of us has a unique nuclear family, shared only by our birth siblings. Thus, discovering our family history begins as an absorbing personal pastime to find the parents of our parents and so on. Soon, however, it will begin to overlap with cousins and descendants of earlier generations as we meet them. Some of them will be researchers, too. Genealogists also frequently share such common connections as ethnic origins or migration patterns. Few other hobbies or professions provide such enjoyment in the hunt, the thrill of discovery, the satisfaction of solving problems.
You might ask, what is the difference between a genealogist and a family historian? Essentially, they have become the same (the terms are used interchangeably in this book). In the past, genealogists tended to compile rather dry tomes of multigenerational names and vital statistics; family historians often produced a labour of love with little reference to solid sources of information. Traditionally, the genealogist followed more or less acceptable formats and a family historian used a more fluid style of presentation. Now most of us aim for the same goal: a well-documented narrative that tells the story of ancestors, not merely a “tree” with bare names and dates. Family tree seems to be a rather generic term these days for almost any family history project, whereas more properly it refers to a chart or diagram of names and relationships.
Genealogical evidence is the information — evaluated and analyzed — that allows us to identify an individual, an event in his or her life, or the relationship between individuals. Genealogy and family history revolve around issues of identification. In describing how we establish or argue an identification, we use such words as evidence or proof or source documentation.
By its very nature, the construction of a genealogy requires evidence or proof for the linking of generations. If your cousin insists that your family is descended from William the Conqueror or Louis Riel or the Mayflower passengers, what does he use to substantiate this claim? His grandmother told him, so it must be true (Grandma was the soul of honesty)? He saw it in a book (title and author long forgotten)? He picked it up from that website with the smileys on it? With computers now a fairly staple household fixture, the Internet brings us its dazzling assortment of information. We don’t necessarily discount the value of family hearsay or the convenience of compiled databases, but they don’t replace tried-and-true methodology for documenting each step of good research.
Later in this book, you will see examples of sources that illustrate some of the research issues to watch for and evaluate. For instance, deaths often produce a wider sampling of record sources than any other major event in the family cycle. There may be variations in the information they contain about one individual. A family history is not complete without a discussion of such anomalies, requiring analytic skills.
Sharing, Preserving, Networking
When we first get caught up in this addictive hobby, few of us realize how much material we will collect and what we will do with it. Some of us acquire filing cabinets or cardboard cartons full of notes and copies of documents. We collect taped interviews with family members or precious, ancient photographs and heirlooms. Along the way, the discovery of new cousins is not an uncommon occurrence. We may have begun our quest merely to satisfy our own curiosity, but become dedicated detectives in the search for family truths.
Most of us reach a stage where we feel an obligation (or unrestrained enthusiasm!) to share our latest information with family members. At the very least, we have new details to relate at the next family reunion. But, don’t forget, there is always a much wider interest, perhaps among the local genealogical society we joined or in the community from which the ancestors originated. The information we uncover may strike a responsive chord in another researcher with a similar ethnic background, or with the same religious heritage or geographic interest. Libraries with genealogy collections and societies with libraries welcome family histories in many forms.
Whatever we learn about our own family has interest for someone else — somewhere — maybe a grandchild or a niece, a stranger in a distant society or country, maybe newfound relatives from a “missing” or collateral line. What begins as a very personal study of genealogy grows to emphasize our kinship with genealogists and family historians across borders and through time. Although we work in the past, we know the future holds descendants willing to carry on and supplement the infinite progression.
We should realize the intrinsic value of our labours, over months and years of research, is surely worth preserving for posterity. And that labour is worth preserving in a form that strives to meet quality standards as well as engaging our family readers.
There are many tangible forms for preserving and sharing our work. Normally we record information as our research progresses. Some of us work with pencilled charts and family file folders. Some of us use genealogical software as a database for all the individual ancestors. Eventually we must make some decisions for making our work results more accessible and ensuring it survives us — decisions about an end goal, about producing a family history or choosing smaller, more manageable intermediate goals. A variety of presentations gives us options to choose an aspect that best suits our skills and timing (more in chapter 3, Learning and Practice).
The good news is that help is always out there for all of us, at any stage of the process. Since you are reading this book, you will have become aware of, or are already plugged into the available support systems. Sadly, we do not always reach the isolated family historian, the self-taught genealogist who works in a vacuum, reinventing the wheel, blissfully unaware of a great international network. Splendid solitude may enhance the work of a creative artiste, but a family historian needs solid empirical skills and ongoing contact with new developments. We should all be encouraging such people to join with us.
The bottom line is to understand and collate the information we get, wherever it comes from. While our gathered information is due (ideally) to our own research efforts, we also receive information from our relatives, from reciprocal exchanges with distant researchers, or from hired professional genealogists. Information received from others usually needs backtracking to an original source. Ultimately we must analyze its evidentiary value before making judgments about identifications and relationships.
The standards of evidence discussed in this booklet are twenty-first-century mainstream. It takes time for mainstream awareness to reach individuals, and even societies, who lack contact with the large or national organizations that lead our thriving community.
Leaders in the field of genealogy have worked long and hard, and continue to work, to demonstrate that family history is no longer a poor sister to allied scholarly fields. Demographers, historians of all persuasions, social anthropologists, genetic counsellors, probate courts, estate lawyers, and many others are seeing the results from adhering to standards of excellence in genealogy. It is up to each and all of us as responsible genealogists — whether we work at family history as a pleasant pastime, as part-time volunteers for our societies, or as paid researchers — to do our best to reach for and apply those standards.
Q: Why do I need to know any background about the study of genealogy?
A: To increase your awareness of the larger community you participate in; to promote scholarship and fellowship while being aware of unethical activities; to support your own growing expertise among potential skeptics.
A brief overview of the past and the present will make us aware of the need to recognize competence and avoid dishonest practices. The popular pursuit of ancestors as we know it today was not always enjoyed by people like you and me. In times past, it was an exercise of the aristocracy, heralds, and landed gentry — the only beneficiaries of such a study. Heraldic authorities have existed since medieval times to record the progeny of leading families for matters of legal inheritance.
