The Status of Genealogists in the Greater Academic Community

I was reading an article by Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG in the Nation Genealogical Society Quarterly: Centennial Issue 91 (December 2003) on pages 260-277 entitled "Genealogy in the "Information Age": History's New Frontier." Some of the comments in the article struck me as very interesting. After briefly reviewing the history of genealogical research in the United States in relationship to the overall academic history community, Ms. Mills made some observations about the state of that relationship at the time the article was written. One of the statements that caught my eye was a quote from the American Archivist in 1981 made by Phebe Jacobson which said, "Denigrating genealogists has been a cherished avocation of archivists ever since we began scratching our way up the ladder toward professional status."

Ms. Mills goes on to describes as three different species of genealogists; family tree climbers, traditional genealogists and generational historians. She observes that "Serious researchers have learned that, when visiting archives and record offices, any use of the G-WORD (genealogy) may limit their access to records. The result is that they conduct their work so quietly, so efficiently that staff and other patrons do not recognize them as genealogists." She goes on to state about genealogists:

Our investments in quality and standards are paying significant dividends among archivists and librarians. How long will it be before we can say the same for the rest of the academic world—not just for the historians who need our skills, but also for educational institutions where we need degree programs in generational history? Every field has both qualified and mediocre practitioners. Genealogy, however, has an added image problem. We were responsible for it initially; but we have treated the warts that once disfigured us: the masquerades and false grandeur of past generations, the muck of the eugenics movement, and the lack of formal educational programs.We have created a scholarly field and a profession. Yet we remain tainted by a past imperfect. 

The image problem exists for four reasons, each building upon the other: 

We have not clearly defined our identity. 

We have not educated the media and the academic world as to what real genealogy is.

We lack financial resources to support outreach and public education. 

We have accepted second-class citizenship in the educational world.

I would like to fast forward to the present, approximately 10 years since the article was written. Have conditions changed with respect to the acceptance of genealogy and genealogists in the academic community? Not really. But one very important thing has changed. The academics can no longer keep us or anyone else from access to the archives or the record offices. To a great extent this has been accomplished by the massive movement of original source material from the insides of the repositories to freely accessible files on the Web. What keeps the capable genealogist from producing an academically acceptable work product? Nothing at all except the will to do so.

Ms. Mills advocated (I do not know if she holds the same opinion today) that in order to achieve academic acceptance that genealogists (referred to as generational historians) should:

1. meet the historical profession’s definition of “historian”—an individual with some formal education in history, who practices history through research or teaching;
2. possess earned credentials in genealogy (certification or accreditation) and, as such programs develop, pursue coursework and degrees in generational history;
3. publish their research in peer-reviewed journals whose essays meet the standards set for scholarship by the academic world—i.e.,

• exhaustive research, with skillful analysis and interpretation of findings;

• thorough documentation, relying upon only the best existing sources, carefully identified;

• sound theories and conclusions, critically tested through peer review and dialog with professional colleagues in and outside the field.

In short, we eliminate the barriers between genealogy and the academic world by becoming historians. Of course, in doing this, we simply move the barrier down the line and those who are "family tree climbers and traditional genealogists" are obviously excluded. I certainly recognize that as long as there are those who consider themselves to be "academics" they will find a way to define away those who are not. As I have observed in past posts, all professions move towards exclusivity. Historians and generation historians are merely conforming to the time honored practices of professionals (or their equivalent) since the dawn of creation. If I produce high academic quality work and it is ignored by the "academic community" solely on the basis that I am a genealogist without academic qualifications, then the loss is to the academic community.

The fact that there are hobbyists or family tree climbers or even traditional genealogists is no different than any other excluded category in any other profession. In the law profession they are euphemistically called "document preparers" and are mercilessly persecuted by the State Bar Associations and in Arizona, the Arizona Supreme Court.

I do not want to detract from the major contributions made by Ms. Mills to the field of genealogy. Her article was and is needed. But I see that the democratization of the Internet may have some unpredictable consequences in the areas discussed in the old article. I am pretty sure that in the not too distant future the barriers expressed by the article will have disappeared due to the almost universal access to all of the now semi-cloistered information previously only available to accredited academics and as a result, any real distinctions between the "professionals" and those unaccredited may come to rely solely on the merits of the work produced.

As for the goal stated by the article of moving genealogy into the colleges and universities, that is happening very slowly and mostly outside of the United States. I am not so sure that acceptance of genealogy depends so much anymore on its acceptance within academia's ivy-covered walls. I suspect that the universities may find themselves on the defensive and fighting for their very existence in a world where what you know is beginning to count for more than who you are in the context of the Internet society.