Finding a pensive genealogist in "The Witch Elm"

It had to happen. My all-time favorite (living) fiction writer, Tana French, has a genealogist in the cast of characters in her new title, The Witch Elm. His findings are not as friendly as they used to be:

"People are coming to me because their analysis didn't turn out the way they expected . . . . They're unsettled and they're frightened, and what they want from me isn't the lovely presents, any more; it goes much deeper. They're afraid that they're not who they always thought they were, and they want me to find them reassurance. And we both know it might not turn out that way. I'm not the fairy godfather any more; now I'm some dark arbiter, probing through their hidden places to decide their fate. And I'm not nearly as comfortable in that role."

(FYI: The genealogy is Irish, not my forte; but it appears that the author did her homework. Don't pick it up for the genealogy -- it's scattered lightly through the 509 pages -- pick it up for what Stephen King calls its "incandescent" prose. )


Tana French, The Witch Elm (New York: Viking, 2018), 132

Mommy, what were "men"?

One more conundrum for future genealogists. Family trees will take on different shapes as men become increasingly superfluous to successful human reproduction, as they are in some other species. John Launer explains over at Three Quarks Daily (originally in Literary Hub), with additional references for the curious.

How others see us

There are people who hate genealogy -- often because it dealt them a nasty surprise. And there are rather more people who are just puzzled by it. William Maxwell, the late great New Yorker writer and editor, wrote a whole book of stories and memories about his family (Ancestors) in the early 1970s, but he was never one of us.

Carefully placing his own feelings at several removes, early in the book he recalled having dinner with an older cousin who was the family genealogist (and who later died relatively young). William was shy and perhaps a bit intimidated. He reflected later,

“I wish I had somehow given him a chance to say what it was that he hoped to gain for himself as he went about collecting facts having to do with births, deaths, and marriages of several generations of self-respecting, not very well-educated, for the most part devout men and women nobody has ever heard of.” (17)

It's a good question -- in a way a very "New York" question even though Maxwell lived his early life in Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois -- and one that deserves our consideration as we go about our work.

No Wonder He's a Distinguished Professor

James Oakes, distinguished professor of history at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, was writing about history, and Civil War history, in this passage. But the words work for genealogists too, or at least the kind of genealogist I'd like to be:

. . . there's always something new to learn. The more documents I read the more nuances I'm likely to notice in the next one I read. It's like learning a language I didn't even know existed. It's hard to figure it out, but it's also fun; serious, but joyful. It's why I love what I do. Because every day the past seems just a little bit different to me than it seemed the day before.

His new book is due out in December: Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States.



James Oakes, "On Changing My Mind," Perspectives on History, vol. 50, no. 6 (September 2012), http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2012/1209/On-Changing-My-Mind.cfm : accessed 7 September 2012.


Harold Henderson, "No Wonder He's a Distinguished Professor," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]
 

Book Review: How History and Genealogy Fit -- or Not

A few years ago a colleague asked me what kind of "microhistory" my blog title refers to. I had to admit that I didn't know there were kinds, and that I had only a vague notion of what the subdiscipline was officially supposed to contain.

I could answer that question better now that I've read Anne Patterson Rodda's new book, Trespassers in Time: Genealogists and Microhistorians. The author is a veteran genealogist and Irish specialist who is certified by the Board for the Certification of Genealogists. She looks at various flavors of history: political, economic, social (often quantitative), cultural, local, and micro. She concludes that microhistory -- basically a very small-scale approach that tries to let the records and ordinary individuals speak for themselves rather than go directly to overall theories -- was a good fit for genealogists to relate to. I think she quotes more from the Icelandic microhistorian Sigurdur Gylfi Magnusson than anyone else.

Genealogists have to deal with the fact that the particular people we happen to study may not fit the historical generalities -- to take obvious examples during the Civil War, a Unionist enclave in Mississippi or a Confederate volunteer from northern Indiana. They are sometimes outliers who don't fit the overall narrative -- neither would likely appear in even an encyclopedic history of the war -- but whose reality cannot be denied. We can't understand or tell about these people unless we do two almost contradictory things: know the history of the Civil War, and at the same time not force these people into categories or theories about the war that don't really apply to them. That kind of "double vision" is not easy to maintain.

At some points Rodda follows Magnusson into a rather extreme position:

My original intention was to find out how to place genealogy in historical context and, surprisingly, my research brought me to discard that idea in favor of treating each family story as a microstudy. {66} . . . [Genealogists' and microhistorians'] narratives may be quite microscopic views of certain aspects of local or family history, without reference to the wider history surrounding it. {185}

I don't know if this is possible or advisable, but all of Rodda's own case studies in the book's last three chapters do make ample use of big-picture history. And elsewhere she writes,

The key to producing a family history that can benefit current generations is in staying free of preconceived notions of what was typical for a time and place. . . . the researcher must be open to what the evidence suggests about the family being studied rather than looking for indications of ways their lives reflected the trends of the times. {184}

This thought-provoking book raises questions most of us don't spend much time on: How do we use our knowledge of history? Exactly how can we put our ancestors in the context of their times without abusing them?



Anne Patterson Rodda, Trespassers in Time: Genealogists and Microhistorians (N.p.: author, 2012).


Harold Henderson, "Book Mini-Review: How History and Genealogy Fit -- or Not," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 August 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

When journalism and genealogy mix

Earlier this month the Athens Messenger (Ohio) published an article about a local genealogist. (Thanks to Evernote, I still have it and can find it!)

Some people think there's no such thing as bad publicity; in this case I'm not so sure. It doesn't rank with the poor reporting recently that allowed people to imagine that the Social Security Death Index promotes identity theft (in fact, SSDI allows any minimally vigilant bank to stop it in the act), but it's not encouraging.

I've linked to the article, but here I omit the names of the reporter and the person interviewed, because this isn't about them personally. It's about certain habits on the part of journalists and amateur genealogists alike. Here's the key passage:

Finding one's genealogical past is actually easier than one might think, especially with [Genie Ologist's] help. ... Since she keeps many of the books in an office at her house, she's able to do much of the work from home. Often, it can be done in just a few hours.

"I find it difficult to say no to people when I know how easy it is for me to do it," [Genie] said. "I can easily go back five generations in my office in a couple of hours. People are nice to me. I do something for someone every day."

Volunteering is great. Doing people favors is great. Writing about it is great. But did the reporter or the researcher ever ask the key question: At the rate of five generations in two hours, just exactly how do you know that you found the right family?

Welcome

My goal here is to post regularly about genealogy news and research and resources involving Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and their neighbor and feeder states. That's more or less the region also known as the Midwest; the Old Northwest; Region V; everything between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, Mackinac and Cincinnati; or "pretty much any place you can drive to from my house in 5 or 6 hours."

If you need to be convinced that this is fascinating stuff, or if you want to read long essays about what I did today, you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for national and international news, Dick Eastman's newsletter is indispensable.

But if you want to learn and comment along with me about which counties to hope your ancestors lived and died in... what major libraries and repositories are offering... what recent articles, books, or blog posts touch on our region... then please stay tuned!