Quote to remember

Words to live by, from Elizabeth Shown Mills's Monday evening talk at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 12 January 2015:

"Instead of asking each other 'What's the answer?' we should be asking ourselves 'What's the evidence?' "

Do We Have the Genealogy Reflexes We Need?

Elizabeth Shown Mills calls them "mindsets." Thomas W. Jones calls them "dispositions." By whatever name, they go a long way toward explaining why some people have 20 years of experience in genealogy, and others have just one year's experience repeated 20 times.

Genealogy is not just about what we know, it's about how we react. If we're disposed to react in a useful way, then we're more likely to learn what we need to know about genealogy and about our families.

Recently I tried to boil down the important genealogy reflexes to a short simple list. So far I've got them down to five. If we have to travel light, I think we could manage with just the first two. What would you add or subtract?


1.When I learn a new genealogical fact, I ask, "How do they know? Where did that come from?"

2. When I make mistakes, I appreciate being corrected. Sometimes I seek out correction (from a friend, an editor, or a credentialing body).

3. When I see a strange word in a document, I find out what it means.

4. I look for clues everywhere, but I don't trust any clue by itself.

5. I attend conferences and institutes within reason, even though I think I've heard it all before . . . because, chances are, I haven't.




Harold Henderson, "Do We Have the Genealogy Reflexes We Need?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 27 October 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Two events to fit into your Salt Lake City plans!

Midwestern genealogists have two new reasons to wish that their ancestors had been more tolerant of the Mormon settlers in Nauvoo in western Illinois in the 1840s. If they had, then two big genealogy opportunities coming up in Salt Lake City might have been a lot closer!

On Saturday October 11, the Board for Certification of Genealogists will present six lectures from top genealogists Elissa Scalise Powell, Judy G. Russell, Stefani Evans, and Elizabeth Shown Mills -- free and open to the public at the Family History Library.

And this coming January 8-9, the Association of Professional Genealogists will hold its annual star-studded Professional Management Conference, with talks and workshops focused on professionalism both in the business and the expertise senses, at the downtown Hilton Hotel.

Both are open to anyone, not only to members of any particular group. APG is offering a discount to young (under-25) genealogists.



Harold Henderson, "Two events to fit into your Salt Lake City plans!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 October 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Top three posts since March

By definition, if you're reading this post, those listed below are probably familiar. But in case you're an outlier, the three most popular posts on this blog in the last six months:

(1) "Cleanup in Aisles 1-1000"  (10 April). This one was controversial, too!


(2) "What I would have liked to know as a newbie" (19 June).YMMV but I'm sure you know the feeling.


(3) "Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN Club, and DNA" (3 August). Part of my ongoing series to showcase some of the best work being done in genealogy. Includes a list of NGSQ articles using various forms of DNA.




Harold Henderson, "Top three MWM posts since March," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 September 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN club, and DNA

No, I will not retrace all the steps of Elizabeth Shown Mills's argument in the June National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "Testing the FAN Principle against DNA: Zilphy (Watts) Price Cooksey Cooksey of Georgia and Mississippi." But the article is significant in more ways than size (23 pages):

* It builds on previously published hard-won research. Two of the five generations discussed here were documented in previous articles. Most of us begin with some woolly family lore and work from there. That is the first step, and Mills does discuss family lore here. But building on prior research is what scholarly disciplines do. And it will become increasingly prevalent in genealogy as DNA evidence becomes ubiquitous.

* As the title says, it uses both documentary and DNA evidence. At least six previous NGSQ articles using both kinds of evidence were published in:

June 2012 (Warren Pratt, "Finding the Father of Henry Pratt of Southeastern Kentucky," vol. 100:85-104), 

June 2011 (Judy Kellar Fox, "Documents and DNA Identify a Little-Known Lee Family in Virginia, vol. 99:85-96),

September 2009 (Daniela Moneta, "Virginia Pughs and North Carolina Wests: A Genetic Link from Slavery in Kentucky," vol. 97:179-94),

March 2008 (Daniela Moneta, "Identifying the Children of David Pugh and Nancy Minton of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee," vol. 96:13-22), and

December 2005, a themed issue on genealogy and genetics (Anita A. Lustenberger, "David Meriwether: Descendant of Nicholas Meriweather? A DNA Study," 93:269-282; Donn Devine, "Sorting Relationships among Families with the Same Surname: An Irish-American DNA Study," 93:283-293 with a brief September 2007 update 95:196). 

These earlier articles used Y-DNA (male line). As far as I know, Mills breaks new NGSQ ground here by using evidence from both mitochondrial (female-line) DNA and autosomal DNA (the 22 chromosome pairs that recombine with each generation).

* Mills builds an intricate documentary case with indirect evidence that Zilphy was actually "Lucy" (the name "copied from an old family record") daughter of Judith and Rev. John Watts, and that Zilphy's daughter Nancy was the mother of Elmira Parks -- based on approximate dates, multiple associations, multiple name duplications, and an analysis of handwritten L and Z in this time period. If you want the details, join the National Genealogical Society or visit a good genealogy library.

* Mills does not ask or answer the question, "Would these relationships be proved if we did not have the DNA evidence?" She assembles the documentary evidence, then the DNA evidence, which confirms it. THE DNA EVIDENCE COULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN COLLECTED WITHOUT DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE SUGGESTING WHO TO TEST. The question of how DNA evidence functions within the Genealogical Proof Standard is for another day. Enough examples of this quality may render the question academic. The specific uses of DNA evidence in these articles is already under discussion among genetic and documentary genealogists.

 Although much genetic genealogy is necessarily shrouded in confidential situations, there are plenty of good publishable cases that have yet to be written up. Seven articles in nine years isn't enough! The more high-quality peer-reviewed articles we have, the easier it will be for us to learn more about how these two streams of evidence can converge. We need more people crossing the documentary-DNA line from both sides.



Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Testing the FAN Principle against DNA: Zilphy (Watts) Price Cooksey Cooksey of Georgia and Mississippi," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (June 2014): 129-152.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN club, and DNA," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 August 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Are you ready to go for a credential?

The hardest question about seeking certification (through BCG) or accreditation (through ICAPGen) is the very first one: Am I ready?

Self-evaluation is tough at the best of times, and no measure of readiness is foolproof. So I will suggest several independent measures, from various sources. Each of them has pitfalls, but if they all point the same way, then it's probably time to postpone your procrastination and get into the process. (My examples are BCG-based because that's my experience.)

Measure #1 (from Elissa Scalise Powell): If you've done serious genealogy two or three times a week for seven to ten years, you may be ready. This turns out to be close to the idea of 10,000 hours of practice needed to gain mastery in cognitively demanding fields, popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.

Pitfall of this measure: have you really had ten years of experience or only one year's experience ten times over? One way to overcome the pitfall: if you spent your ten years of experience without dealing with any land or probate records, subtract at least five years.

Measure #2: If you can pass the weighted quiz questions on the BCG web site, you may be ready.  

Pitfall: Sometimes we kid ourselves when taking quizzes of this sort.

Measure #3: The easier you find it to read and understand NGSQ articles, the more likely you are to be ready -- especially if you started out not understanding them at all.  

Pitfall: Reading is not always the same as doing.

Measure #4: If you have published in a peer-reviewed journal, you may well be ready.

Pitfall: Sometimes you're not -- especially if you make the plausible but false assumption that an article is the same exact kind of job as the required portfolio materials.

Measure #5: If you cannot stay awake during a lecture by Elizabeth Shown Mills or Thomas W. Jones, then you're definitely not ready. [No pitfall here.]

Measure #6: If everybody you know says you're really good at genealogy, then you might be ready.

Pitfall: The people you know may be extremely polite. Or they may be telling the truth, but have no idea what serious genealogy involves. As in chess, there are more levels of expertise than we can easily imagine.

If you find most of these measures are favorable, then I say go ahead. There is additional generic help available once you are "on the clock."

Don't forget -- some of us learn by doing (which is a polite way of saying that we learned to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool). As a result, some of us had to go through the process twice in order to succeed. There are worse fates, such as never trying . . . and hence never knowing whether you really had what it takes.



Harold Henderson, "Are you ready to go for a credential?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

"Good enough" citations? We can do better.

Have you heard all the talk? Some people are afraid to write anything because they might make a mistake. So -- instead of helping them learn, the idea is that people should just . . . rite enny way she, yknow, feelzlike, cuz y'all'll B all lk aright I git it man so

No, I just made all that up. But it is essentially the argument prolific geneablogger James Tanner (Genealogy's Star) and his commenters have made about citations: don't worry about doing them right, just do them. As long as we can manage to figure out how to find your source, it's OK.

I think Mr. Tanner is about 50% right. We all hesitate to try things when we're not sure we can succeed. Encouragement is in order. As I said in my February 2013 Illinois State Genealogical Society webinar on citations, "Something is better than nothing." But better somethings are better. Education is also in order. (Hobbyists who don't want to be educated, please consult this post from last November.)

Contrary to Mr. Tanner, citations have more than one purpose. As Elizabeth Mills has said repeatedly in Evidence Explained and elsewhere, they are not just about finding the source again, they are also about evaluating the source's quality and quirks. And as Thomas W. Jones adds in his new and excellent book Mastering Genealogical Proof, they also communicate to our readers how well we have made our case, how well we understand the sources, and how solid they are.

(And before anyone starts up with horror stories about the so-called "citation police" who abuse people who misplace a semicolon: Prove it. I have never met any such person. Elizabeth and Tom are the kindest people I know, even when correcting gross errors.)

Citations are a language. We need to learn the language for all the reasons above. We can get by with a few phrases laboriously memorized and mispronounced from a tourist book, or we can immerse ourselves in the language and learn it well. Our choice will depend on our purpose: a weekend in France, or convincing colleagues and relatives who our French ancestors were.

If we speak broken French we may be able to find a bathroom, but we are not likely to persuade any French speaker that we know what we are talking about. It's the same with citations and genealogy: We may be able to understand someone who cites incompletely and carelessly, but we may not value their opinion highly. That's just the way of the world. Knowing the language makes it easier for us to talk together, and it shows that you care.

One other point: even if citations were only for finding our way back to the source, we don't always know what the future holds. What is obvious to us sitting in the library or archive may not be obvious to our grandchild 60 years from now. Today it seems hilarious overkill to identify the URL of a census on Ancestry.com or the NARA microfilm publication it derives from. But when Ancestry gets bought or merged out of existence by some as yet unborn Chinese corporation, our descendants may appreciate any clue they can get as to where that information was found. Of course this goes double for less stable web sites.

As genealogists we have to take a wide view. I cannot assume that La Porte is only in Indiana, or only in the United States. One goal of standard citations is that they will be understandable to anyone coming from a different time or place. That's why we put in a lot of context that we personally may know by heart. All those dedicated old folks who carefully pasted newspaper clippings into scrapbooks without labeling or dating them -- they were provincial. We may be grateful to them, but we can't afford to be like them if we want our family histories to last.

And, yes, this does have a personal dimension. I recently encountered the following informal citation:

"Bible record published 1939 by Noel C. Stevenson, Alhambra, California, vol. 1, bible #91."

I can't find it. I am asking an expert genealogy librarian for help, and I'm now asking the readers of this blog: Please embarrass me by locating it easily! If the person who wrote this "good enough" citation had taken only a little more care, there would be no problem.




Harold Henderson, "'Good enough' citations? We can do better," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 21 June 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

NGS Day 2 Thursday May 9

Sometimes you can't both attend a conference and blog about it! Yesterday was that sort of day. For me it started with an internet session in the foyer area where sponsors have provided free wi-fi (when not too crowded), followed by the ProGen Study Group breakfast, which shared members and the buffet table with the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy breakfast. ProGen groups (18 months of study per each) are well up in double digits now, far enough so that even our mega-organizer Angela McGhie can't always recall who is from which group any more!

At 8 am, Greg Hise, UNLV history professor with a seemingly endless knowledge of Los Angeles, spoke on the ways in which it was "born global" and multicultural. If you had a question, he had a book title -- several book titles -- and author. At 9:30 Mara Fein spoke about LA area records. When seeking vital records there, "Avoid the state level." Such requests can take 18 months to turn around, and sometimes never. Go to the counties, and make sure you know when they were created, and in which years the city and county of Los Angeles created separate records.


At 11 am, I introduced friend and colleague Kimberly Powell, who provided a wealth of information -- not to tell us which genealogy program to buy, but how most efficiently to find out for ourselves which one(s) would best suit our styles. I like that approach and I think the audience did; anyway she was besieged with questions afterward. One takeaway: when dealing with on-line reviews, "Ignore the groupies and the haters" -- those who publish brief one-star or five-star reviews -- and concentrate on the longer ones that explain in some detail what they loved or hated.

(By the way, introducing speakers is one low-stress way of starting to find out whether you would like to get into actual speaking at conferences. No creativity or long-lasting vocal cords are required. Join the Genealogy Speakers Guild and get in on the action. Often there are more speakers than there are available introducers.)

Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, entertained the big crowd at the BCG luncheon with improbable tales of ancestral idiocies as they have appeared in court records from colonial times to the 20th century. Sorry, I was too busy laughing to take notes.

I took lots of notes during Elizabeth Shown Mills's 2:30 talk: "Information Overload? Effective Project Planning, Research, Data Management & Analysis." If you have ever collected a difficult ancestor's 20 census neighbors on each side and then wondered what to do with them, this is a talk you must hear. The audio should be a reasonable substitute if you just can't be there.

Finally, at 4 pm I introduced friend and colleague Jane Wilcox, who gave an unusually fast-paced and visual talk about what she found out about many of her female forebears -- a deft presentation that kept introduction and conclusion to an absolute minimum, and eschewed words on screen. Maybe I could learn something there!

The rest of the day was full of good discussion that went on into the night, and which I was not the last to leave. I know people who attend conferences simply for the purpose of joining in these meetings, formal and informal, and I can see why. These folks are worth spending time with, even if I have to come to a casino to do so.




Harold Henderson, "NGS Day 2 Thursday May 9," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 May 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The "True Source"

There are a few activities where it's socially acceptable to think hard in American society -- playoff contingencies, chess, and genealogy among them. Genealogy can be a window on what I like to call "folk epistemology" AKA how we think most of the time.

Elizabeth Shown Mills includes a list of "problematic concepts" in the indispensable first chapter of Evidence Explained, including "definitive sources, "direct sources," "final conclusions." In his blog Planting the Seeds Michael Hait recently provided us with an amusing tour of several classic fallacies and how they appear in genealogy.

On LinkedIn there has been a usually cordial discussion that never quite dies called "The only TRUE source . . . ", under "Genealogical and Historical Research." In addition to the usual confusions created by the obsolete and imprecise terms "primary and secondary sources," many commenters there seem irresistibly drawn to the notion of a "true source." The term is not defined but it's probably close to ESM's "definitive source." My guess is that -- no matter how often someone tells us the obvious, that any source can be mistaken -- we really really want there to be a source somewhere, like a will or an original marriage record or an official anything, that would supposedly allow us to lay down our burden of proof and stagger off the field.

IMO that runs deeper than actually making a fallacious argument. It's more like an assumption embedded in language itself -- and equally hard to uproot. Happy New Year anyway!



Harold Henderson, "The 'True Source'," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

A Holiday Treat for All Genealogists

Michael Hait has just posted a free 23-page PDF, "US Census Pathfinder," that brings together and organizes links to on-line US census records and information about them.

What genealogist doesn't use censuses? This resource will allow us to quickly answer basic and advanced questions. And don't miss the link to Elizabeth Shown Mills's 1998 article, still as pertinent as ever, on what we need to do in order to be able to say, "I looked for the X family in the census and didn't find them."

Please note that this census pathfinder is copyrighted. Linking is fine, but if you want to print and distribute copies, contact the copyright holder for permission.



Michael Hait, United States Federal Census Pathfinder (http://haitfamilyresearch.com/pdf_files/Census_Pathfinder.pdf : accessed 21 December 2012).


Harold Henderson, "A Holiday Treat for All Genealogists," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Sowing Primary and Secondary Confusion

Attorney, genealogist, and prolific blogger James Tanner continues to use obsolete terminology, which understandably creates confusion.

In a recent blog post, he lists a number of common genealogical sources:

U.S. Federal Census Record
Official State Birth Certificate
Official State Delayed Birth Certificate
International Genealogical Index
Ancestral File
Ancestry.com Family Tree
Church Parish Register
County Assessors Recordings
City Tax Roll

and then asks which of them are primary sources.

He concludes, I think correctly, that the question makes no sense. (It's like having to say whether every car on the road is either black or white, when they're almost all gray!) And then he draws the very odd conclusion that the problem lies in any attempt classifying sources, information, and evidence. But the real problem is that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is much too coarse for clear genealogical thinking.  A more useful distinction among sources is between original sources (first reduction of information to writing, such as a parish register) and derivative sources (a copy of an original or an earlier copy, such as a published index to the parish register).

Sources contain multiple pieces of information, each with somewhat different origins and quality and credibility. "Primary" and "secondary" are more usefully applied to those pieces. In a birth certificate, for instance, the information about the time of the birth is primary, coming from an eyewitness, whereas the information about the parents' birthplaces may well be secondary. No wonder we can't decide whether the certificate is primary or secondary; it contains both primary and secondary information!

Information is not evidence until we ask a question. Direct evidence answers the question directly, indirect evidence offers a clue but does not directly state the answer.

No reputable genealogist claims that these classifications are the be-all and end-all of evaluating and analyzing evidence. They are just the beginning. But it is an important beginning. Just as we can't carve wood well with a blunt chisel, we can't think clearly about these topics while using imprecise terms like "primary source."

In fact, direct evidence can be mistaken. Primary information can be mistaken. Original sources can contain false information. No serious genealogist thinks otherwise. These are not magic keys, just better tools. Even a sharp chisel won't work if you don't know how to hold it. The National Genealogical Society Quarterly is filled, issue after issue, with well-thought-out arguments that often show that what seems to be high-quality information is in fact false. Their reasoning is based on the Genealogical Proof Standard, which for some reason Mr. Tanner does not mention although it is the only proof standard in genealogy.

To learn the proper terminology takes some time and practice (as Bart Brenner demonstrates in a recent meticulous blog post). And once it's learned, the irony is that we don't need to verbalize it in every analysis, any more than we think about balancing on a bicycle most of the time. But knowing and using the terminology allows us to see, for instance, that when we have a derivative source in hand (say, an abstract of a probate case) we need to go beyond it, if possible, and read the original probate file from which it was derived. This is not because we are sure the probate speaks only truth. It's simply because the act of copying from the original has the potential to create errors and to omit important details. Again, no reputable genealogist says that all original sources are correct and all derivative ones are mistaken. 

Tanner arrives at a reasonable conclusion: "We also need to remember that within the same document or record part of the entries may be trustworthy and others may not. Every piece of evidence needs to evaluated on the basis of its consistency, historical context, timeliness and believability." Corroboration and resolving contradictions are key as well. And understanding original vs. derivative sources, primary vs. secondary information, and direct vs. indirect evidence is the first step in this ongoing process.

Tanner quotes a judge's instructions to the jury as a model for genealogists. It's a good step. A more complete list of considerations in evaluating evidence, specifically designed for genealogy, is readily available in Chapter 1 of Elizabeth Shown Mills's book Evidence Explained. I have no idea why Tanner would discuss this subject without referring even in passing to the acknowledged authority in the discipline.



James Tanner, "Primary and Secondary Sources: Who do you trust?," Genealogy's Star (http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2012/11/primary-and-secondary-sources-who-do.html : accessed 12 November 2012).


Harold Henderson, "Sowing Primary and Secondary Confusion," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?

Yesterday there was a thought-provoking discussion on LinkedIn's "Genealogical and Historical Research" group, based on a real-life genealogy question, "How do you decide how to enter an approximate birth year when you don't have the birth record and other sources vary?"

The question, and some of the answers, assume that we need to decide how to enter a birth year given varying evidence. Is this true?

First of all, how many problems of relationship or identity turn on knowing an exact birth date? Some do, for sure, but it's not a given.

Second, if not, why this urgency about deciding? Isn't it a sign that the tail is vigorously wagging the dog? Old-timers are used to filling out pedigrees and family group sheets; an increasing majority of genealogists are wedded to entering data into their database programs from Personal Ancestry File or Family Tree Maker on up.

Paper or electronic, I've used many of these forms and database programs; for years I spent much of my genealogy time breaking down the information I had into small enough components to enter each one into the program, and then tweaking it so that the outputs would be understandable. Some were better than others with problems of this sort.

But is a smoothly running database the reason why we started researching our families? I think not. The database is a tool, and doing our genealogy so that it will fit into the tool is not very different from a carpenter trying to saw a board using a hammer . . . because that's his favorite tool, and saws are too much trouble.

The real genealogical question here is how we deal with conflicting evidence of any kind. The right way doesn't have much to do with any form or database that I'm acquainted with (and if my acquaintance isn't wide enough, let me know). It has to do with listing out the different birth dates and where they came from, and evaluating each of those sources for evidence of reliability. Do we have the original source? Do other entries show some bias or impairment in the record creator? Did the informant have an incentive to deceive? And so on. For a checklist of ways to approach this task, read the last seven pages of the first chapter of Elizabeth Shown Mills's Evidence Explained, or visit the same-name web site for any recent discussions (such as this one on a brick-wall problem).

If our family or our problem dictates that we come to a best possible conclusion, a table or other format may help focus our thoughts. But in the end there is no substitute for the fifth prong of the Genealogical Proof Standard: a "soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion." No rule of thumb (such as relying cautiously on the earliest census record) is a good substitute for a well-documented, clearly reasoned, explicit statement explaining why our conclusion is the best, based on the weight of all the available evidence. Accept no substitute.



Harold Henderson, "Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

What Are Friends, Associates, and Neighbors For?

A friend emailed the other day, wondering what to do with his list of names of nearby people in the census. Genealogically speaking, what are these neighbors for?

(1) They can resolve questions of identity. I have used neighbors to help establish that a common-name man in two different places was the same person.

(2) They may actually be relatives, such as in-laws.

(3) They may have come from the same previous place as the research target, but have better evidence for it.

(4) They may be the ultimate desirable neighbor: one who was affluent, talkative, gossipy, and verbose, and who left papers and diaries now held in an archive.

(Can you name more?)

But as another friend says, many people who were nearby are just nearby. "You have to kiss a lot of frogs to get one prince."

For a top-notch free tutorial on using friends, associates, and neighbors, visit Elizabeth Shown Mills's Historic Pathways web site. Scroll about halfway down the page for seven pertinent articles.


Harold Henderson, "What Are Friends, Associates, and Neighbors For?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 23 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Are Citations the "Endgame" of Genealogy?

Many people think chess is boring, or too hard. Many chessplayers think endgames -- where most of the pieces have been traded off and much of the action is limited to kings and pawns -- are boring, or too hard. Yet if a chessplayer doesn't know how to play simple endgames, an astute opponent will steer for those endgames and win. I used to say that endgames were the "chess" of chess, the hard core of the hardcore.

Citations in genealogy are a bit like that. Many people think genealogy is boring (and if they knew more about it they might say it was too hard, too!). Many genealogists think citations are boring, or too hard. But genealogists who don't cite their sources probably don't understand them. And that's dangerous.

It's not dangerous because we'll forget where the source is. That does happen, but these days it's often a relatively minor problem. The danger lies in not knowing what the source is. Confusing an on-line database with an on-line image of an original, or confusing a Compiled Service Record card with a muster roll can lead to being confused or deceived. As Elizabeth Shown Mills puts it on her web site Evidence Explained, citing sources is all about "the details researchers need to capture while using a record, in order to understand (a) the nature of the source and (b) the strengths and weaknesses of the information that source provides." So the best citations are written on the scene rather than afterwards.

So are citations the hard core of the hardcore of genealogy? Maybe, although I might reserve that honor for the construction of a good proof argument. What do you think?



Harold Henderson, "Are Citations the 'Endgame' of Genealogy?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

FGS Day Four (Saturday September 1)

The South Carolina backcountry could be the US headquarters of brick walls, so it behooves dedicated researchers to pay attention when Elizabeth Shown Mills devotes an entire lecture to the region, as she did Saturday, the final morning of FGS 2012 in Birmingham. It doesn't matter whether you have, or ever expect to have, research targets there. To paraphrase an old song about a big city, "If you can solve it there, you can solve it anywhere." My only problem with the talk was that not everyone at the conference was there to hear it.

Squeezed in around the lecture I enjoyed a pleasant breakfast with fellow APG board members Joan Peake and Kimberly Powell, picked up a 75%-off book at the Genealogical.com booth, and got to the Birmingham airport before midday, leaving plenty of time to chat with the selection of early-departing genealogists in Concourse C. (Speaking of vendor booths, earlier in the conference I was pleased to meet up with a new and very promising hybrid that could be the answer to the riddle, "What do you get when you cross an antique dealer with a genealogist?" -- to be blogged about in the near future.)

By leaving midday Saturday, I missed another very interesting-looking talk about exceedingly obscure federal pension records by Kenneth W. Heger, on NARA Record Group 48 (Records of the Department of the Interior) including pension commissioners' reports on appeals and correspondence.

Thanks to all the volunteer workers who made this conference possible. I'm looking forward to next year's edition in the Midwestern research mecca of Fort Wayne, Indiana!


Harold Henderson, "FGS Day Four (Saturday September 1)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Know what you're looking for

Irrepressible geneablogger and ex-Midwesterner Kerry Scott is back, asking why anyone could possibly dislike Ancestry.com's ad campaign with the tag line, "You don't need to know what you're looking for. You just need to start looking."

She and many commenters, including Elizabeth Shown Mills, think it's just fine. I don't, for two reasons.

For one thing, taken literally, the statement is false. You do need to know something in order to start looking. Anyone whose parents put them up for adoption as a baby in a state where adoptions are sealed knows this. They have no idea what they're looking for, and just starting to look won't help them a bit.

My own newbie research style was to head for the genealogy books and look up my maternal grandparents' mildly rare surname and see what turned up. If I hadn't known that name, the genealogy books would have held much less charm for me.

Secondly, I have no problem with newbies not knowing stuff. We've all been there. My problem is with profitable companies glorifying ignorance -- especially when they can make just as much money with ads that don't pander (like the ones, "We can help you find...") and don't encourage the already omnipresent notion that everything genealogists need is just a keystroke or two away.

There is a kernel of truth in the slogan: when you do look, you often find surprises, things you did not know to look for or to expect. But the less you know to start with, the less likely you are to look where the surprises are, or to recognize them when you find them. The old Gary Larson cartoon -- where the kid asks the teacher to excuse him because his brain was full -- has it wrong. Your brain is more like the coatroom behind the classroom: the more coathooks you put up, the more it can hold.

I remember a sadder-but-wiser article in the Ohio quarterly a few years ago, written by someone who for years had dismissed out of hand family records involving people who spelled the surname a little differently. Not knowing what to look for, just jumping in and seeing what happened, cost that person years of research and knowledge of his family. (I'm sure I mentioned that somewhere in this blog, but can't find it. Guess I'm one coathook short of a load today.)

Genealogy is attractive enough in itself, as it really is. Ancestry.com is plenty attractive as a research tool. A deceptive sales pitch does no credit to either one.



Kerry Scott, "You Don't Have to Know What You're Looking For," Clue Wagon, posted 15 August 2012 (http://www.cluewagon.com/2012/08/you-dont-have-to-know-what-youre-looking-for/ : accessed 16 August 2012).

Harold Henderson, "Know What You're Looking For," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 August 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Is an Obituary an Original Source? Does It Matter?

Above is the obituary for my wife's maternal grandfather's second cousin's wife Ina (Smith) Burdick, 1862-1932. Some members of the ProGen Study Group have been debating whether an obituary is an original source. As all genealogists and historians should know but some still don't, sources may be original or derivative; the information they contain may be primary or secondary; and the evidence drawn from that information may be direct or indirect depending on the question we're asking at the moment.

Those of us who have left behind the "rip and run" school of genealogy want to analyze this evidence well, and these terms help us think clearly. But in my opinion the thinking is what matters, not which basket we decide to put it in. "Original" is no kind of baptism that absolves a record from all sin and error!

In Evidence Explained, Elizabeth Shown Mills defines an original source as "material in its first oral or recorded form" (p. 24). By that definition, this newspaper item probably doesn't qualify. Ina's surname has been butchered, one suspects by a sleep-deprived funeral director or journalist taking hasty notes over the telephone. His or her notes in turn were set in type, and somewhere along the way Ina acquired in death a surname she never had in life. Note that the presence of error itself does not make the source derivative -- many original sources contain errors. But this particular error looks like an error in hearing, because even very bad handwriting doesn't make a V look like a B. In all likelihood, there was at least one earlier written form of this information from which the published obituary was set.

But we are most unlikely to be able to find the reporter's notes for an 80-year-old six-line obituary, so what was published may be as close to the original as we can get. (Any surviving records from J. P. Finley & Son's funeral home would be worth seeking out, though.) Another consideration: when we think of derivative sources, we usually think of, say, a published index of obituaries published in the Oregonian in 1932, or perhaps an on-line database created by re-keying the print index. Those derivatives would be at least one or two steps further removed from its first written form, and hence more prone to error. So some sources are more derivative than others. (And, as Tom Jones has been known to explain, a source that is derivative to any degree can be considered a red flag telling us to look for what it's a derivative of.)

So much for theory. What we really want to know is, IS IT TRUE? That question, alas, cannot be answered by staring fixedly at the obituary, nor by analyzing to death its exact degree of derivativeness. It can only be answered by correlating its information with information from other sources. The point of wondering whether it's original or derivative is not to provide a label ("APPROVED" or "TOXIC"). The point is to consider how that record was created and how it stacks up to Elizabeth's ten categories of textual criticism (pp. 32-38), so that we can weigh it properly in the balance along with any other obituaries, Ina's death certificate, Aleen's birth record, family letters, census returns, etc.

In plain language, we need to know where that information has been and what wringers it has gone through. Once we have that understanding, the choice of label becomes academic, because we're ready to weigh this source against the others. (Sound weird to learn the terminology and then rarely use it? Welcome to the spiral staircase of genealogy learning!) Confirmation, or proof, is never done solo, and never just by applying a label. It's always a group affair.


ADDED Saturday afternoon 4 August 2012: For more depth on this whole topic, plunge into Evidence Explained Quick Lesson #10.


"Ina Veurdick," [Burdick], obituary, Morning Oregonian (Portland), Wed. 13 July 1932, p. 7, col. 7.

Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007), 24, 32-38.

Harold Henderson, "Is an Obituary an Original Source? Does It Matter?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 August 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Volunteer

The best thing I ever did for myself as a genealogist was to attend the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and IGHR at Samford University.

The second best thing was to volunteer to abstract and index local courthouse records under the auspices of my local genealogical society.

Those two things may seem incommensurate, but they're not. No class, no course, and no brilliant instructor can substitute for hanging out with the records a few hours a week, especially when you're starting out.

I was reminded of this last week, when I was wading through 1840s-era handwriting in loose probate papers and found a relatively clear diagram drawn up by a diligent executor. He listed 19 debts owed to the estate, and for each he then listed the amount he deemed likely to be collectable. In effect, it was a credit report for a handful of individuals living in La Porte County, Indiana, in late 1844. And while the record appeared in a probate file, the people being reported on were not dead, nor were they heirs.

You could do a lot of personal and client research and not run into this kind of item. And of course such things are not readily accessible unless someone has indexed the loose papers -- or unless someone turns the courthouse upside down and shakes it by investigating associates of associates, Elizabeth Shown Mills style. (If you want an example, check out JAMB's recording of her "Margaret's Baby's Father & The Lessons He Taught Me!," presentation F-144 from FGS Philadelphia 2008 -- one of the great genealogy experiences.)

It's not the only form of continuing education, but it's a good one. And it contributes to the profession as well.

(Not that you asked, but #3 would be joining the ProGen Study Group, #4 entering the NGS writing contest, and #5 attending the best national conferences [NGS and FGS].)




Harold Henderson, "Volunteer," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The fast-moving world of dead people

You do already know that one of the many aspects of Elizabeth Shown Mills's on-line presence is a series of QuickLessons at Evidence Explained. Right?

QuickLesson #8, "What Constitutes Proof?" is a careful eleven-step account of how you get from zero to a conclusion in a genealogically sound manner, based not on a single document but on an argument involving a body of evidence drawn from numerous documents. (Read the real thing.)

The other day I ran into someone who claimed to like QL #8. Having praised it, the commenter proceeded to disagree with its main point. He thought that there should be a twelfth step in which the researcher crowns the case by producing a document containing definitive proof. Otherwise it just didn't feel "proved" to him. (I may be doing him an injustice, but I can't check as his comment has since disappeared from that particular forum. I bring it up here because I know many people feel this way whether they choose to say so in public or not.)

The idea dies very hard that proof is out there and all we have to do is find the key document that tells us the unquestionable unvarnished truth. I suspect that this misconception helped draw many of us to this field in the first place -- a sense that in genealogy (unlike, say, history) we could find "real proof" of past facts, some solid ground that would not change with new evidence or interpretations. Well, good-bye to that. Like any other legitimate discipline, genealogy requires multiple independent sources, preferably original -- and when they differ, as they often do, then evaluating and analyzing each, correlating them together, and writing it all up in a convincing argument. And results can and do change with new information and new insights. Elizabeth says it shorter: "History offers no certainties. All it offers are relics."

These are not things we expected when we started out. They take some getting used to. I have written elsewhere (in NGS Magazine last year) about the need for genealogists to accept ambiguity and uncertainty in the process of research as well. Not so very long ago we could expect that we could do genealogy more or less forever without having to learn about genetics and DNA. Or that we would never be long away from the smell of old paper and rotting leather.
My daughter-in-law says it shorter, too: "Welcome to the fast-moving world of dead people."

What other things did you (consciously or otherwise) expect from genealogy that have turned out not to be the case? Is the reality better than the expectation? (I would say, yes. YMMV.)



Elizabeth Shown Mills, “QuickLesson 8: What Constitutes Proof?” Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (http://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-8-what-constitutes-proof: 20 June 2012).


Harold Henderson, "The fast-moving world of dead people," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 June 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

IGHR Samford Day 0, resting briefly in the shade

If you've been to IGHR (the week-long Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research) at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, you don't need my description. And if you haven't been there, you may not understand it when I call it a cross between a conference and a homecoming, in which the party comes the evening before the work begins.

For me, the advent is a two-day car trip, this year solo. Saturday I stopped off at the Indiana State Library and wound up hitting almost every research target I aimed at. (More on that later.) Sunday I drove and listened to recordings of talks given by Tom Jones and Elizabeth Shown Mills at the National Genealogical Society conference last month. Tom managed to condense documentation into five questions and then into two basic principles; Elizabeth laid out a plan for organizing research so that you won't have to go back and do it over. I need to recheck the syllabus material in order to get the most out of them.

And there was no time for that once I arrived on the hillside campus, what with getting registered, getting settled, greeting friends old and new, telling newcomers where to go next (it's my fourth year here so I can pass for an old-timer), checking out the used books for sale in the library, and even selling a few of my wife's heavy-duty coffee mugs emblazoned with trees.

Debra Hoffman filled in ably for the absent ProGen Study Group leader Angela McGhie at the study group reunion and recognition. Afterwards the conversation devolved into small groups. Mine got into stories and advice about writing genealogical articles, and we were far from the last to leave.

Director Lori Northrup borrowed the best line of the evening when she quoted Samford's president: "We rest in the shade of trees we did not plant." At the end of a long day that's a good thought to mull over in the calm before the storm of genealogical activity set to begin at 8 am sharp Monday morning.


Harold Henderson, "IGHR Samford Day 0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 June 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]