Another look at old reference books

Last week I got to spend some time in a college town (Charleston, Illinois), and I picked up a nice hefty reference book in a used-book store: The Reader's Companion to American History, edited by Eric Foner and John A. Garraty (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991). It's just the kind of thing to have on hand to check up whether you need an upgrade on who exactly Elizabeth Blackwell was, or a quick look at agriculture (and especially when Wikipedia is having a bad day).

I didn't pay much attention to the publication date -- those who work with dead people rarely need historical context for the last 27 years -- but when I reviewed the titles of the entries I realized that the book itself is a historical artifact and a creature of its time. The Cold War was just barely over; Bush I was president; many individuals with entries (Benjamin Spock) were still alive.

There are no entries for computers, technology, terrorism, or trolls. I found myself wondering what the large group of historians involved would have added and subtracted if they were tasked with producing a similar book of similar length (1226 pages) today. What would they cut to make way for more recent events and conditions?

None of this made me regret my purchase; quite the opposite. It is in fact a member of an interesting group of books: the last of the enormous compendia, like Hoosier Faiths or Ancestry's Red Book. It's a relic of a time, not really that long ago, when information was relatively scarce. It's not just a well-grounded source for earlier history, it is itself a part of history too. (And a still-changing part: I see a Kindle edition is available.)

We Can All Teach Something . . . Within Reason

When I was a more serious chess player, I often ran into guys (almost always guys) who had learned the game well enough to routinely beat everyone in their extended family, school, or neighborhood. Then they showed up at a regular chess club or rated tournament, and lost every game. At the other end, although I was never in any position to judge, I had it on good authority that there were both "weak grandmasters" and "strong grandmasters." There were just more rungs on the chess ladder than I could have imagined.

Genealogy is similar (although we don't really have a ladder, it's more like a maze). No matter how little we think we know, each of us probably knows plenty to answer some newbie questions. And no matter how much we think we know, there are questions we find it wise to leave to others.

Two things to watch out for, though:

(1) The temptation to give advice that takes the form of "I don't know much about X, but . . . " Make sure that what follows the "but" is actual knowledge.

(2) The temptation to reinvent the wheel, as when we find ourselves about to

* pontificate about citation without mentioning Evidence Explained;

* talk about sources, information, and evidence without knowing that sources are original or derivative, information primary or secondary, and evidence direct or indirect; or

* discuss proof without understanding the five-part Genealogical Proof Standard.

None of these are sacred cows -- they can all be critiqued and improved, or just milked. (And amateurs are free to disregard them altogether, as long as they don't complain when they get no respect.)

But 9999 times out of 10,000, it makes no sense to disregard these tools. We grow as genealogists when we use them to build.

Besides, nobody really enjoys being the neighborhood champion who goes 0 for 4 in the tournament.




Picture cropped from Ed Yourdon's photostream per Creative Commons: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3405809406


Harold Henderson, "We Can All Teach Something . . . Within Reason," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

There Is No Such Thing as a Primary Source

Many people are still under the impression that there are such things as "primary sources" and "secondary sources." Like the idea that it's wrong to split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition, this is one more rule that many of us learned young and now need to unlearn -- including, in my opinion, professional historians. (If you have read and reread and absorbed the first two chapters of Evidence Explained, this post will be a review or else you've already gone over to the web site to see the detailed discussions there.)

The distinction is not completely bogus but when applied to original documents -- sources -- it is so imprecise as to be useless. It's like claiming that a two-toned car is either red or white.

An original source is a document created at or near the time of the event, in which the event is first reduced to writing. (If five people witness an event and go off and each write their own account of it, those would be five original sources.)

A derivative source is derived from another written source, not from the described events themselves. When confronted with a document, ask yourself, "Where does it come from?" and then look for that document, continuing until you get to the original. When a court record describes a petition submitted by heirs, that description is derived from the original petition. The original petition may contain more information, so you want to find it. As Tom Jones says, every derivative source is an invitation to find out what it was derived from!

Primary information is eyewitness information.

Secondary information is secondhand.

Obviously these overlap; many original documents contain primary information. But the reason for the distinction is that many original documents contain BOTH primary and secondary information. Like the two-toned car, it's only a problem if you don't think it through and use the terms you were taught in high school.

Also obviously, primary information can be right or wrong, and so can secondary. Original documents may contain right information or be a complete tissue of lies. One reason we genealogists prefer original documents is not that they are always right, but that the derivative sources are subject to error in the process of indexing, abstracting, or quoting -- over and above whatever errors might exist in the original.

Finally there is direct evidence (that directly answers your question) and indirect evidence (that provides only a clue toward your answer). So altogether there are eight possible combinations. I word better from examples, hence this table with an example for each.

1. Original source, primary information: Death certificate, cause of death

2. Original source, secondary information: Death certificate, birthplace of father

3. Derivative source, primary information: Published abstract of death certificate, cause of death

4. Derivative source, secondary information: Published abstract of death certificate, birthplace of father

Any of these could be either direct or indirect evidence, because that depends on the question you're asking. If you're wondering what Joe died of, #1 and #3 are direct evidence because they answer your question (rightly or wrongly is a separate issue). If you're wondering whether heart disease ran in Joe's family, #1 and #3 are indirect evidence because they offer a clue without directly answering your question.

If you're wondering where Joe's father was born, #2 and #4 offer direct evidence (again, they may be wildly wrong but they're giving you a direct answer). If you're wondering where Joe's father spent most of his life, #2 and #4 offer indirect evidence -- a hint but not the whole answer.



Harold Henderson, "There Is No Such Thing as a Primary Source," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]