It has been quite a while since I posted this video to the Brigham Young University Family History Library YouTube Channel. The video has had about 4,000+ views but the subject of extending genealogies back into the distant past keeps coming up regularly from people I attempt to help. I recently had yet another plea for help, this time the issue didn't go back to Adam but it did go back into the early 1700s. Depending on your knowledge of history, 1700 C.E. either seems like a long time ago or just a few years in the past. Writing about the reality of the effect of time on record availability is apparently something that needs some repetition.
There are two historical factors that all genealogists (and everyone else in the world) are subject to. The first is the loss of records over time. The second is the fact that records of individual people except for royalty and other important individuals, were not kept very far into the past.
Of course, I need to give a few examples.
Let's start with the Baby State, Arizona. For many years, Arizona was the last state admitted to the United States of America on February 14, 1912, and that earned it the name of the Baby State. Then Alaska was admitted on January 3, 1959, followed by Hawaii on August 21, 1959. What does this mean for genealogists? Pretty obvious that before these dates, there are no state records available for these states. Before statehood, these geographic areas were territories. OK, so when were the territories organized?
Arizona was organized on February 24, 1863. Alaska Territory was organized on August 24, 1912. Alaska was previously the Department of Alaska from 1868 to 1884 and the District of Alaska from 1884 to 1912. Hawaii had a completely different history. The Territory of Hawaii was officially organized on April 30, 1900, and lasted until statehood. Hawaii was a kingdom from about 1795 until 1874. Beginning in 1893, the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii began, and in 1898 Hawaii was annexed by the United States.
Now, as a genealogist, you might think this was just some interesting history but every one of those dates resulted in significant changes in the type and quality of records being kept and the possibility that any of those records survived to the present time. As I have written in several posts, as genealogists, we have to deal with these realities.
Carrying on the using Arizona as an example. There is still a more complicated history. The first Europeans to enter what is now Arizona occurred back in 1539 but unless your ancestors were from Arizona and spoke Spanish, it is only in 1848 when the United States acquired (took) that part of Mexico that any significant English speaking settlements began. My ancestors got to Arizona beginning in 1877.
Again, these dates are all significant markers of when documents of any kind might have been created in the area we now call the State of Arizona.
The point of these examples is that no matter where you go on the face of the earth, the availability of records is going to be determined by the time when the first records were created.
Jumping over to England. The earliest English parish registers (with a few rare exceptions) date from 1538 when through the work done by Thomas Crowell, King Henry VIII issued a mandate requiring the parishes to begin keeping records. Of course, even though the parishes began keeping some records at that time, it took a while before Queen Elizabeth made the all registers mandatory in 1558. By the way, it wasn't until 1733 that Latin was discontinued in parish records. See the FamilySearch Research Wiki, History of Parish Registers in England.
Every recordset or collection has a beginning date. The two rules I mentioned above mean that the ability of any genealogical researcher to continue any given ancestral line eventually decreases to zero. From that point on any ancestral lines that extend beyond the practical point of availability of records is pure fantasy.
So, pick a state or country. Say, Tennesee. When could you reasonably expect to find genealogically significant records in what is now Tennessee? Well, that depends on what you consider to be genealogically significant. Europeans reached the area we now call Tennessee as early as 1540 when the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto entered the area. The French were the first settlers but the British began expanding into Tennessee in 1673 but the first British forts were not built until 1756. See Tennessee4me, European Contact. So if you think your ancestors came from Tennessee, you probably need to determine if they spoke Spanish, French, or English and then decide when they first arrived and then decide what records could possibly have been kept at that time.
To repeat, every place on the face of the earth has the same temporal limitations. You can't really argue with history. If you are researching back in time and feel like you have hit a "brick wall" you may really have hit the end of the records sets you need to find your ancestors in any given location. Don't give up, just realize that the answer lies in history not repeated record searches.
Very interesting James. A couple of days ago I found, to my dismay, that nearly all of the 1880 Census was lost to fire, so the article is most relevant and thought provoking. Thanks for re-issuing this article.
ReplyDeleteI think you meant the 1890 U.S. Federal Census. Part of it was burned and the rest was discarded due to lack of funding from the Library of Congress.
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