Genealogy's Star: Elements of Research

Showing posts with label Elements of Research. Show all posts

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty-five: The not-so-final conclusion

All things, both good and bad, come to an end sometime and this series is no exception. I guess, what it boils down to is that genealogical research is a rather complex activity and encompasses a huge spectrum of individual interests and goals. On the one hand, there are those who are satisfied in copying a few names into an online family tree. At the other end of the spectrum, there are professional genealogists who adhere to a complex system of proof statements and citations with the aim to publish their conclusions in journals and other publications. Some of those at the professional level also provide genealogical research services to clients for pay.

Due to this dichotomy within the genealogical community, we find several areas of tension, with substantial pulls from all the views of how genealogical research should be done. The overriding issue is accuracy and consistency. No matter how the process is characterized, it is essential that the conclusions reflect the broadest possible selection of historical documents and records. It is also extremely important that each and every record or document consulted by recorded so that the researcher and any subsequent researchers, can reproduce, if necessary, the method by which the conclusions were derived.

The main activity of genealogists (family historians or whatever) involves identifying, locating and searching historical records of all kinds for information about their (or their clients') ancestry. Once those documents are searched, any pertinent information is recorded with a citation to its exact location. As the researchers assembles the information, he or she begins the process of evaluation and interpretation. In some cases, it may be helpful to future investigators for the researcher to record their thought processes, but always recognizing that the discovery of additional documents or records or a re-interpretation of the existing records can completely change or modify any previously made conclusions. All genealogical conclusions are always open to modification and abandonment.

Complex issues of copyright law and plagiarism have influenced genealogical research for decades. For a variety of reasons, researchers have come to believe that they own their historical discoveries and conclusions. This attitude manifests itself in a variety of ways from the publication of research findings with claims of copyright protection to the hoarding of information with a refusal to share that information even with close family members. Whether this protective attitude originates with the hoarding compulsion or from an expectation that the researcher will be compensated by recognition or monetary gain, the results of these claims acts as smothering blanket on the entire research process. As a result, each generation of researchers has been forced to redo much of the work done by previous researchers. This is especially true when the previous research efforts were lacking in source citations.

Any genealogical conclusions that lack adequate documentation of both the source of the information and the thought process of the researcher, will always require duplication of effort.

Genealogical research is essentially a process that includes both methodology and theory. The methodology can vary and the theory has been sadly neglected over the years. As with most aspects of our modern society, technology has had a significant impact on the entire genealogical research process. The availability of online, digitized copies of a substantial number of historical records and documents will continue to change the way research is conducted, i.e. the methodology, but will have little impact on the theory. The difficulty is that the theory of how and why genealogical research is conducted is far from fully developed. It is very difficult to talk about genealogy or family history, as such, without encountering such a wide response to make communication almost impossible.

Part of this difficulty has come from the incorporation of inappropriate terminology, borrowed from other activities, that impedes the process of understanding and applying effective research activities. This spectrum of terminology and jargon was recently epitomized by the recent trends to make genealogy "entertaining." This particular trend obscures or completely abandons the core activities and motivation and the need to adequately research and identify ancestors. This is being advocated at the expense of attracting people to "family history" at a casual and unstructured level.

Previous installments of this series include:

http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty_27.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty_8.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty_26.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty_24.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nineteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eighteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-seventeen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-sixteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fifteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fourteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-thirteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twelve.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eleven.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-ten-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nine-am-i.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eight-on.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-seven-can.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-six-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-five.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-four.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-three.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-two.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-one.html

Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty-four: More about Daniel Boone

The family tradition and the extended line for the Morgan family I discussed in the last installment, would lead you to believe that my Morgan ancestors were related to Daniel Boone's mother, Sarah Morgan Boone. As I have already shown, this is highly unlikely since the there are inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data many generations and many states away from the Boone family. The examination of the recorded, individual events in the last blog post illustrates the basic concept of research; that is, the direct relationship between searching historical records for information concerning individual ancestors and their families and the accuracy of the information recorded.

This post and the one following will summarize and conclude this rather lengthy series, but these posts will by no means conclude all that I have to say on the subject of research. Genealogy is entirely a research oriented activity and it is tragic how few of the adherents spend the time and energy necessary to adequately explore and document their ancestry. The issues I pointed out in the previous post may seem trivial, but they illustrate real issues of accuracy and consistency that question the entire structure of conclusions made about this particular family by genealogists stretching back over 150 years.

Here is a brief summary of the ancestral line I am examining:
Me
|
My mother
|
My mother's father, Harold Morgan, b. 1892, d. 1963
|
John Hamilton Morgan, b. 1842, d. 1894
|
Garrard Morgan, III, b. 1806, d. 1889

In that relatively short time, the accuracy of the information about Garrard Morgan is called into question. By the way, as far as I can determine, the addition of the middle name "Hamilton" to my Great-grandfather, John Morgan, was done by the genealogists after his death, he did not use that name during his lifetime. Likewise, the designation "III" of Garrard Morgan is also a genealogical addition.

The goal of genealogical research is demonstrating valid conclusions supported by the examination of historical records and documents. The individual researcher must come to his or her own conclusions. The source of the information that influenced the formation of those conclusions must be recorded or the conclusions must be considered tentative and unreliable. Notwithstanding the need to derive valid conclusions, to some degree, all genealogical conclusions are basically incomplete and tentative because the discovery of additional historical records or documents may change those conclusions at any time. Each step or generation backward into the past must be supported by some validly derived conclusion (no matter how it is designated) in order to justify adding another generation. If the motivation of the researcher is other than deriving supported conclusions (i.e. trying to connect to royalty or whatever) then every conclusion is suspect.

Two major distractions in the present genealogical research community consist of ignoring the tentative nature of all historical research and constantly focusing on the formal presentation of the conclusions. I certainly agree with the need to carefully document each conclusion. It also helps, in some limited cases, to explain your conclusions, but, as I have previously stated, using the Chicago Manual of Style does not necessarily validate your conclusions.

Back to my illustration. For reference, here is the screenshot of the existing record for Garrard Morgan, III on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree:

Here is a list of the present sources for Garrard Morgan, III:

The information about Garrard Morgan, III is very limited in the John Morgan book. To me, the recorded research is very superficial, especially for a person who lived his entire life in the 19th Century. Of course, there may be many researchers out there that have extensive information about this individual, but how do I go about finding them? The whole point of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is to create a unified family tree, one place where all of the information known about individuals and their families can be gathered and compared. If there are knowledgeable researchers with additional information who are failing to consider putting their information in the Family Tree, for whatever reason, they are impeding the research process and not helping to correct published information.

The first listed source is a death record for Leon Morgan, who died when he was 76 years old in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. His birth date is listed as 28 April 1847 in Greensburg, Indiana. His parents are listed as Garrard Morgan and Eliza Hamilton. What is in the Family Tree presently? Here is the entry for Leonidas McConnell Morgan:

Now, without spending more than a few minutes, I find a discrepancy between the birth date and place recorded in the death record and the date in the Family Tree. Now we go on to the sources recorded for Leonidas McConnell Morgan:

As you can guess at this point, this whole process is ongoing and endless. The compilers and writers of the John Morgan book incorrectly assumed that everything was "settled" and presented his descendants with a beautiful, hard-bound book full of wonderful stories. Unfortunately, they failed to adequately document his ancestry. It is interesting to point out that John Morgan is listed in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census as "John W." In examining the sources recorded for Leonidas, I find even more discrepancies and inconsistencies. This is certainly a fertile field for accurate research.

Other than illustrating the sorry state of the research on this particular family, what is the point? The answer to this question is contained in the 23 previous posts I have written on this subject. Stay tuned for further conclusions.

Previous installments of this series include:

Friday, June 26, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty-three: Am I related to Daniel Boone?

One of my family's persistent traditions is an alleged relationship to the famous American, Daniel Boone. Year's ago, I disproved that tradition with some brief research in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now the tradition has emerged again in the form of entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Since I have been writing this seemingly endless series on research, I have become more focused on my "Morgan line" of research. I have decided that it is time to use this family to illustrate some of the basic concepts I am trying to convey with this series.

The very first examination I would make is the extent to which this particular line has been "sourced." As I go back on this line on the Family Tree, I find some documentation for several of my ancestors, but as the generations fade back into the past, the source citations diminish rapidly and finally disappear. As I go further back through the entries in the Family Tree, I ask the following questions:

Is the name of the ancestor accurately recorded with a supporting source?
Are the dates and places accurately recorded and supported by sources?
Did the towns, cities, counties or even countries exist at the time of the event?
Do the dates and places need to be standardized?
Are the dates recorded consistent with reality?
Where was each child born?
Do the birth dates of each child make sense and are they realistic?
Are there any sources?

If there is any question about the answers to any of these questions, it is time to take the next step; identify documents or records that might answer the questions. Depending on your degree of experience and comfort, you may wish to do a physical checklist of issues. Here is the ancestor I started examining:

There are, at least, six immediately evident issues with the information here in the program. My next step after conducting this review is to compare this information in the Family Tree with what I have already recorded about this ancestor, assuming, of course, that I have already done some research about this particular person. In this case, these appear to be the issues:

1. I need to check whether or not the city and county were in existence at the time of the ancestor's birth. My records record the birthplace as "near Carlisle, Nicholas, Kentucky, United States." The source for the birth information is apparently taken from the following book:

Richardson, Arthur M, and Nicholas G Morgan. The Life and Ministry of John Morgan: For a Wise and Glorious Purpose. [Place of publication not identified]: N.G. Morgan, 1965.

Unfortunately, the book provides few sources and none for the information concerning Garrard Morgan III.

2. Both the place and the date need to be verified. You must take the time to verify each individual, particularly before moving on to the next generation. The fact that this information "came from a book" carries no weight at all.

3. If there is a burial date, there should also be a burial place.

4. This "extra" Birth Name is extraneous.

5. Same problem with extra, extraneous information.

6. The marriage date is obviously wrong since it is many years after the birth of the children and when the mother was 68 years old.

These are just a few of the initial problems and questions those problems create. With all these issues, there is no way that any information concerning subsequent generations is believable at this point. Even it this record has sources, it is apparent that the sources are not sufficient to establish the the dates and places in the information provided so far.

I will continue the analysis of this entry in my next post and discuss how to determine what kinds of records would assist in correcting and expanding the information about this person. At this point the question in the title to this post about a relationship to Daniel Boone cannot be answered. Obviously, the basic information in the file would not allow such a conclusion to be reached.

Previous installments of this series include:

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty-two: Who needs codification?

Codification is the the act, process, or result of arranging in a systematic form or code. In genealogy, this can take various forms. Genealogists use a variety of computer programs as well as informal (paper and pencils) and more formal methods to record (codify) the results of their research. Within the overall genealogical community, there are factions that advocate their own form of codification and actively promote their way of recording genealogical information as the "only" way it can properly be recorded. In addition, there is also a substantial majority of the genealogical adherents that choose codification by default. They allow whatever structure they encounter to dictate how they record their data. The two extremes in the genealogical community can be characterized, at one extreme, as name grabbers who simply populate an online family tree and think they are doing genealogical research and at the other end of the extreme, those who are convinced that only those who adhere to their particular view of codification are truly genealogists and the rest are beneath notice. Most of us fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

Do you regularly use the word "ain't?" Such as in the phrase, "I ain't going to the store?" Or perhaps, "We ain't going to the store?" In fact, if "ain't" is part of your common vocabulary you probably use it as follows:

I ain't
he/she ain't
they ain't
we ain't

Probably since pre-historic times, there have been self-appointed prescriptive linguistic grammarians, that is, people who speak a certain way and look down on anyone who does not conform to their standard language pattern. In many European countries, there are national language institutes that work diligently to make sure that the population uses the accepted and "pure" language. My introduction to this was a book I purchased in Argentina:

Ragucci, Rodolfo M. El habla de mi tierra: lecciones prácticas de lengua española ... Buenos Aires: Editorial Don Bosco, 1963.

This rather sizable book proscribed which types of phrases were "acceptable" Argentine Spanish and which were unacceptable. Your use or not of the word "ain't" is a perfect example of a regular contraction used by the English language that has become unacceptable due to social grammarians efforts to eradicate the usage of the word. Your use of language has become a classic class-marker as illustrated by George Bernard Shaw's Play, Pygmalion. Here is a Wikipedia comment on "ain't."

The usage of ain't is a perennial subject of controversy in English. Ain't is commonly used by many speakers in oral or informal settings, especially in certain regions and dialects. Its usage is often highly stigmatized, and it may be used as a marker of socio-economic or regional status or education level. Its use is generally considered non-standard by dictionaries and style guides except when used for rhetorical effect, and it is rarely found in formal written works.

We have exactly the same type of social stratification in genealogy only rather than focusing on the way we talk, the stratification is based on our personal method of recording our research, that is, our methods of codification. If you put all your family history on a publicly available family tree with no sources, you are definitely in a different category than if you publish your research findings in an accepted and revered genealogical journal. The difference is essentially in the level of codification you choose to learn and employ. The stratification comes from attaching value judgments to these two activities. On the one hand, those who fail to add sources or citations to their work are considered plebeians, while the "upper crust" uses the proper and highly structured formalities associated with their class status. In fact, many genealogist expend a huge amount of effort simply learning what is and what is not acceptable by the patricians. Do you worry about how you are recording your research? Think about it.

For more than forty years I operated within a highly codified structure known as the U.S. legal system. Many years ago, I began the move sideways into an equally codified structure, genealogical research. In essence, I trade one structure for another. Personally, I think it was a good trade-off. But as with nearly all human activities, we have a tendency to codify our social rules and mores and separate into classes and I had to learn and adapt to the new paradigm of codification in my avocation of genealogy.

Why has how we record our research become the chief indicator of class division among genealogists? My opinion is that there is very little else we can use to distinguish what I do from what you do and we have fastened our attention on one very obvious indicator. I could use a few other examples, but they would only make me even less popular than I probably already am in some circles.

But there is a basic issue that transcends class distinctions. That is the need to accurately record our research efforts. Whether or not I use a "standard" citation method is vastly overshadowed by the need to record where I obtained the information I record. For example, this past week, I have been using a family from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree in my classes at the Brigham Young University Family History Library. The Family Tree records the family as General James Edward Morgan and his wife, Margaret Elizabeth Jarman. During the time I have been teaching this series of classes, someone has made some significant changes to this particular family line without recording any sources. In fact, I used this same family for examples in my blog posts recently. In one case, the person making the changes, changed a birth date for the wife that was listed as being more than a 150 years after the death of her husband. The husband was listed as being born in the 1600s and the wife in the 1800s, an obvious error. That particular couple also has 17 listed children. The husband is listed as having three different wives with 25 children listed for the second wife and 2 for the third "unknown" wife. The sources listed include three published genealogies from the 1800s and early 1900s. However, no source was listed for "correcting" the wife's birthdate. The husband was supposedly born in 1670 and married in 1679, no wonder he had so many children.

It is abundantly clear that this family is a mess from a genealogical standpoint. What is even more interesting about this entry is that the three "sources" obviously do not refer to the named individual in the entry. The person named is identified as "General James Edward Morgan, (b. 1670, Bala, Merionethshire, Wales, d. 20 April 1736, Gwynedd, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States). The person changing the wife's birth date without citing a source, has apparently ignored the fact that the rest of the entries are ridiculous. What is interesting is that the probable Edward Morgan was not a General and is claimed to be the grandfather of Daniel Boone. Although this family appears in my line on the Family Tree, I have long ago disproved any connection with this family and my own. As I pointed out, the three "sources" do not refer to the same three families and none of the sources refer to the family recorded in the Family Tree.

Am I going to worry about the formalities of my citations when there are much more serious issues? As a matter of note, I am not going to untangle this family because my line actually ends three or four generations before I get to these illustrated problems.

This series will keep going.

Previous installments of this series include:

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty-one: What if I want organization?

Despite their limitations, genealogical database programs have evolved to organize and store family information. Although researchers may disagree with the utility of any particular program, there are enough programs out there that nearly all researchers can find one that suits their particular needs. If you need to see users evaluations of most of the programs available today, you can go to GenSoftReviews.com for current reviews of over 900 programs.

If your level of research is highly sophisticated and you are at the level of publishing serious, academic oriented books or journal articles, there are many professional research and citation programs that can provide that level of support. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries supports three programs; EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. These programs also have corresponding mobile apps. Of the three, Zotero is a free, open-source program available for Mac, Windows and Linux. An example of a genealogy-specific program for organization is Evidentia2 available from Evidentiasoftware.com.

Doing genealogical research is more than just gathering source citations. It is the process of answering questions from historical records and documents and then answering the questions that arise as a result of answering the initial questions. A good example happened today while we I was assisting one of my friends with some research in Puerto Rico. We were examining Catholic parish registers for information about the birth of his great-grandfather. When we found the record of the birth, we also found a notation about the same ancestor's third marriage made by the parish priest. We had not asked the question (yet) about the documentation of the individual's marriages, but the answer came through looking for entirely different records. In addition, the information then raised additional questions. Of course, digital images of the records were captured and the information integrated into my friend's records.

Unless you thoroughly understand the organic nature of research, you might even be annoyed at being "distracted" by irrelevant information. As a matter of fact, my friend and I were even more "distracted" by adding in a number of Record Hints from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree in the middle of our continuing search of the parish records. The distraction is not a problem as long as you remember your original question and continue to work on its solution. At this point, I usually find someone objecting to any consideration of a distracting research issue. This reaction is similar to the problems faced by scientists whose discoveries are influenced by their pre-existing beliefs. This type of situation is evidenced by the current disagreements over such subjects as climate change and the regulation of power companies. You can think of a distracting discovery as a furtherance of your research objectives or an interference.

The questions you choose to investigate are also influenced by your pre-conceived notions of what actually happened in the past. From my point of view, imposing an artificial organizational structure on your genealogical data impedes rather than assists discovery. I sense this whenever I am helping someone who want to have everything "organized." The epitome of this attitude is the genealogist who blindly adds people to a pedigree without evaluating sources and watching for inconsistency. This name gathering my appear to be "research" and "organization" but it is does not qualify on either count. During the past week, I was helping a patron in the Brigham Young University Family History Library that had some issues with the "Record Hints." It turned out that she did not want to consider any such hints for people she did not want to "research." It also turned out that she did not want to spend the time attaching records to the people she did not "like." She was extremely "organized" but entirely ineffective in her research. Don't substitute organization for research.

Now, before you get all bent out of shape over the issue, I must clarify. Any legitimate research effort involves an effective way to organize the results. What I am saying is that the organization should not dictate the direction of the research. When I am asked what "line" I am working on, I usually respond "all of them." I take advantage of the time and place to do my research, that is, I answer the questions appropriate to the resources I have on hand at the time. The analogy is the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki. From a certain perspective, my contributions to the Research Wiki would be considered inconsistent and somewhat chaotic. On the other hand, I consistently add information and correct existing entries. Over time, the amount of information increases dramatically and I answer a lot of questions. I will often go back to the topics and areas I have worked on in the past and add more information and corrections. Combined with all of the work being done on the Research Wiki by others, the total amount of data increases dramatically over time.

Genealogical research today, is in the same category as my work on the Research Wiki, I may not spend a huge effort on any one line for any appreciable period of time, but over the past 30 years or so, much of the basic information that went into FamilySearch.org Family Tree about my own lines was initially entered into computer programs by my efforts. Now the research task has shifted from initial data entry to correcting and augmenting the additional information added by other sources. Genealogy is not unique in this overriding dependency on collaboration, but since the Internet and computerization of the data, the task of the researcher has been substantially modified.

In the next installment, I will discuss the need for formal codification and presentation of research results.

Previous installments of this series include:

http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twenty.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nineteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eighteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-seventeen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-sixteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fifteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fourteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-thirteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twelve.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eleven.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-ten-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nine-am-i.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eight-on.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-seven-can.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-six-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-five.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-four.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-three.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-two.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-one.html

Sunday, June 21, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Twenty: Research is more than looking

There is a fundamental relationship between documents and records and acquiring genealogically significant information. Every discovery of a document or record will also suggest additional documents that may be found. Searching is a repetitious activity and is limited to a single discovery. Research produces a chain of documents and records that lead to answering questions. Research also goes well beyond merely finding records or documents, it includes wringing all the information from them until they are dry. Most historical documents and records will answer more than one question about an ancestor. Genealogical research usually produces more questions than it does answers.

At this point, it is important to realize that the research process is not lineal, it is organic. The traditional Research Cycle would have you believe that discovering information about your ancestors was an orderly and systematic process. This representation of genealogical research is basically flawed. Because every document or record discovered may contain unexpected information, genealogical research jumps from topic to topic, family line to family line and from individual to individual. Anyone who attempts to tame this chaotic process will always feel overwhelmed and frustrated. One of the most dramatic examples of the organic nature of genealogical research is the diagram drawn by the Puzzilla.org program from the information in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Here is a diagram of the descendants of one of my ancestors, Joshua Tanner, down only four generations:

This diagram highlights, in a very limited way, the underlying organic nature of genealogy and further illustrates, with gaps and missing lines, the overall nature of research. At the same time, this diagram also shows the challenge that some of us face in choosing a research topic. The lines and dots here each represent a family in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The dot in the center is one single ancestor. There is a similar pattern and diagram that could be produced for each of my ancestors. This shows that I have literally tens of thousands of relatives, i.e. cousins for each of my lineal (direct line) ancestors. What is obscured by this diagram is that many of these lines share the same individuals. In reality, my ancestors and all of their descendants are more like a huge cloud with an interlocking internal structure. If we could somehow connect all of these descendant nodes in more dimensions and include geographic links, we would begin to see the complex nature of the relationships. Producing more categories of relationships, such as occupation, religion, etc. would become so complex that only at a very large scale would the overall patterns be discernible.

Failure to recognize that these macro-patterns exist is one of the fundamental ways in which most genealogical research fails. I can illustrate this with a simple example. My 3rd Great-grandfather, George Jarvis and his wife immigrated to the United States from England after joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After living in Boston for a number of years, the traveled to Utah and ultimately settled in St. George, Washington, Utah. As they traveled to St. George, Utah, they stopped and met some settlers in Toquerville, Utah, a town near St. George, the Parkinsons and the Stapley families. Years later, Eliza Ellen Parkinson married Henry Martin Tanner, my Great-grandfather. Ultimately, George and Ann Jarvis' Great-great-granddaughter married Henry and Eliza Tanner's son, Leroy Parkinson Tanner, my Grandfather. Henry Martin Tanner also married Eliza Ellen Parkinson's cousin, Emma Ellen Stapley.

Any traditional methodology for doing genealogical research would likely never discover this deep, and rich relationship or realize that these families knew each other for generations. Why will true research find these types of relationships? Because it proceeds serendipitously from topic to topic and from individual to individual. Those researchers who try to impose a rigid, linear structure, locked into compartmentalized filing systems, impose their own pattern on the data rather than allowing the data to reveal its own underlying pattern. The new graphically oriented tools such as Puzzilla.org are for the first time revealing one type of two dimensional relationships that have been previously obscured. The next step is to extend those relationships into three dimensions.

There are some programs out there that appear to be graphically three dimensional. However, they are graphic tricks. Their apparent additional dimensionality is not based on any additional criteria showing three dimensional relationships. When I refer to this ability, I mean that the software would show that the Jarvis family, the Parkinson family and the Stapley family knew each other and that their descendants intermarried. I am not talking about two dimensional relationships visualized in three dimensions. I am waiting for a graphic representation that will show that my mother and father were second cousins. To do this, the software must recognize this type of extended relationship.

The difference here is between shallow, two-dimensional relationships and rich, many dimensional relationships that only become apparent as research proceeds in an organic fashion. The problem I face in conceptualizing this type of organic research (growing in different directions at the same time) is that all two-dimensional representations are inadequate to show these complex and in many cases, beautifully chaotic relationships.

This extended series has all the hallmarks of continuing for some time. The goal of this series is to explore the concept of genealogical research and expand that concept to include the multi-faceted, organic nature of the process. This includes expanding the idea of research to include a truly multi-dimensional view of our shared ancestry.

Previous installments of this series include:

http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nineteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eighteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-seventeen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-sixteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fifteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-fourteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-thirteen.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-twelve.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eleven.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-ten-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-nine-am-i.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-elements-of-research-part-eight-on.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-seven-can.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-six-when.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-five.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-four.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-three.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-two.html
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-elements-of-research-part-one.html

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Nineteen: Solving Problems with Research

In order to make any progress in doing genealogical research, you need to be able to ask pertinent questions. You must examine what you already know and determine what you need to answer about your ancestors, recognizing that the information you need to answer your questions may be lurking somewhere in an historical document or record.

Remember that the terms, document, record, source, collections, etc. are slippery. Their usage by the greater genealogical community varies by the context of the reference to the terms and any distinctions are specific to the entity or person using the terms. For example, a collection on the FamilySearch.org Historical Record Collections, means something significantly different than the same word applied to a "collection" on Ancestry.com.

I will begin here by examining a quasi-hypothetical question and how it was answered. I use the term quasi-hypothetical because the question was real at one time, but now has been resolved through some rather simple research. I have used this example several times in my writing, but it is useful here again because it illustrates the concept of asking questions. Here is what was recorded in countless family trees and even in family surname books about my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner.

Henry Martin Tanner, b. 11 June 1852, San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California, d. 21 March, Gilbert, Maricopa, Arizona.

Now, this is not obvious, but I had a question about where he was born. Although the date of his birth is recorded and I had no reason to doubt the date, none of the various family trees, family group records or books referring to his birth date included any documentation. Perhaps there was no documentation of his birth, but the lack of documentation was a red flag to me that the information needed to be verified. The questions could be formulated as follows:

Where was Henry Martin Tanner born? When was he born?

Why would I doubt all the hundreds of entries I observed showing that he was born in San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California? Here is an example of a current entry in a current family tree on Ancestry.com.

From my point of view, the idea here is rather simply explained: any assertion without a supporting source is subject to question.

Why was this an issue? Where would I go to find a birth record for Henry Martin Tanner in the 1850s in California? Where would the records be kept? See, more questions to answer. Genealogical research is the process of answering these types of questions.

My first impulse is to determine whether or not the geographic locations in the record were accurately reported. For this, I went to the Newberry Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Very quickly, I found the timeline for San Bernardino County:

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Eighteen: Acquiring Research Skills

If I sit down at a microfilm viewer and begin searching for an ancestor, am I just searching or am I doing genealogical research? What is the relationship between searching and genealogical research? This may seem to be a question with an obvious answer, but I suggest that even though searching for an individual record can be a part of your research, "research," as a concept, involves much more than merely searching for ancestors.

My introduction to stamp collecting and collectables in general serves as a good example of the difference between a mere search and conducting research. As I have written previously, I started into my stamp collecting activity when I was about 9 or 10 years old. My interest went well beyond accumulating a box of stamps, I soon began to buy and trade stamps with other collectors and organized clubs and other stamp collecting events. I checked books out of the library and read about stamp collecting. It took me a while to appreciate the value of the stamps, but I soon became rather selective and specific in my collecting interests. The component of my activity that is pertinent to a discussion of research, is what I did to qualify myself to trade stamps on a rather sophisticated level. I soon learned that there were certain things I needed to know to keep from being taken advantage of by older, more experienced stamp collectors. I even got to the point, early on, of displaying my stamp collection at stamp shows or conventions.

Genealogy requires a certain skill set and genealogical research involves an additional, specialized skill subset all its own. These are all "learned skills," that is, they are not innate. You have to spend time learning and practicing before you understand how and why research works and how to do it effectively.

Let's assume you are just starting out exploring your family history. One of the first and most basic skills you need, is to understand the connection between documents and records and discovering information about your family. If you have already acquired this particular insight or skill, then you probably think the connection is obvious. However, my experience in helping people just starting their own research, is that the connection between discovering records and documents and adding information to a family tree is far from obvious. One of the best ways to gain this insight is to participate in an indexing program.

The activity of searching records can be time-consuming, tedious and very frustrating. It is even more frustrating if you equate searching with the entire research process. OK, so if I am not happy with the "traditional Research Cycle," what do I suggest in its place? Let's look at research as answering questions. What are the questions? That is the first step. You have to know enough to ask questions.

Too many people have come to me over the years and said something like this: I need to find my Great-great-(whatever) grandfather (mother, whatever), can you help me? The question here is "can you help me," not: who is my ancestor? The concept expressed by this petition is that the ancestor is sitting in a pile somewhere and I am supposed to help them "find" the ancestor. So what is the first question? I suggest that this is the first research question to answer:

What is the first documented (verified) location where an event occurred in the life of the ancestor? If there are no such documented events, then the only alternative is to move one or more generations towards the present time and ask the question again in each generation. Why is this the question to ask? Because any genealogical related records are going to be found associated with the records created from a specific event. At this point we need to think of records being created like a stack of pancakes. Each entity and jurisdiction, at every level, has the capacity to create a genealogically significant record. For example, military records may be created by the national government, in the U.S. today, birth and death records are maintained and created by the states, marriage records are created by the counties and so forth down to schools, churches, fraternal organizations, co-ops and all sorts of other entities and organizations. Without a specifically identified location, you are essentially sitting in the middle of a lake shooting at the water and hoping to hit a fish.

Now we are finally to the next book. This one is the following:

Anderson, Robert Charles. Elements of Genealogical Analysis. 2014.

The purpose of this book, as stated, is to help solve genealogical problems. In my view, what we do in genealogical research is solve genealogical problems. To solve those problems, we have to be able to formulate meaningful questions and find satisfactory answers. Those answers are supplied by historical documents and records.

Well, I am just getting going with this series. I still see a long row to hoe.

Monday, June 15, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Seventeen: The need for structure

The iconic image of a pedigree chart has become a symbol of genealogy for some of the world's family historians. True, this simple form of pedigree obscures a vast wealth of family relationships, but it is and was intended to focus the researcher on "direct lines" i.e. blood lines. For some, this same chart becomes an excuse for dismissing genealogy as shallow name gathering. But the real issue is not the icon but the direction and motivation of the process.

When I was a lot younger than I am today, I became an avid postage stamp collector, aka philatelist. This continued well into my married years. In fact, it would take very little to get me involved in collection stamps again. One side benefit of my stamp collecting activity was an expansive understanding of the political subdivisions of the world. I learned all about San Marino and Wurttemberg before most the children my age knew there was a place called Europe. This early geographic learning has helped me understand some aspects of genealogical research, now many, many years later.

Another thing I learned about the world from stamps was the need for some type of structure or organization. You could just shove all your stamps into a box or in a bag and forget about them. But if you wanted to "collect stamps" and have something to show for your work, you had to put them in pre-printed albums with spaces for all the stamps that existed. You could see at a glance what you had and what you didn't have.

Now did my collecting instinct push me into "collecting" my ancestors? Maybe for some people this may be the main motivation, but for me, collecting has not played an important part in my genealogical motivation. But what about all the stuff I have accumulated through my research including all the stuff that I inherited from relatives near and distant?

The ideas of organization and structure are the keys to a successful research effort. Unstructured research is like a ship without a rudder, it is left to drift where ever it may. Most of my genealogical life has been spent in imposing a structure on vast amounts of unstructured information from a variety of sources. You may decry the traditional looking pedigree chart, but biological relationships are the most common.

Today, you can choose many different ways of organizing your research efforts. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without structure and organization, your research is doomed to failure and confusion. I have spent many hours watching potential researchers thumb through their piles of paper, trying to remember and find information about a specific ancestor. Is the above basic pedigree chart a solution? Not at all. It is merely a stop-gap way of imposing a very limited view of the way families can be structured and organized. My Great-grandmother had a paper-based system of organization but by the time she had researched about 16,000 names, she repeated (duplicated) her research three times. Paper-based systems resist expansion past a certain number of individuals. Historically, libraries and other archives had to create a cataloging system to account for and keep track of their paper-based information.

Are computer-based systems the answer? Many people try to impose their own particular paper-based system (color-coding, individual files, file naming systems etc.) on the computer. If I go online and search for genealogical organization systems, I find dozens of different systems for "organizing your files." Guess what? This is exactly what computers do. Guess what else? I do not try to compete with computers and do what they do well. This is probably one area of genealogy where I get the most emotional disagreement. Everyone has their "system."

I use computer programs to organize my research. I enter all the information I find into a genealogy database program. Over the years, I have used more than a dozen such programs. What I find is that with the current programs all of the "organization" is accomplished within the program. No, I am not going to recommend any one program. But most of the current programs have some or all of the following categories of features:

Tagging individuals
Notes for every field of information
Source documentation
Documentation through attached links and media
Unlimited fields
Comprehensive search functions
Create reports
Allow you to publish your family history

Sunday, June 14, 2015

The Elements of Research -- Part Sixteen: Where will you go to search?

What is the origin of the formality of genealogy? Quoting from Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof ,

Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything... how to eat, how to sleep, even, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl... This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you - I don't know. But it's a tradition... Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.

Do genealogists follow certain rules and conform to certain formalities all because of "tradition?" It would certainly seem so. We do have a rather complicated set of traditions and following those traditions may not extend to how we eat, sleep and wear our clothes, but the certainly extend to almost everything else in our genealogical sphere of activity.

What is the interaction between our fundamental activity of research and these traditions? Sometimes, I believe, we substitute our traditions for actual, productive genealogical research activity. Some of us spend more time fussing with formalities that we do extending our knowledge and accumulating information.

When I write about formalities and genealogical traditions, I am not condemning all of them by any means. Some formalities and traditional ways of doing things are necessary for continuity and stability. But when we start making those same formalities and traditions binding on everyone who wants to learn about their ancestors, we start to create a huge burden that ultimately becomes exclusive rather than inclusive.

Where do these formalities and traditions come from in genealogy? Who started them in the first place? When did they start to be burdensome and confining rather than useful and helpful? It is time to go back into our genealogical history, not our ancestry, but the history of genealogy as a pursuit.

I am aware of only one book that has an over view of the history of genealogy in America. That book is,

Weil, François. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. 2013.

In order to have a perspective about our genealogical history, it is necessary to read the entire book, but here is a quote from page 168, that gives an idea of what I am writing about:

Once research had been carried on with appropriate skills and documentary evidence had been carefully gathered, information had to be organized properly. Chester, Whitmore, Waters, and many others repeatedly insisted on the necessity for genealogists to “follow one of the well known and approved modes of arrangement.” How-to books, like Whitmore’s Ancestral Tablets, were meant to help enthusiasts succeed in this all-important task. Scientific genealogists insisted on rules of presentation of pedigrees and authorities, which journals like the New England Historical and Genealogical Register attempted to spread to their readers.

Weil, François (2013-04-30). Family Trees (pp. 165-166). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

The book referred to is the one in the image at the start of this post. Here is the bibliographic information on that particular book:

Whitmore, William Henry, and Dean Dudley. Ancestral Tablets: A Collection of Diagrams for Pedigrees, so Arranged That Eight Generations of the Ancestors of Any Person May Be Recorded in a Connected and Simple Form. Boston: Wm. Parsons Lunt, 1871.

The literal descendents of this attempt to impose a decree of formality on genealogy are myriad. They include hundreds of computer genealogy programs and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of journals and other publications pertaining to genealogy that impose on their users a certain formality. The imposition of this formality requires the user to think and act in a certain way about their own ancestral research.

I can offer one personal example. When I wrote my Masters Thesis at the University of Utah, I had to write it on a typewriter. My wife, an English Major and English teacher at a local high school, spent at least as much time trying to get the document formatted and the citations correct, as I had spent writing the paper in the first place. How many of us, now in our advance age of computers, spend the majority of our time conforming to the "requirements" of the formal presentation of our research?

Dare I express the heresy that much of this formality interferes with actual the actual research process and reinforces form over substance?

Another quote from the Weil book is in order (I am certain I have used this quote before but it is once again appropriate):

It took a new generation of genealogists and new strategies to revive the fight for scholarly standards. Their assessment of American genealogy was harsh. “Conditions in the genealogical profession are unsatisfactory,” Donald Lines Jacobus explained in 1930. Anyone could become a professional genealogist. “No course of training is required, no examinations as to fitness have to be passed.” Genealogy, Jacobus regretted, often appealed “to many who lack the mentality for this kind of work, and who might be unsuccessful in other professions.”

Weil, François (2013-04-30). Family Trees (p. 167). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

There we have the dichotomy; on the one hand the need to accurately discover, evaluate, extract and report our research and on the other hand, the distinct movement that somehow, at its heart, genealogy should be a regulated and licensed profession like law, medicine and many others, including dog grooming.

So, research, whether into our own personal, ancestral heritage or into astro-physics comes with its own burden of tradition and formality. The difficult task we all face is the need to separate the essence of the research process from its background of tradition and formality. Here a quote attributed to author Michael Crichton is appropriate:

If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. Michael Crichton, Timeline (1999) p. 73.

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