The Soul of a Genealogist

There was a U.S. national bestselling book published in 1981 that also won the Pulitzer Prize called "The Soul of a New Machine."

See Kidder, Tracy. The Soul of a New Machine. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981.

One of the conclusions reached by this, now classic, book is that people will give their best when the work itself is challenging and rewarding. See Wikipedia:The Soul of a New Machine. There are a lot of things about the process of designing computer systems that relate to the world of genealogy. One of those is the fact that breakthroughs come only after a huge effort of really boring and mundane work. The main theme of The Soul of a New Machine is that the "soul" comes from the endless hours of attention and toil. Likewise, the soul of genealogy only comes from the endless hours of attention and toil.

One reason I doubt that genealogy will ever be a universally appealing activity is exactly this; hard sweaty work. As long as genealogy is considered a "hobby" or a "pastime" very few people will be willing to put forth the real effort that is needed to do quality research and documentation. This is especially true among the "retired" generation, the one that has the most interest as shown by demographics. Who want's to retire to an activity that looks an awful lot like the work most people did when they were working full time? But there are those who are willing to rise to the challenge.

So why are we trying to convince people to do genealogy? Why am I traveling around traveling around the country presenting classes on how to do genealogy better? That turns out to be a really good and difficult question to answer. I recently wrote about how hard it was to do genealogy, but hard is only part of the story. Work, that is hard work, validates us a human beings. There is an interesting statement in the Bible that is almost universally misunderstood and misquoted. Quoting from Genesis 3:17-19 the Lord says to Adam:

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

The key here is the statement "for thy sake." The curse of work was given for Adam's (and by analogy for all of us) sake. That is for his benefit. From this the most common interpretation is that work is a curse. The work is not the curse. The ground was cursed but the reason was to benefit man. The work is the benefit. I truly believe that work is for the benefit of us all. Rather than shun the opportunity, we should embrace those things that are hard, like genealogy, and pursue worthwhile fulfilling activities and not idle away our time. In my case, I am ready to "retire" from the commercial world but I am not ready to retire from work. I can think of nothing worse than idleness and inactivity.

So, I would submit that whether or not you have any spiritual leanings and whether or not you think deeply about the nature of work, that the work of seeking out your departed ancestors is ennobling and regardless of your religious beliefs, will benefit your soul, the soul of genealogy is work.