Wandering through the wilderness

Item: I am in possession of a new hardbound self-published genealogy book with enough hundreds of pages that it could be dangerous to try to pick it up one-handed. It obviously cost plenty of time and money to create. It contains a fair number of original documents and many photographs; few if any reference notes; a name index but no place index. For relatives who are not close, the organization is hard to follow; for non-relatives looking for possible cousin connections, it's discouraging.

Item: Several recently self-published books persist in using the Henry system of distinguishing relatives. (I did too, back in the day.) By this system I can easily distinguish 1-11-10-12-8-1-1 from his cousin 1-11-10-12-5-1-4. Got it?

Item: The largest US genealogy society surveyed its members last month. Nearly half of those responding plan to attend NO genealogy conferences this year. Bear in mind that these are people who already care enough to (a) send the New England Historic Genealogical Society at least $75 per year, (b) read their weekly on-line newsletter, and (c) respond to their weekly poll. Imagine the percentage for those who lack these characteristics! (Actually I don't have to imagine. In one society I know, the attendance rate at a national conference two hours away last year was 2%.)

Item: And among those who do attend conferences and the like, prolific blogger and instructor James Tanner finds little to cheer about. He taught a class on MyHeritage.com in which "only three or so participants in a class of thirty . . . had even heard of the program." On other occasions he fielded comments from people who weren't interested in the program because it was based in Israel, who weren't interested in FamilySearch because it was "Mormon," and who asked "whether FamilySearch owned Ancestry.com."

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that a lot of people are not learning. I don't think it follows that we should quit. Clearly we need all kinds of genealogy education, more of it, and new ways to spread the word.



Harold Henderson, "Wandering through the wilderness," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 5 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: From Confusion To Conclusion at the January 2015 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

If you're wishing that this post was about another NGSQ article, then you might be interested in the course Kimberly Powell and I are preparing for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (12-16 January 2015; registration 9 am MDT June 14).

"From Confusion to Conclusion" will focus on the last three requirements of the Genealogical Proof Standard:

• analysis and correlation, 
• resolving conflicts, and 
• writing a clear and coherent conclusion.

The course will approach these subjects using examples of published and unpublished research. The road from confusion to conclusion has some twists and turns that we can learn to recognize, but do not always appear in published articles.

In keeping with this bottom-up case study approach, the course will include hands-on workshops and exercises as well as lectures. It will emphasize technical writing -- as opposed to narrative or instructional writing. But this is not just a writing course. We will delve into useful tools and practices for the analysis and correlation that is part of both our research and writing. We will also jump into the organization and presentation of a written argument -- "What do I put first?" "What should I leave out?" and "When should I use a chart or graphic for clarity?" Several well-known genealogical authors will share examples of how they've handled these and similar choices. Those attending should have read and studied Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones.

[slightly revised since first posting]

P.S. So if my posts are on the irregular side for the next eight months, now you'll know why.




Photo credit: Ben Salter's photostream, "The Tower," https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_salter/4542942524, used without alteration per Creative Commons

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: From Confusion to Conclusion at the January 2015 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Good news for Ohio researchers: two lifetimes of newspapers!

These may not be news to you, but they're new to me and in a quick look I didn't find them in Michael Hait's compendium Online State Resources for Genealogy 3.0, nor on James Marks's The Ancestor Hunt:

Newspapers for Johnstown, Licking County, Ohio, have been digitized and are searchable 1884-1987. If you're close enough to wonder, Johnstown is in the northwest quarter of the county, near the Franklin and Delaware County line.

Likewise the Grove City Record in southwestern Franklin County, 1927-2011 with eight outliers in 1908.




Harold Henderson, "Good news for Ohio researchers," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 21 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)

It just takes a while for people to "get" indirect evidence. I read and annotated and discussed "The Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky" in the March 2009 NGS Quarterly five years ago. Most of my notes have to do with picking at the details, and I may have been looking for a full account of the family rather than a proof.

When I read it now I'm trying to figure out the logical skeleton of that proof. Tom Jones identifies four common logical skeletons in Mastering Genealogical Proof: single hypothesis, multiple hypotheses, building blocks, and "syllogisms" (AKA if-then statements). Basically the article follows the subject, Joseph Rhodes, forward from his first known record appearance in 1831. Then it follows an older 1831 neighbor, Benjamin Rhodes, forward from his revolutionary war service. There's direct evidence here involving his Benjamin's Edens in-laws, but in the end the author has sifted out eight shiny nuggets of indirect evidence that Benjamin was Joseph's father.

Each individual piece could be explained away; to explain away all eight would be a heroic task. Still, I know good genealogists who don't quite seem to believe in indirect evidence. It just seems fragile somehow -- although it would be much harder to forge, especially given the diversity of records involved in this case.

Reading the article now, I can't help but think the author had a hypothesis in mind for Benjamin as soon as it appeared he was nearby and the right age to be Joseph's father. But the article is presented  more in a building-blocks format, in which first Joseph's and then Benjamin's life stories are surveyed for evidence pro or con. The way the building blocks are constructed -- mostly following the two lives in chronological order -- may make it easier to grasp than other articles with the same skeleton.



Sarah R. Fleming, "Indirect Evidence for the Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 97 (March 2009): 5-15.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Illinois Civil War, Kalamazoo, Route 66, and more -- what's not to like?

Has anybody out there still not subscribed to the smart, knowledgeable, uncluttered weekly collection of links from the University of Wisconsin's Internet Scout Report?

If so, this would be a good week to take a look. It's almost as if Midwestern Microhistory had a secret agent there! Starting at the center of this blog's geographic interest and working out:

Digitized Civil War letters from Illinois (Northern Illinois University)

Photos from Kalamazoo College (Kalamazoo College)

Oral histories of Route 66 in Missouri (Missouri State University)

Central Pennsylvania landscape, landscape architecture, and architecture (Penn State University)

Old New Hampshire maps and atlases (University of New Hampshire)

Archive of Early American Images, 1600s-early 1800s (Brown University)

Even when we want to, it's not always easy for genealogists to find their way to the resources of academia. This outlet -- either as weekly newsletter or as web site -- is worth the time for that reason alone.



Harold Henderson, "Illinois Civil War, Kalamazoo, Route 66, and more -- what's not to like?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Analyze This! Pattern Recognition in Genealogy

As budding (or not-so-budding) genealogists, we're taught to ask specific questions that will guide our search for evidence. But on our hopeful journey to a conclusion, we may find ourselves surrounded with data, and looking for a pattern in a sea of (say) seven dozen deeds.

Now, we pulled those deeds because they might be relevant (right county or close, relevant surnames or close, right century). But which ones will actually help and how is not always so obvious -- especially since difficult cases may have us hunting for a pattern that does not appear in any particular record by itself.

Of course it's essential to be immersed in the subject and the families. Beyond that I like the "kaleidoscope" approach. How many ways can I rearrange the data? Table? Spreadsheet sortable on all different fields? Timeline? Color-coded list for particular properties? Maps? Compared to the nearest census, or church membership book?

How do you ferret out patterns in your work?




Illustration from "Rabbit-Duck Illusion," Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion : viewed 11 May 2014), citing "Kaninchen und Ente" ("Rabbit and Duck"), Fliegende Blätter, 23 October 1892.

Harold Henderson, "Analyze This! Pattern Recognition in Genealogy," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: Extending and Enriching the Story (NGSQ)

Not every genealogical question is, "Who were the parents?" In "Explaining the Sudden Disappearance of Mitch Evins of Georgia and Texas," William M. Litchman tackles the problem of a midlife disappearance. Finding where Evins went turned out not to be the hardest problem, thanks in part to one of those over-the-top census enumerators who listed county and state of birth.

In this case, the hard-core research came in finding court records that help characterize the family (not a laid-back bunch) and testing out the ongoing family story that Mitch's disappearance had to do with his Cherokee ancestry. In the end no source states outright why he took off, but the author gives the readers a much better (if less melodramatic) idea of what the factors may have been.

When we think of top-level genealogy publications, we don't usually think about problems of this kind -- but we should.




William M. Litchman, "Explaining the Sudden Disapearance of Mitch Evins of Georgia and Texas," National Genealogical Solciety Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 41-50.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: Extending and Enriching the Story (NGSQ)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]