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It has been quite a while since I discovered a new Rule of Genealogy. Here are the previous Rules.
Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.
Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.
Rule Four: There are always more records.
Rule Five: You cannot get blood out of a turnip.
Rule Seven: Water and genealogical information flow downhill.
Rule Eight: Everything in genealogy is connected (butterfly).
Rule Nine: There are patterns everywhere.
Rule Ten: Read the fine print.
Rule Eleven: Even a perfect fit can be wrong.
Rule Twelve: The end is always there.
Rule Thirteen: Genealogists abhor a blank field.
Rule Fourteen: You are not responsible for what you find.
Rule Fifteen: A fact is not a fact unless you have a record to prove it.
I was beginning to think that there were no more rules. I guess I was wrong. Here is another rule.
Rule Sixteen: Gravity always wins
This rule is fairly simple. Famous people or those who have genealogically active family members generate most, if not all, the attention and thereby have their lives more completely documented. Just like gravity, they are bigger objects and therefore always attract the most activity. For example, take George Washington, the first president of the United States. it's estimated that thousands of books have been written about George Washington, with some sources citing figures over 10,000 over the past 200 years and a 2019 estimate of around 900 books specifically for scholarly works. See Washington's Legacy.
Some people garner a huge amount of interest simply because they have huge families. My sixth great-grandfather, because of the size of his immediate family has tens of thousands of descendants and because I live in Utah, I am frequently asked if I am a relative and I usually am. Another constant reminder of this rule is the constant changes on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree to the Mayflower passengers.
Perhaps it is partially because of this constant gravitational pull, that I spend most of my time researching my grandmother's lines and those of ordinary people. What is the real benefit of add one more source or document to a person who is already fully documented unless you intend to write a book about the person or have some other research goal? You can easily tell if a person has a high level of gravity by looking at the All Changes of a person such as Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 who changes almost daily.
Let's try to defy gravity.
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