Thou Shalt Not Steal, or Thou Shalt Be Outed

Christmas seems like a good time to talk about not stealing from other blogs or on-line material in general, but Kerry Scott has already done it better than I could hope to do. Good comments there too.



Harold Henderson, "Thou Shalt Not Steal, or Thou Shalt Be Outed," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 December 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.]

Noir in Lawrence County Pennsylvania

Thanks to Kerry Scott for mentioning Diarmid Mogg's Small Town Noir blog on Facebook for us slowpokes to notice. It focuses on small-time criminals, complete with mug shots, from the small Rust Belt city of New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania -- northwest of Pittsburgh and right next to Ohio, so I hereby nominate it as an honorary portion of the Midwest. But it goes beyond the rap sheet to chronicle what he finds about "the rest of the story."

Needless to say, this is not your grandmother's genealogy (unless she was picked up for forging checks). But it's a real and little-noticed part of history. I'm not aware of comparable blogs from other places, although the Chicago Homicide database (blogged here in 2009) has some similar qualities.

Clue Wagon!

I don't think I've said enough about Milwaukee-based blogger Kerry Scott's "Clue Wagon." If I may paraphrase my mom on a different subject, Scott is old enough to know what needs to be said, and young enough to go ahead and say it. Unlike me, she doesn't cheap out with a quick reference to some other good site. You get a good read, good advice, an occasional ancestor profile, and a full dose of attitude. If you haven't read this recent selection of my favorites, you should:

"Why It Doesn't Matter Which Genealogy Software You Use" (7 February)

"Why The Facebook Cartoon Pictures Make Me Want To Poke My Eye Out with a Fork" (10 December)

"In Which I Pretty Much Piss Off the Entire Genealogy Establishment" (20 October)

"5 Reasons I Wish I Could Travel Back in Time and Smack My 1995-Self" (28 September)

I don't read anybody's blog faithfully any more, so I've probably missed some good ones. I will betray my age if I say that Scott has a bright future in print venues as well, but I certainly hope she does. If she doesn't, the days of print are numbered.

NGS doctor files

Kerry Scott over at Clue Wagon has a happy post on the good results she had from the National Genealogical Society's AMA Deceased Physician Research with a medical relative surnamed Sykes, who got his start in Wisconsin and Illinois.

My experience with this service has also been positive. (Some of the same raw material is available on FHL microfilm.) As Scott says so well, "If you already have an Ancestry subscription, your very next purchase should be an NGS membership…that’s where you’ll learn to do it right."

If your MD research target attended medical school, take a look in local archives or successor institutions. Some of these places had publications, and some of these publications tracked alumni after graduation. Such publications live on even if the institution itself is long gone. (Chicago's Hahnemann Medical College is an example; it was a homeopathic stronghold in its day but gradually became more broad-minded before being merged out of existence.) If available, this resource can make a nice combination with the American Medical Association and related records retrieved by NGS.