly Crossroads. UGA's newsletter emailed last week reports that it is now soliciting "quality feature articles about case studies, research projects and methodology." More information from the editor at GenaOrtega@gmail.com. Content is not limited to Utah.

Feel free to use the comments to promote other venues of which I am ignorant. I do hope UGA is setting a trend here.

I should probably say what should go without saying: you will have better luck submitting as a writer if you have been reading the publication for a while and have got the idea of what kind of material the editor(s) like to publish.

We all need to write more in order to prove our families, to preserve the results of our research, and to propagate the information. (Am I repeating myself?) And when our articles get edited, that too is a learning experience. (We all need it, and we should ask questions if we don't get it.) Getting paid is frosting on the cake, but it's nutritious frosting.


Harold Henderson, "Calling All Writer$," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Association of Professional Genealogists

A big thank-you to those readers who are members of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and who, in a pre-Thanksgiving surprise, elected me to a two-year term on the organization's board. (And I hope that any reader who is not a member will consider becoming one.) I expect to learn a lot, but here is where I started (from my pre-election statement):

Over the past three years I have benefited from listening and participating on APG's email list, from reading the quarterly, from attending the Professional Management Conference, from involvement in the Great Lakes Chapter -- and from working the table at conferences! I'd like to put my experience to work, and build on past volunteers' accomplishments, by helping APG become both more inclusive and more professional.

Inclusive: by making transparency a priority, including prompt publication of board and EC minutes.

Professional: by encouraging, recognizing, and eventually requiring continuing education among members -- or in some other appropriate way acting on Tom Jones's critique published in the December 2007 APG Quarterly. His point was that for genealogy to mature, its professional organization needs to ask more of its members than just to pay dues and subscribe to a code of ethics.

Belich's "Replenishing the Earth" reviewed

If you want to see the difference between a blog post and a published review of the same book, you can compare this 2009 post and my review published in the current APG Quarterly, the publication of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Replenishing the Earth remains an amazing new macrohistorical take on the mass settlement process of which the Midwest formed one part.