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.]

Wednesday in Little Rock at the APG PMC

People can and do complain about the Association of Professional Genealogists, but I'd have to say that today's Professional Management Conference alone justified the $65 annual dues. I attended five of the nine presentations. All were thought-provoking and worthwhile, and two were truly outstanding:

* New Mexico genealogist Mary Penner combined hard-core FAN club genealogical research on Henry O'Neill, a seemingly isolated, hard-to-research bachelor in 1850s Santa Fe, with advice on how to conceive and use an in-depth research project in several revenue- and reputation-enhancing ways.

* MBA Natasha Crain crunched the data on a few thousand customers her company has had in the last four years and outlined ten very different kinds of genealogy customers, from "dabblers" and "avid hobbyists" to attorneys and the "affluently curious." For those struggling to define their business and marketing plans, it was a godsend, because it's hard hit what you don't aim at, and it's hard to know what to aim at if you don't know how the universe of potential clients is divided up. Times, places, and media that will attract avid hobbyists will never be seen by attorneys or gift-givers.

Hopefully we'll be hearing more from these folks in the months and years to come.