Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Monday, April 11, 2022

I'm My Own Grandpa: Thoughts on the Limitations of Genealogical Research

 

https://youtu.be/rALCtcMoMh8

Here is a short quote about the origin of this song from Wikipedia: I'm My Own Grandpa:

I'm My Own Grandpa" (sometimes rendered as "I'm My Own Grandpaw") is a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947, about a man who, through an unlikely (but legal) combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother—that is, tacitly dropping the "step-" modifiers, he becomes his own grandfather.

Genealogy in the English-speaking world is caught up in its own jargon and definitions of how people are related. If you haven't seen this chart before, here is a copy showing how this particular kinship structure is identified and labeled. 

https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin

 The song about being your own grandpa may seem amusing or annoying but for genealogists, the recursive relationship is possible and challenging. The key to song's conclusion relies on ignoring "step: relationships. However, if you happen to speak a language that is not English and come from a culture that is not based on ancestors from Western Europe, you have probably wondered how to show your own cultural family relationships using the standard Western European (and English speaking) models such as this "standard" pedigree chart. 

How do you show "step" relationships with this chart? Even more fundamentally, how do you show multiple marriages? Do you consider your "step" parent to be your relative? Fundamentally, if you think only about people who are genetically related to you, how do you represent multiple marriage events in the same person's life? This line of questions also applies to adoptions, foster parents, and other relationships that are, in a sense, swept under the carpet by traditional Western European genealogy. 

One of the biggest challenges faced by the large, online genealogy companies is that they are mired in Western European culture and the structure of their family trees reflects only those relationships superficially reflected by the pedigree chart shown above. 

Adapting to non-European kinship structures is not even on the event horizon of most software and online development and when you also consider different naming patterns, place names, and other considerations that would be needed to preserve family information from around the world. 

Now what about genealogical research? The first major challenge that comes to many people around the world is accounting for migration and emigration. For example, in the United States, only about 2.6% of the population identify as Native American or Indian. See "Indian Country Demographics." This means that 97.4% of the population will ultimately be looking for an immigrant ancestor. Of course, this percentage varies by country but even in countries where the population is stable and has been for a long time, there are equally as challenging ancestral events such as wars, natural disasters, plagues, and other such events that are common to all. 

As genealogists, we collectively need to be more aware and more educated in history and cultural differences 


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