Why Genealogy?

Listen to an audio file of this post on StoryPress at https://storypress.com/story/4237

Why, indeed! What is it that motivates people to research their ancestors? I am reminded of when I began my course of study at the University of Utah many years ago. For a number of what seem to me now complex reasons, as a new freshman, I enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps or ROTC. At the time, the Vietnam War was just beginning to become news in the United States. Most of the young men my age were staring at the prospect of being drafted into the Army. I soon found out that by enrolling in ROTC, I had made a commitment and that I would be drafted immediately if I chose to quit the program. Of course, if I completed the program, I would also have to serve in the Army.

As a result of my decision, I had classes in military history and strategy for four years. I am very sure that absent the incentive of being drafted into the Army as a private rather than serving as an officer, I would not have taken that many classes on the history of warfare. As a result of all of these hours and hours of learning about history from ancient times to the present, I began to understand the connection between the two. I could see that decisions made many thousands of years ago could have a real impact on modern events. As I have mentioned in previous posts, all of this study of history kindled an interest in the cause and effect relationship of the past to the present.

This idea of a connection to the past was reinforced by my later legal training. In law school, we not only studied the connection of the past with the present, we used the principle of stare decisis or legal precedent to resolve current controversies by reference to historical court decisions.

These very intense and specific experiences in using history in a very practical and currently relevant way has helped to motivate me into the more personal investigation of my own family stretching back into the past.

If you know or can guess more about my background, you might attribute my interest in genealogy to my religious beliefs. You would be right in a sense, but it would be extremely simplistic to automatically equate my religious background as the entire basis for an interest in researching my ancestors. If there were such a direct connection, then members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, individually, would be much more inclined to involvement in genealogy than the rest of the population. It is true that there are individuals in the Church whose interest in family history stems entirely from a religious orientation, but by and large, genealogists both inside and outside the Church draw on other, more complex, motivations.

Investigation into the motivation of genealogists generally is almost entirely absent. One recent attempt is the following book,

Zerubavel, Eviatar. Ancestors and Relatives Genealogy, Identity, and Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Eviatar Zerubavel is the Board of Governors Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. One of the interesting things about this book is that a prominent genealogist, Megan Smolenyak,  dismisses the book with the comment that the author had neglected to speak to any genealogists. I would have to agree with Megan. However, my question would be, why would we suppose that genealogists would understand why they are genealogists? On the other hand, I would assume if you were writing a book about attorneys, you might want to know something about them and talk to a few. I think the same thing about genealogists.

The author points out early in the book that "our ancestral background affects not only how others see us but even how we experience ourselves." See page 5. I see much more to genealogy than simply a voyage of self discovery. As I learn more about my ancestors, I can become more closely connected to the present. The ramifications of investigating the past can be much more than simply opening a path to self-awareness, as Zerubaval points out, it can also be a way to construct a set of relationships. Unfortunately, his examples of how genealogy reacts with society are almost uniformly negative and are aimed at how genealogy has been used as a tool of political, cultural, and social repression. Perhaps this is a reflection of his lack of involvement in the actual process of genealogy. Contrary to the examples of the negative uses of genealogy in establishing social orders, clans and caste systems, genealogy can be and generally is a way to open the past and make it personal. It is one thing to learn about great military battles, it is similar but more relevant to learn about the struggles and conquests of our own ancestors.

I did not become interested in genealogy because of any of the bad uses that have been made of genealogy in the past. Genealogy opens history and history opens your world. Why genealogy? Because it is one of the few things I became interested in that was not age or time dependent. I can no longer ski down the face of High Rustler at Alta. I can no longer crawl through miles of caves or free climb cliffs, but I can delve into a fascinating world where my own ancestors come alive.

Researching In-depth by James Tanner

This is a continuation of a previous class on research. In this class I take a closer look at one of the class member's difficult-to-fine ancestors. This is part of the ongoing series of videos being uploaded by the Brigham Young University Family History Library's YouTube Channel. They are getting close to having a hundred videos online on a huge variety of genealogical subjects.

The Genealogical Research Process

First Winter Snow by James Tanner

The first question I would ask is this: what is the goal of genealogical research? Next, what does it mean that a person is a genealogist or family historian? (Note: In this post, as I have in past, I use both the terms "genealogy" and "family history" as synonyms). If we were to conform with the common definition of a genealogist from the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary: "a person who traces or studies the descent of persons or families," most of us would find ourselves severely confined. I would use a much broader definition: "one who researches and investigates, records and organizes family relationships and history." We are certainly not limited to a particular line of descent or, in other words, limited to investigating descendants only. The vast majority of genealogical researchers investigate their ancestry going back in time, although those who trace the descendants of a specific ancestor are quite common.

My questions above go beyond a definition of genealogists or genealogy. What are our goals? If someone handed you your entire documented genealogy going back 12 generations, would you consider your "job" to be finished? Why or why not? I would submit that some of the reasons genealogical research has any attraction at all is because it is open-ended and difficult. From my perspective, if genealogy were easy, I would have no interest in it at all. So making genealogy "easy" is one way to substantially lessen its appeal. My mental analogy is comparing genealogy to mountain climbing. When George Mallory was asked why he want to climb Mount Everest, he responded, "Because its there." (From an interview "Climbing Mount Everest is work for Supermen", The New York Times(18 March 1923). In this sense, I agree with Mallory; I do genealogy because it is there. It is both a mental and a physical challenge. Since I can no longer climb the high physical mountains of my youth, I look to the infinitely higher mountains of genealogy in my old age.

When I climbed a mountain, the goal was easily defined: to reach the top. The goal in being involved in genealogy is more amorphous. It is even more difficult to define when you have reached your goal.

No one is born with the skill of doing research. It is true that we may be born with certain skills that endow us with qualities that make learning the things that are necessary to do research easier. But, nevertheless, research is a skill that must be acquired by practice. However, the analogy is better understood if you view climbing as an activity and the individual mountains as waypoints. I climbed my first mountain when I about seven years old. We were driving by a volcanic cinder cone on the Colorado Plateau called appropriately, Cinder Knoll,  and I asked if I could climb to the top. My father let me go and I ran up to the top of the hill. I can still remember standing on top and look out across the Plateau. I could see for miles. That process of opening up my view of the world changed my life. From that point on, a lot of what I did involved climbing and mountains.

I had a similar experience with genealogy. When I first began to investigate my ancestry, it opened up a new vista. I was transported from being time-bound individual into a part of the seemingly endless stream of family extending back into the past for generations. Just like with mountain climbing, I spent much of my time from that point on investigating my family. In fact, now genealogy has largely replaced mountain climbing. Although, I did spend an afternoon with my brother-in-law last weekend, walking in the canyon and talking about the cliffs and climbing.

There are many skills in mountain climbing. I began the process of really learning those skills when I found a book called the freedom of the hills. Here is the reference to the 50th anniversary edition:

Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills : 50th Anniversary 1960-2010. Shrewsbury: Quiller, 2010.
In genealogy, my beginning in really learning the skills of genealogy began with a book. That book was:

Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. 2013.
Of course, my introduction was with a much earlier edition of the book. As this book points out, one of the most prominent activities in doing one's genealogy is that of research. Research is the equivalent of the physical activity involved in climbing.

In high school, or some equivalent educational experience, many of us were introduced to the world of "research" by doing a "research paper." This activity consisted mostly of taking notes on 3" x 5" cards and turning those notes into a short essay on some subject we selected, either from a list supplied by the teacher or from topics we made up and got "approved." As a result, many students (perhaps most) were soured on the whole concept of research. I find that very few people, outside of professions requiring research, voluntarily do research just because it is there.

But both climbing and genealogy share this same activity if we substitute the word "explore" for the word "research." Both involve the systematic investigation of the unknown. When we research our ancestors, we investigate, study, inquire, analyze, scrutinize and review what we do know and then move on to investigate etc. what we do not know with the expectation that we will learn more. As we climb the foothills of genealogy, we keep seeing glimpses of the elusive peak, just beyond view, and we keep going. The goal of genealogy is the process of learning and our increasing understanding of our own lives and how we fit into the stream of history. In this sense, we are climbing a mountain whose top we will never reach.