The intimidated genealogist?

A fellow blogger recently introduced me to the idea that discussions of advanced genealogy might scare off beginners. The idea came as a surprise, but it sure made me think.

* I reflected on my experience as a one-day attendee at the 2006 National Genealogical Society conference in Chicago. I attended a talk and walked around the booths and asked some questions. But I just didn't process most of the stuff I didn't understand. I wasn't discouraged, but I didn't learn a whole lot either.

* Intimidation might be a factor when I think I know something (or how to do something) and it soon becomes clear that I really don't. Sometimes I choose to dive in and learn more. Often I choose to back off -- either to focus on other activities; or to save time, money, and exasperation; or both. (That was my lesson in do-it-yourself car repair!). We can't all be good at everything. But in order to make the decision we need to know that there is more to learn.

* In the course of events I do a lot of driving. I have no interest in professional driving of the NASCAR variety, and if I ran into one of their professional discussions it wouldn't intimidate me or make me quit driving.

* To take a humbler but topical example, shoveling snow. Here I was a very slow learner even though I was exposed to better. Our neighbor is an expert. But it took me a decade or more living in a snow belt to appreciate the value of a simple tool she used: a snow scoop rather than a snow shovel.

* Arguably a bigger problem may be that beginners aren't exposed enough to advanced material. I "did genealogy" for most of a decade before I realized there was anything more advanced. I think of the story Tom Jones tells in the introduction to Mastering Genealogical Proof, in which he almost quit genealogy -- not because he'd been intimidated, but because he had not been exposed to advanced work and believed that his family's brick walls were insurmountable.



[FYI: tomorrow is this blog's 6th birthday; according to Blogger, this is the 1306th post.]


Harold Henderson, "The intimidated genealogist?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 January 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]