The Demanding Genealogist

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T03:57:00.001-08:00

Three adjectives to be used with the word genealogist.

2011-11-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

I do think that the field of genealogy has shown a desire to draw distinctions within genealogy as to how each individual is practicing it. My offering to this discussion is to define three adjectives used with the term genealogist. They are not mutually exclusive adjectives.

A scholarly genealogist is one to endeavors to be careful in his or her research and writing, following genealogical standards and participating in continuing educational opportunities.

An avocational genealogist is one who follows it as a hobby. An avocational genealogist is unpaid. An avocational genealogist could well be a scholarly genealogist in his or her genealogy work. Newcomers to genealogy have many avenues open to them for learning and expanding their skills sets, from meetings of local societies to online training and educational resources (both free and paid) to college-level formal education.

A professional genealogist is one who is paid for his or her work in genealogy in any one of several roles, such as teaching, writing, blogging, hosting radio programs, doing client research, or lecturing. We all hope that professional genealogists are also scholarly genealogists and that they also continue to learn.

And, let me just say while on this topic, an embarrassment to us all is someone who plugs dates and locations into a form without engaging in a thoughtful process. I hesitate to add an adjective to the word genealogist in this case so that I won’t be quotable on the topic.

My point here is that scholarly genealogy is a goal for all of us, whether or not we are paid for our work. All too often as we begin the discussion about doing better genealogy, we get waylaid by the discussion about whether we can do great work without getting paid for it. We can also go astray when the discussion begins to engage on licensing or on scientific methodology.

Let us all meet each other – hobbyist and professional alike – under the banner of scholarly genealogists.

In genealogy, all roads are good.

2011-11-14T05:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve been noodling around the internet, searching on blog postings that discuss professionalism and genealogy. I’ve found some interesting postings that are worth considering in our discussion of professionalism and genealogy. I hope you get a chance to read and consider them as we go forward in our discussion.

Mary and Jim Petty currently have 39 blog postings on the topic Professionalizing Professional Genealogy. Mary’s astute observations on the blurriness of the use of the word professional includes the following observation, “While commercial Genealogical Research Services has not professionalized, attempts to use the adjective ‘professional’ as a ‘noun’ or ‘state of being’ for the personal, volunteer, or pro bono publico aspects are taking place.”[1] In blog postings and on email listserves, Mary has discussed her desire to require licensing in the field.[2]

Michael Hait recently responded to Mary’s restricted definition of professional genealogist. Michael observed that people make a living from genealogy by pursuing many more activities than just research. He pointed out, “Like a freelance writer, the sole qualification to be a professional genealogist should be that one is able to perform the job that one is hired or paid to do.”[3]

With a fresh perspective from the other side of this particular coin, Greta Koehl posted about the advantages of not being a professional in genealogy.[4]

Unlike medicine, genealogy has no barriers to entry. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are genealogists. Like writing, genealogy has a range of different types of practitioners. In writing, there are freelance writers, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, newspaper reporters, bloggers, high school students writing term papers, and anyone who keeps a diary. Both genealogy and writing are at once a hobby, an academic methodology, and a paid career.

My experience over the years is that there are many reasons for individuals to become genealogists. For me, there was satisfaction in extending my knowledge and in learning about what life was like for my ancestors in different periods and in different countries. Classically, people come to genealogy in an effort to make their own knowledge of family accessible to their grandchildren. For others, a sense of origin is important. Some endeavor to fill in as many blanks as possible in their pedigree charts, carefully evaluating evidence as they go. In episodes of the American and British Who Do You Think You Are? television series, celebrities often desire to explore the less-known or less-famous parts of their families.[5] Many join lineage organizations to celebrate famous or infamous forebears. Let me be clear on this: I regard every effort in genealogy as a legitimate effort. All have value.

All roads are good.

[1] Mary Petty, “What constitutes a genealogist?” 6 May 2009, Heirlines Professional Genealogy Blog; http://heirlinesprofessionalgenealogy.com/what-constitutes-a-genealogist/ : accessed 13 Nov 2011.

[2] Mary Petty, “APG at a Crossroads,” 16 Nov 2006, Heirlines Professional Genealogy Blog; http://heirlinesprofessionalgenealogy.com/apg-at-a-crossroads/ : accessed 13 Nov 2011.

[3] Michael Hait, “What is a professional genealogist?” 7 Nov 2011, Planting the Seeds; http://michaelhait.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/what-is-a-professional-genealogist/ : accessed 13 Nov 2011.

[4] Greta Koehl, “Why I Want to Remain an Amateur,” 6 Nov 2011, Greta’s Genealogy Blog; http://gretabog.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-i-want-to-remain-amateur.html : accessed 13 Nov 2011.

[5] “Martin Freeman,” Who Do You Think You Are? BBC television; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPHPcJQI36c : viewed 13 Nov 2011, 5 parts. “Susan Sarandon,” Who Do You Think You Are? 2010, NBC television; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVO345fSqK4 : viewed 13 Nov 2011.

What does the word “professional” mean in genealogy?

2011-11-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Jacobus, in writing his “Preface” to the first issue under the title The American Genealogist, noted that the the editorial staff of the journal consisted of both amateur and professional genealogists.[1] In so doing, he drew a line between those who do genealogy for gain and those who do not. He also set them into one group of equal colleagues.

If any term can be seen to create furor on a genealogy email list, it would be the word “professional.”[5] Mail-list readers bring to the discussion their own understandings. Underwriting much of the discussion is the concern: is it elitist? Does it exclude genealogists who simply don’t work for others?

The dictionary definition of this word is only part of the problem. Does it apply only to those who earn money by doing genealogy? or does it apply to all those who are scholarly in their pursuit? The extent to which conduct and skills as well as financial gain are involved in the definition varies.

“Professionalism” Definition: Subtopic	Present in Wikipedia[2]	Present in Webster’s[3]	Present in Dictionary.com[4]
Expert knowledge	X
Expert skill set	X		X
High-quality work	X
High standard of ethics; character	X		X
Relationships with colleagues	X		X
Work morale and motivation; conduct	X	X	X
Participating for gain	X	X	X

Being or becoming professional in genealogy is a hot topic these days. The Association of Professional Genealogists has a Professional Development Committee.[6] In addition, an email list-serve independent of APG has developed called the Transitional Genealogists Forum. TGF is for those who are at any point in the process of becoming professional.[7] The ProGen Study Groups have developed, also independently of APG, ~~to offer~~ an eighteen-month program of study on the topic.[8] Whatever it is that sets a professional aside from an experienced or an amateur or a hobbyist in genealogy is clearly a hot topic.

A professional in medicine or law has special training and licensing. One of the reasons it is hard to discuss the definition of professional within genealogy is the fact that one does not have to be specially educated or licensed to participate — or to love participating. Genealogy encompasses researchers with a wide variety of backgrounds as well as a wide variety of goals. Thus, it becomes important to be able to discuss professionalism while at the same time maintaining respect for the goals and capabilities of beginners or hobbyists.

Few other fields have this compass. Golf does as do other sports, but comparing what many of us see as a scholarly pursuit to a sport is a difficult jump to make.

This is an area in which we as genealogists need to continue to learn, dialog, and think. What do you think?

[1] Donald Lines Jacobus, “Preface,” The American Genealogist 9 (1932-1933): xiv; www.americanancestors.org : viewed 1 Nov 2011. Note that one achieves the page of roman numeral xiv by searching for page 1, then clicking for the “previous” page twice.

[2] “Professionalism,” Wikipedia, 2011; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional : viewed 2 Nov 2011.

[3] “Professionalism,” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2011; http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/professionalism : viewed 2 Nov 2011.

[4] “Professionalism” and “professional,” Dictionary.com; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/professional : viewed 2 Nov 2011. The last definition the site :gives for “professional” is: “following as a business an occupation ordinarily engaged in as a pastime: a professional golfer.”

[5] See http://mailman.modwest.com/pipermail/apgpubliclist/2011-July/thread.html for the stress the word professionalism put into one email thread on the now-defunct APG Public List. See http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/theorygen/message/914 for the beginning of a message thread addressing professionalism on the public Yahoo group Theorygen. You may have to log in to Yahoo groups, but you don’t have to log in to Theorygen.

[6] For more information, see http://www.apgen.org/contacts/committee.html .

[7] See subscription information at http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Miscellaneous/TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM.html .

[8] See descriptive information at http://www.progenstudy.org/index.html .

Whoever started the idea that a genealogist could be demanding?

2011-11-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

Donald Lines Jacobus is widely recognized as the father of modern genealogy. As such, he was the first person inducted into the Genealogy Hall of Fame by the National Genealogical Society:

Donald Lines Jacobus, FASG (1887–1970), of New Haven, Connecticut, was the first person elected to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame. He was nominated for this honor by the American Society of Genealogists, the Genealogical Society of Utah, and the DuPage County (IL) Genealogical Society. During his lifetime, Jacobus was widely regarded as the dean of American genealogists, and he is recognized as the founder of the modern school of genealogy in the United States. He was the editor and publisher of The American Genealogist for forty-three years, and he may have been the most prolific genealogical writer of any generation. His writings include the classic, Genealogy as Pastime and Profession. On his death, he was described by his colleague Milton Rubincam, as "the man who more than any other single individual elevated genealogy to the high degree of scholarship it now occupies." [1]

The first eight issues of the journal Jacobus began were devoted to the genealogy of the earliest families in New Haven, Connecticut. As this topic ended, Jacobus renamed the journal The American Genealogist. The first paragraph of his “Preface” to that edition gave his goals:

The American Genealogist is an independent journal of genealogy, not connected with any society or organization. Its editorial staff is a voluntary association of genealogists, professional and amateur, who are giving their time and services to aid in producing “a quarterly of quality” for the benefit of all who are interested in the subject.[2]

This paragraph continues with a call-to-arms that was characterized as “blunt” in the 75^th edition of TAG.[3]

The aim is to elevate the standards of genealogical scholarship, while at the same time providing readable and helpful articles for those who are seeking knowledge. We will not print junk or bunk, nor warmed-over data filched from the pages of earlier investigators. We demand documentation, and maintain that the only primary sources of knowledge are official records and contemporary writings. We will ruthlessly expose blunders and long-accepted errors, and will correct our own mistakes if we are misguided in our statements.[4]

That sentiment is 79 years old, but still can draw gasps. In celebration of NaNoBloMo, I began thirty days of definitions and thoughts on the subject of scholarly genealogy and its beginnings and meaning.

NaNoBloMo is an undertaking to blog daily through the month of November. For more information, see http://www.blogher.com/blogher-topics/blogging-social-media/nablopomo.

[1] National Genealogical Society, “NGS Genealogy Hall of Fame Members,” National Genealogical Society; http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/past_halloffame_winners : viewed 1 Nov 2011. The photo of Jacobus is from this page as well.

[2] Donald Lines Jacobus, “Preface,” The American Genealogist 13 9 (1932-1933): xiv; www.americanancestors.org : viewed 1 Nov 2011. Note that one achieves the page of roman numerals by searching for page 1, then clicking for the “previous” page twice.

[3] David L. Greene, "Donald Lines Jacobus, Scholarly Genealogy, and The American Genealogist," The American Genealogist 72 (July/October 1997): 166, which also reproduces this partial paragraph.

[4] Jacobus, “Preface,” TAG 13 (1932-1933): xiv.

"Genealogies Aren't Found -- They're Made"

2011-10-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

For centuries in the West the genetic/biological description of family has been highly correlated with Western religious and political views of family. Each person has one sperm-supplying parent, and one egg-supplying parent, i.e., two parents of opposite sexes: exactly the type of couple able to marry in mainstream Judeo-Christian churches; and exactly the type of couple defined legally at the U.S. federal level by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

But is this the only definition of “kinship”? A recent author notes:

Whatever the arrangement and whoever the people are, it is important to record the family unit “as is.” Therefore, when you record two individuals in a relationship portray it on a family group sheet… If there are children produced from a nontraditional pairing, show them as you normally would, as issue from the union.[1]

In the real world, a child’s parents might be parents through biology, parents through adoption, parents through egg or semen donation, parents through marriage, foster parents, or family members who are not biological parents to that particular child. The City of Boston even has a public housing unit set aside specifically for families in which children are being raised by grandparents.

The reality of a family can wander all over the place. It can be far more complex than one male parent and one female parent. My own daughter legally has one mother and one father. She has in reality one birth mother, one birth father, one adoptive mother, one adoptive father, and two stepmothers. The kid has six parents, two full-blood siblings, and seven half-blood siblings. When she was in kindergarten, local people “knew” she was my only child. When she told her classmates about her siblings, she was called a liar. Harsh words for a kid who was telling the truth to a bunch of other kids who didn’t know how complex families can be.

When we get into just who it is that we research, even more complexity can come into play. What are the dynamics of the family in which a child grew up? Was the focus on one social/cultural part of their extended kinship network?

When I first started doing genealogy, I filled in my pedigree chart. I did family group sheets for each couple in the pedigree chart. I was happy just so long as I could keep adding names to that chart. Then the second level of genealogy infected me. I wanted more than names and dates. I wanted the stories of the people. I remember exactly when I made this transition. I was reading my fourth great grandfather’s pension application – only in order to figure out his birth date for the chart – when I could hear his words, as if he was talking to me. From there, I had to learn about the battles in which he had fought and the life he had lived in the old hometown. I was hooked. Consequently, I get fewer names onto the pedigree chart, but I know far more about each person.

Recently Josh Rothman, a blogger for the Boston Globe under the blog name Brainiac, reviewed a book on genealogy. His opening blog paragraph caught my attention:

In recent years, interest in genealogy has become a globe-conquering phenomenon; now, with the rise of consumer genetics, we can expect them to become ever more detailed and far-reaching. In Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community, Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutgers, pulls back the curtain on the genealogical obsession. Genealogies, he argues, aren't the straightforward, objective accounts of our ancestries we often presume them to be. Instead, they're heavily curated social constructions, and are as much about our values as they are about the facts of who gave birth to whom.[2]

His newspaper presentation differs slightly (the Ideas & Books section has an editor who is perhaps responsible for the memorable ending to the paragraph):

In recent years, interest in genealogy has become a globe-conquering phenomenon – people everywhere are combing birth records, and even traveling abroad, to unearth the “real story” about their ancestral roots. What, though, are they really finding? In “Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community,” Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutger’s University, argues that genealogies aren’t really the straightforward, objective accounts we often presume them to be. Instead they’re heavily curated social constructions, which tell us as much about our own values as they do about our origins. Genealogies aren’t found – they’re made.[3]

The profound insight appears to be that we have complex families and that we apply presentism in some way to our understanding of the past. He is saying that what we say and what we focus on says more about us than about our ancestors. The bottom line is that we pick and choose the ancestors that interest us the most. Then we view them with our contemporary understandings and values.

I actually didn’t find this to be news. This put me in mind of a genealogy book review over twelves years old:

Although the author succeeded in treating the social changes of the twentieth century, the reviewer was left with a few questions – not about the book, but about how we write our own family histories. We print them on acid-free paper and bind them with library binding, clearly planning that they will still be on the shelves in four or five generations. How will society’s perceptions and understandings change in 150 years? One hundred years ago, an author might have seen alcoholism as moral degeneracy. Twenty years ago, it was seen as a disease. There are still some members of American society who see alcoholism as a habit from which sufferers can easily recover. What, really, will our great grandchildren see in the story of an alcoholic? We can surmise that they will read it with the eyes of people who know far more than we do about its possible genetic origins. In addition, they will also see the moral and cultural slant of the author who tells the story. Our own values will become visible through the voices with which we write.

Actually, this brings to mind a truism from interior decorating. What remains fresh the longest are designs which draw on classical and traditional influences. What become dated fast are designs which attempt to be fully contemporary, thus becoming immediately recognizable as those of a distinct, and limited, time period… How much should we reveal? And how much does what we tell reveal about ourselves?[4]

The photo above is one I took today at the local Barnes and Noble store. It shows the genealogy books available there. Because I was quoting George, I thought showing his book (and Megan's) on how to do genealogy might be fun. Online genealogy is certainly a big topic there.

[1] George C. Morgan, How to Do Everything: Genealogy, Second Edition (McGraw Hill Prof. Med./Tech., 2009), 64.

[2] Josh Rothman, “Are Genealogies Just Social Constructs?” Brainiac blog posting dated 19 Oct 2011, The Boston Globe; http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2011/10/are_genealogies.html : viewed 25 Oct 2011.

[3] Josh Rothman, “Are Genealogies Just Social Constructs?” The Boston Sunday Globe, issue of 23 October 2011, section K, page 4.

[4] Barbara Jean Mathews, CG, book review, “A Dutch-English Odyssey: Stories of Brewer and Estey Families in North America,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 153 (April 1999): 244.

Playing Dominos: the Illumination of the Non-Authoritative

2011-10-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Indexes, abstracts, and transcriptions have their places in research. I learned something new about that last week in Salt Lake City. There a respected New England researcher and writer helped me with my transcription of the will and inventory from the estate of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut.

The governor wrote his own will. For many years he was also secretary of the General Court, that is, the colonial legislature of Connecticut. The colony’s Fundamental Orders are in his handwriting. It is consistent in its presentation. Each letter form is unique. This would be absolutely wonderful if not for the fact that the governor’s handwriting was old-fashioned for his time. I’ve found that headaches can ensue when I deal with the written hand of either Thomas Welles or Matthew Grant, great record-keepers but old-school in handwriting style.

The governor’s estate file is on microfilm, but the documents in the file are negative photostats.[1] The other files filmed that day appear to contain original documents, so this was a conundrum for me originally. I used every trick in the book to create the most legible photocopy possible but I was still missing quite a few words.

Apparently many decades ago, staff members at the Connecticut State Library pulled the original estate documents of several famous people and put them into two flat files. I imagine that they could then be monitored more easily. I’ve been working on a book on the governor’s descendants for ten years now, but only last fall learned about the flat files. I thus went to Salt Lake City armed with photographs of several original wills and other documents from that period in Hartford. This is why I love my smartphone. I could pull up those wills and expand the photograph until each word could be read separately.

The governor’s will has been transcribed by others before me. The version most widely available is by Charles William Manwaring in his abstracts of the probate court record books to 1750.[2] The inventory had not been fully explored in this way.

The copy of the will and inventory in the probate court record book were more readable, but the inventory omitted the structure that showed the rooms. This makes sense, doesn’t it? The clerk was fitting as much as he could into the book’s space whereas the appraisers had a full sheet of paper. The probate court clerk in 1660 was familiar with the older style of handwriting than I was and therefore could act as my interpreter.

On the third floor of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Bob Anderson tutored me. We had my photograph of the original inventory (written in haste and somewhat sloppily by John Cotton), his photocopy of the record book copy (with a huge scratch obliterating one row of writing), and the library’s online access to the Oxford English Dictionary, I learned to figure out how 17^th century words were used. What I thought was a silk rug? Now it’s a list rug with a footnote that a list was a border. The linen[?] cupboard that confused me (I thought they would have called it a linen press) is now a livery cupboard. Although the O.E.D. admits that the word today is used to denote uniforms, in the 17^th century livery was also used to describe food and drink. That cupboard stored comestibles which is perhaps why it also stored the beer bowl, wine cup and silver spoons.

It is like a line of dominoes standing on their edges. Push the first down and they all fall down in order. We have the governor’s original handwriting set into a newer hand by the court clerk. Then we have Manwaring reading a book written in one clerk’s hand. By comparing either one of those transcriptions back against the original, I can assess how much I agree and how much I need to learn.

Mills cautions us to take into account the skill of the creator.[4] In this case, I learned to piggyback my understanding on the skills of earlier transcribers.

We apply the term “genealogy” to families, but Foucault also applied it to the development of ideas.[3] Others have applied the term to the development of derivative documents from original documents. We often stop at the thought that derivative documents don't have the authority of the original. They don’t, of course, but they can sometimes be illuminating.

[1] State of Connecticut, estate case files, Hartford Probate District Court, file no. 5860, Thomas Welles (1659/60); FHL microfilm 1,022,268.

[2] Charles William Manwaring, A Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records, 3 volumes (Hartford, R.S. Peck & Co., 1904-1906); governor’s estate 1:161-163.

[3] Johanna Oksala, How to Read Foucault (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 45-54.

[4] Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007), 33.

Objects in the Mirror Are Not Authoritative: The "Indirect Citation"

2011-10-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier I updated the Homer and Charry ahnentafel entries with citations to church and vital records indexes. Each of these citations noted what the index stated about where to find the original record. I write as I research. This indirect citation is thus an interim step. If an index provides a volume and page number, I put it in the working citation. If a book cites gravestones or vital records, I quote the book's information in the footnote. This is a useful habit for the "res-write" process,[1] that is, synchronized research and writing, because it stores that interim step. The next research step is to use that index information to find the original record.

Sadly enough, if I am working on my family, I sometimes go no farther than the indirect citation. Connecticut is my specialty area and my family's origins. It is in Connecticut that the massive Barbour index to vital records to 1850 tempts me every time. I can do four Barbour look-ups in the time it takes to mount a microfilm reel and view the record itself. If I viewed it, I could cite it. But I don't view it so that citation stays indirect and quotes the slip index citing the location.

The credibility of my work product would improve if I went to the vital records (or their microfilm copies) every time. As genealogical standards state, "The original is the most authoritative source."[2] Not much room for argument there.

[1] This is a term I coined for my speech "Research and Reporting the Right Way -- Together!" It reminds me of Research-Write/Right, which I like.

[2] Board for Certification of Genealogists, The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual (Washington, D.C.: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2000), Standard 21, pp. 8-9.

Isn’t an Ahnentafel all about Who the Parents Are?

2011-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Producing a credible work product means employing the qualities of trustworthiness and expertise. How can we achieve a greater level of expertise? One way to show competence is to use better quality sources. With those, we show that we can weigh sources and that we have knowledge of where to find such sources. In a brief hour in Hartford weeks ago, I was able to gather index entries that will lead me to better sources.

Being an avid genealogist, I did enjoy digging around to find the sources for the events regarding Homer and Charry. It was satisfying to link the actual contents of the sources with the facts they supported. One overarching “fact” however is not stated explicitly in their entries or in most ahnentafels. That fact is the identity of each individual’s parents. As I continue to explore reliable sources for Homer and Charry, I will start noting which sources identify parents.

I posted the ahnentafel entries for Homer and Charity “Charry” (Everett) Curtiss earlier using the sources originally provided in the online family tree which originally misled Wikipedia. A quick search of slip indexes at the Connecticut State Library revealed a few more details. Those are indexes and thus they point us to original records. I haven’t spent more time yet, beyond a brief attempt to read the Salisbury church records prior to 1797. Even so, I’m making an interim update to the Homer and Charry entries using what sources I’ve seen so far.

[Travelogue Warning - 1 paragraph] I write as I research. My preferred work style while I’m at a library is to run back to my computer and update the word processing file or genealogy database as soon as I find something. It’s the only way I keep things straight in my head. For now, until I get another free hour in Hartford, the indexes are the closest thing I have to better records. They are what I will cite. I also plan to find Evidence Explained here in Salt Lake City so I can double-check the citations to the Barbour Index. If I were at home, it would be on the shelf next to my desk.

#122, Homer Curtiss, b. 30 May 1787 in Warren, Connecticut, the son of Augustin and Lodema Curtiss;[1] bapt. 31 Aug. 1800 in Warren on the right of his mother Lodema, wife of Augustin Curtiss;[2] d. 30 Apr. 1886, bur. in Waverly, Morgan Co., Illinois;[3] m. 25 Oct. 1810.[4]

#123, Charity “Charry” Everett, b. 16 Oct. 1790;[5] bapt. 20 July 1800 in Warren by right of Abner Everett and his wife;[6] d. 30 Dec 1876, bur. in Waverly where she shares a headstone with Homer.[7]

It makes me a happy genealogist to know which records confirm Homer and Charry’s parents, who will later become numbers 244, 245, and 246, Charry’s mother, number 247, just needs a tad more work. A name would be nice. From the structure of the baptism record, it appears that she herself was a church member, so that is a place to start a search.

On October 2^nd a handful of lucky New England genealogists attended a three-hour, hands-on workshop about footnotes and source citations presented by Thomas W. Jones, Sr., PhD, CG, CGL, FASG. He made the point that a citation has two over-arching goals. One is to permit you or anyone else to find the source again. The second is to provide enough information about the source that the reader can assess and weigh it.[8] In the realm of the practical, the workshop has helped me to understand better how to combine two sources into one footnote, which this ahnentafel project requires.

[1] Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records, Warren Vital Records 1:21 [slip index], Connecticut State Library, Hartford.

[2] Connecticut Church Records Index, Warren Church of Christ 2:45 [slip index], Connecticut State Library.

[3] Laura Guthrie Curtis Preston, The Curtis Family: a Record of some of the Descendants of Deodatus Curtis of Braintree, Massachusetts (Marietta, Ohio: self-pub., 1945), 33. Photograph of gravestone: Cheryl Behrend and Paula Berry Nelson, “Homer Curtiss,” Memorial # 11767168, Find-A-Grave; www.findagrave.com : 6 Oct 2011.

[4] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33. Note that the wife’s name is unidentified in Charles H. Weygant, The Sacketts of

America

: Their Ancestors and Descendants, 1630-1907 (Newburgh, New York: [journal print,] 1907), 254.

[5] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33.

[6] Connecticut Church Records Index, Warren Church of Christ 2:43 [slip index].

[7] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33. Photograph of gravestone: Behrend and Nelson, “Homer Curtiss,” Find-A-Grave.

[8] Thomas W. Jones, Sr., “Seeing the Forest AND the Trees: Mastering the Craft of Genealogical Documentation,” workshop presented to the New England Chapter of APG, 2 October 2011, Boston University. The chapter plans to make this available in DVD format.

What Would Homer and Charry’s Ahnentafel Entry Look Like with Source Citations?

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

In an earlier posting, I looked at Homer and Charity “Charry” (Everett) Curtiss, who were ancestors 122 and 123 in an online ahnentafel.[1] That ahnentafel had some sources listed under Homer’s entry. There were several issues with how those sources were listed. My complaint was that they were not linked to the particular statements of fact that they supported.

Homer and Charry with Source Citations Linked to Facts

Here is what I think the ahnentafel entry on Homer and Charry would look like if its source citations were done in a standard format. I haven’t changed the presentation of facts in this entry nor have I changed which sources were used in any significant way. I’ve simply attached citations to statements of fact.

#122. Homer Curtiss, b. 30 May 1787 CT;[2] d. 30 Apr 1886 Waverly, Morgan Co., IL;[3] m. 25 Oct 1810[4]

#123. Charity Everett, b. 16 Oct 1789/90 CT;[5] d. 30 Dec 1876[6]

Have We Succeeded in Creating a Credible Work Product?

When I first ran those online citations down, astute blog readers noted that the quality of the sources used was not the best. Citations allow us to weigh the reliability of what we are reading. The three books in particular set off warning bells. The Weygant book fails to supply dates, locations, or even the name of Homer’s wife, although it does list several children. The Carter genealogy fails to marry Homer off at all. Only the Curtiss book provides full dates, locations and names. None of the books includes source citations.

The Find-a-Grave site provides a photograph of a shared gravestone. One reader pointed out that the stone’s design may be more recent than the 1886 death of Homer. This is a serious question. If the stone was more recent, then there is a possibility that it was installed far from the time in which the events happened. The stone only carries years of birth and death.

In seeking to find a credible way to present this genealogical information, we have come closer to showing the qualities of being well-intentioned and truthful as we have shown the limitations of what we know. We have also shown a small amount of expertise, as we have linked the statements of fact to individual source citations. Better sources are available. By using them, we could improve the credibility and reliability of the ahnentafel work product.

[1] Robert Battle, Michael Hurdle [contributor], “Ancestry of Sarah Palin,” updated 15 Sept. 2008, Rootsweb; www.rootsweb.ancestry.com : 6 Oct 2011.

[2] Howard Williston Carter, Carter: a Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas Carter of Reading and Weston, Mass., and of Hebron and Warren, Ct., also Some Account of Some Descendants of his Brothers, Eleazer, Daniel, Ebenezer and Ezra, Sons of Thomas Carter and Grandsons of Rev. Thomas Carter, First Minister of Woburn, Massachusetts, 1642 (Norfolk, Connecticut: self-pub., 1909), 38. Laura Guthrie Curtis Preston, The Curtis Family: a Record of some of the Descendants of Deodatus Curtis of Braintree, Massachusetts (Marietta, Ohio: self-pub., 1945), 33.

[3] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33. Photograph of gravestone: Cheryl Behrend and Paula Berry Nelson, “Homer Curtiss,” Find-A-Grave, Memorial # 11767168; www.findagrave.com : 6 Oct 2011.

[4] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33. Note that the wife’s name is unidentified in Charles H. Weygant, The Sacketts of

America

: Their Ancestors and Descendants, 1630-1907 (Newburgh, New York: [journal print,] 1907), 254.

[5] Preston, The Curtis Family, 33.

[6] Edward Franklin Everett, Descendants of Richard Everett of Dedham, Mass. (Boston: privately printed, 1902), 76.

What Makes our Work Credible?

2011-10-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

We all want to save our work for posterity, for our children and grandchildren. Many of us also want to make our research available to others to aid them in their work. Whatever our goals, without credibility, our work products will fall short of our intentions.

A decade ago, the issue of credibility was addressed for computer websites. A research team based at Stanford University put together a large-scale survey and analyzed the results. The report defined credibility in terms that make for a useful discussion. [Emphasis below was in the original.]

To set the stage for the methods and results of our study, we first need to define “credibility,” the focus of our research. Simply put, credibility can be defined as believability. Credible people are believable people; credible information is believable information. In fact, some languages use the same word for these two English terms.[1]

The authors pointed out that credibility is a perception. It can be usefully evaluated as having two qualities, trustworthiness and expertise.

Trustworthiness, a key element of the credibility calculus, is defined by the terms well-intentioned, truthful, unbiased, and so on. The trustworthiness dimension of credibility captures the perceived goodness or morality of the source.

Expertise, the other dimension of credibility, is defined by terms such as knowledgeable, experienced, competent, and so on. The expertise dimension of credibility captures the perceived knowledge and skill of the source.[2]

Our approaches to dealing with the conflicting evidence will produce greater or lesser credibility in our work product. Let us go back to the question I once had from an audience member, a question about which record to ignore for a death date: the gravestone or the death certificate. There are quite a few scenarios that we could follow in presenting the two pieces of conflicting information. To contrast just two such scenarios:

Scenario 1: We pick the death record and put that date into our pedigree chart. We don’t add a footnote or source citation. We make no comment or asterisk that any other information existed. (Essentially this is what I would have done when I was a newbie genealogist back in the day.) Trustworthiness: we’ve violated trustworthiness because we haven’t been truthful about all the material we found. Should another researcher find the information we omitted, then our work will appear incompetent and incomplete. Expertise: Our lack of a footnote will make our work appear inexperienced. Outcome: Dropping the conflicting evidence leads to poor credibility.

Scenario 2: We place the death certificate date in the pedigree chart. We include a footnote that cites the death certificate. In the footnote we make a comment that the tombstone has a different date. We explain why we didn’t pick that date and went, instead, with the date on the certificate signed by the medical doctor who attended the deceased. Trustworthiness: We have shown that we can be trusted to present everything we find and that we make choices among conflicting information using thoughtful, analytic (and thus unbiased) reasons. Expertise: Our footnote shows that we have the proper skill set to do reliable genealogical work. Our explanation of why we picked one date shows that we can weigh and balance evidence. Outcome: We have produced a credible pedigree chart.

We have the power to create credible work products by demonstrating trustworthiness and expertise. What a delight to have a way in which to evaluate credibility.

[1] B.J. Fogg, Jonathan Marshall, Othman Laraki, Alex Osipovich, Chris Varma, Nicholas Fang, Jyoti Paul, Akshay Rangnekar, John Shon, Preet Swani, and Marissa Treinen, “What Makes Web Sites Credible? A Report on a Large Quantitative Study,” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sciences (New York City: Association for Computing Machinery, 2001), vol. 3 (31 March-5 April):61.

[2] B.J. Fogg, Jonathan Marshall, Othman Laraki, Alex Osipovich, Chris Varma, Nicholas Fang, Jyoti Paul, Akshay Rangnekar, John Shon, Preet Swani, and Marissa Treinen, “What Makes Web Sites Credible? A Report on a Large Quantitative Study,” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sciences (New York City: Association for Computing Machinery, 2001), vol. 3 (31 March-5 April):62.

Why I Think that Conflicting Evidence Gives Us Great Opportunities

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Opportunity? Some of the most interesting breakthroughs in genealogy begin with a researcher noticing conflict in evidence.

[Those allergic to travelogues may skip the next three paragraphs. I was complaining about this type of writing earlier this week. I guess I'll have to eat crow on this topic!]

When I was a newbie genealogist, I wanted straightforward facts. I wanted consistent dates and clear locations. I wanted direct evidence about family structure. Relentlessly I filled out my pedigree chart. My biggest concern was whether I named a location by its current name or by its colonial name (Milford, New Haven Colony; or Milford, New Haven Co., Connecticut?).

About eight years into my genealogy career, i.e., around 1992, I had my first chance to speak outside of local societies. I was asked to fill in for a speaker who would not make the joint Tarrytown, New York, event co-sponsored by NEHGS and NYG&B. I have no idea how my name came up on the list, but the topic at hand was the evaluation of evidence. The original presenter had been a lawyer. I knew I had not a chance in H-E-doubly-hockey sticks of truly filling his shoes.

I had to find a way to discuss evidence analysis without getting too sticky. I realized that I had a few documents in my own family files that were in conflict with other documents. I had the gall to title the 1992 speech, “Not Quite Right: Finding Errors in Sources.” I guess I knew it all back then.

[Those allergic to travelogues can resume reading here.]

In looking back, I have to admit that my approach to conflicting evidence has changed in the last two decades. I still think that a person can only be born or die once, that is, on one date in one location. A part of me continues to be determined to figure that out what is true. Over time, however, I’ve come to understand that I need to keep the complexity and ambiguity of the underlying source materials in my files, in my mind, and in my writing about them.

My chance to speak on Geneabloggers’ Radio on Friday night with Pat Richley-Erickson, Claire Brisson-Banks and Michael Hait about conflicting evidence has made me take a deeper look. Everywhere I look, I see that at its core conflicting evidence represents great research opportunity.

The link to BlogTalk Radio for Friday is Digging Deeper: Dealing with Conflicting Genealogy Evidence . The show begins at 10 pm Eastern time.

This week sees the introduction of a new book in France examining the causes of a fraud perpetrated by a woman named Misha Defonseca.[1] It may not be a coincidence that the publisher of this new book explaining (read: explaining away) Misha’s fraud is the same publisher who originally published the fraudulent story.[2] French law differs from American law. Misha’s quick admission of error and the publisher's psychological excuse for that error might possibly serve to limit legal liability in the long run. All that, though, is an issue for the courts.

The original fraud was uncovered a few years ago by Sharon Sergeant, a professional genealogist working in Massachusetts. Sharon noticed that Misha’s book about her life as a child during World War II had different versions in the U.S. and in France. What had been altered was the evidence about the family in which Misha had grown up. When the book was published in France, evidence about Misha’s origins in Belgium was removed. Sharon investigated this conflicting evidence and uncovered fraud. The presentation of the conflicting evidence caused the author to admit it was fabricated.[3]

Noticing a conflict in evidence provided Sharon with a toehold on a hidden situation. Where we encounter conflict in evidence, we might be encountering a good story, a journal article, or just simply an excellent genealogy adventure. Think positive about conflict!

__________________________

[1] Lionel Duroy, Survivre avec les Loups: la Véritable Histoire de Misha Defonseca (France: XO Editions, 2011).

[2] Misha Defonseca, Vera Lee [co-writer], and Marie-Thérèse Cuny [trans./auteur], Survivre avec les Loups (France: XO Editions, 2005).

[2] Caleb Daniloff, “A Genealogist Reveals the Painful Truth about Three Holocaust Memoirs: They’re Fiction,” Bostonia, Summer 2009 issue; http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer09/hoax/ , viewed 29 September 2011. Scroll down to the section titled Red Flags and Zigzags to see what evidence was in conflict.

How Do We Notice Conflicting Evidence?

2011-09-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

It just so happens that an essay about a conflicting-evidence case is the sixth portfolio element in an application to become a Board-certified genealogist.[1] As a board member, I’ve spoken a handful of times about the certification process. Often audience members will ask if a particular case they have would qualify as a good portfolio element. I can’t answer that question; there is simply no way for me to know based on a two-sentence description when many documents and quite a bit of study would be needed to even know what the case is. However, in a broad way, I have a few guidelines.

I think that we sort through conflicting evidence very often in our research. The thing is, we sift it out fairly quickly. How many times have you used a city directory and found more than one person by a name? Quickly, we realize that we are tracking the William Snow who lives on Broad Street and not the one who lives on Main. Recently, I was following the Thomas H. Roberts who was a funeral director in Detroit and not the one who was a carpenter, although it did occur to me that carpenters could make coffins. One of my friends told me she was tracking a Patrick Murphy and the two men by that name both had wives named Mary. Fortunately, she knew which occupation each had.

Looking at these problems from outside our own mindsets, we could also say that we had conflicting information. We could say that Patrick Murphy lived at two addresses for a number of years. My friend ended up doing a conflicting evidence analysis on the two men so that she could sort out exactly which one’s death certificate her client actually needed — and how she’d recognize the right certificate when she found it.

In my work on the Welles family, I’ve frequently found situations in which two men with the same name live in the same town during the Revolution. It seems that within five generations there were enough cousins naming children after grandparents and uncles that confusion can reign. I found two instances of men named Josiah Welles marrying a woman named Anna Stillman. Only one was correct. There is an article there if I ever find the time to write it.

If we can grasp the conflict before we sift it out, we might be able to capture something important. So, the next time you find conflicting evidence, think, “There might be a journal article in here someplace.”

___________________________________

[1] Board for Certification of Genealogist, The BCG Application Guide (Washington, DC: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2011), pp. 6-7, http://bcgcertification.org/brochures/BCGAppGuide2011.pdf , viewed 29 September 2011.

Conflicting Evidence: What Is It?

2011-09-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

What is “evidence”? What does it mean when it is “conflicting”? Succinctly put:

A document contains “evidence” only in terms of your research question. If your question is, “Was Charles the father of Barbara?” then Barbara’s birth certificate will contain direct evidence by naming her father. On the other hand, Barbara’s APG membership card will have little evidentiary value in answering that question.
Evidence is “direct” if it provides an answer to the research question. Everyone’s favorite example of this is a household group in the 1880 federal census in which relationship to the head of household is stated.
Evidence is “indirect” if it can be used to support an answer in a subtle way. Everyone’s favorite example of indirect evidence is a household group in the 1850 federal census. For example, if Barbara was a one-year-old youngster living in the household of Charles in 1850, we could conclude that the household structure does not preclude Barbara as a child of Charles. If they were related, this is just what we would expect to find. However, the census makes no direct statement about relationship and such a household structure could come about in other ways. We have to live with ambiguity in the 1850 census as it does not provide a direct "yes or no" answer to the research question.
Evidence is “conflicting” when two documents provide completely different answers to the research question.

I once had an audience member tell me that she had a situation in which the death date on the gravestone and the death date in the vital records were different. She asked me which one she should ignore. I wasn’t horrified by the question. In fact, it was familiar. In my early days as a genealogist, this was how I approached conflicting evidence. I wanted to know which date was right and which date was wrong.

After a few decades of experience, I now understand that it is a bad idea to bury conflicting evidence. If I write about an event as if that conflicting evidence doesn’t exist, then future researchers will be confused. They will find that evidence just as I did and they will doubt the depth of my research or the credibility of my conclusions as a result. Even worse, I might be wrong in my conclusion about which piece of evidence to keep. Therefore, we keep all the evidence we find. I like to make comments in footnotes about conflicting evidence and why I didn’t use it. That lets readers know my thought process and helps in the long run for all of us to come to reliable conclusions.

Revisiting the Genealogical Travelogue

2011-09-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

Nearly a decade ago I wrote about the use of travelogue-style organization in genealogical writing.[1] My point-of-view was that genealogical writing should be document-centered. I wrote that a travelogue is only reasonable for a report about negative research findings and then only if it is structured around the types of documents which were sought.

Recently I had another opportunity to think on this topic. A quarterly journal from a state genealogy society included a travelogue article.[2] To be fair, it is a follow-up to a more conventional article in the previous issue which won the society’s 2012 “Tell Your Family History” prize.[3]

My thoughts were contradictory to each other. I felt that the articles were both clearly written and that they both analyzed the evidence quite well. Source citations supported the statements of fact. Those sources were credible. The quarterly has an editorial committee and has been improving in article quality every year since I snidely alluded to it in 2002. This article had been approved by the committee. All of these elements were pluses. On the other hand, I came away with an emotional feeling that I had to endure needless details and unnecessary drama.

It was quite a good story, but I wanted to get to the bottom line quickly. I wanted to learn about the person under discussion and not about the research process.

This led me to develop another way to describe what I don’t like about genealogical travelogues. If discovering the documents in a different order would have led you to a different conclusion, then the research path is relevant. If not, then please don’t make me read the travelogue.

I’m sure I speak for all of us when I assert my belief that kinship structures are more stable than routing choices on the AAA roadway map. Kinship can be just as complex and confusing as the roadways in Boston, but I believe that at its core it is impervious to the order in which we make our discoveries.

_______________________

[1] Barbara Jean Mathews, CG, “Reporting on a Brick Wall: the Genealogical Travelogue” Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, 27 (December 2002):129-132.

[2] Barbara Fay Boudreau, “Searching for William Andrew Fay,” The Connecticut Nutmegger, 44 (September 2011):111-114.

[3] ______, “William Andrew Fay and Henry ‘Harry’ Edward Fay,” The Connecticut Nutmegger, 44 (June 2011):12-19.

The Three Kinds of Research Plans We Use

2011-09-22T12:01:00.001-07:00

Humbled by yesterday's hour researching Homer and Charry (Everett) Curtiss, I came to the conclusion that there are three kinds of research plans in this world.

The fill-in-the-blanks plan that is aimed at getting dates and places for the people listed on a pedigree chart.

The mindful plan, which first understands the historical and cultural structures around the people, then thoughtfully determines what is available and which likely sources might yield the most helpful information.

The scorched-earth plan that is aimed at getting absolutely everything that could possibly exist for the people under study.

My impulsive fill-in-the-blanks approach to supporting statements of fact on Homer and Charry did not yield fruit. Perhaps it's time for me to take a mindful approach.

Homer and Charry were in Salisbury in their early married life and then in Warren. You can appreciate what context we will find when you notice that Salisbury has borders on two other states, New York and Massachusetts, on the map below.[1] Salisbury, Cornwall, Kent, Canaan, Goshen, and Sharon were original towns in Litchfield County from 1739-1741. Warren was set off from Kent in 1786, i.e., right before Homer's birth.[2]

The Salisbury church records are not a part of Connecticut's statewide index to church records. They are available on microfilm. There are Volumes 1-3 from the church itself, beginning around 1810. Then there is another Volume 1, dating from 1744, and microfilmed in negative. [This reminds me of an old tv show where a man introduced his silent brothers, "This is my brother Larry and my other brother Larry."] The earlier Volume 1 is nearly illegible but does appear to include the admission of "Curtis, Homer & Wife Charity" on 4 January 1816; no date is provided in the dismission column for Homer and Charity.[3]

Here is something interesting to understand about the Congregational Church in Connecticut. It was the established church. In the minds of government officials, its church records were government records until the church was disestablished by a new state constitution. Connecticut prides itself on having had the earliest constitution, which dates from 1639. My ancestors saw no need to willy-nilly alter that just because these new United States were getting a new constitution. Connecticut replaced its constitution in 1822. What this means is that church records are state records up until that point. That is what makes the note at the beginning of the other Volume 1 so interesting. I'll share it with you:

Note:

This photostatic copy of the Salisbury Congregational Church Records, Salisbury, Connecticut, covering the period 1744-1890 was made from the original volume loaned to the Connecticut State Library, April 8, 1949, by Miss Louise Robinson, Lakeville, Connecticut.
This copy supplements three volumes of Church and Society Records deposited in the Connecticut State Library August 14, 1941, by the Rev. Earl O. Pearman.

The note is signed by James Brewster, State Librarian, and dated May 12, 1949, in Hartford. It makes me shudder to think how far I might have to go to find a version of the other Volume 1 that was remotely legible. That volume was somehow in private hands. One of my next steps is to inquire about how long that loan was for and whether it is among the Congregational Church Records today in the vault at the Episcopal Diocesan House in Hartford. About a dozen Congregational Church volumes are held there as a favor because Congregational House in Hartford doesn't have a climate controlled vault.

The blue town on the lower rung of the county map is Roxbury, where I grew up. It amazes me that GSU was microfilming in this area in 1949, the year of my birth.

[1] Map Credit: Lefferts & Co., Map of Litchfield County, Connecticut, "Litchfield County Real Estate;" http://www.litchfieldcty.com/res/lcty_res.html , viewed 21 September 2011.

[2] Marcia D. Melnyk [ed.], Genealogist's Handbook for New England Research, 4th edition (Boston: NEHGS, 1999), pp. 25-28.

[3] Salisbury Congregational Church Records, State of Connecticut, Connecticut State Library, Vol. 1, 1744-1890, p. 70, CSL microfilm no. 607, item 1 (donor copy of FHL 5526).

Homer and Charry: Can We Do Better?

2011-09-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today is a good day to continue our examination of online ahnentafels We looked at the cited references for Homer and Charry (Everett) Curtiss that we found online.[1] I checked out what they supported as far as the statements of fact. We eventually found that the dates were supported except for the exact date of death for Charry. The details for these ancestors of Sarah Palin were:

122. Homer Curtiss: b. 30 May 1787 CT; d. 30 Apr 1886 Waverly, Morgan Co., IL; m. 25 Oct 1810

[Curtis 36; Carter 38; Sackett 254]

[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11767168: account, pictures, links to more data]

123. Charity Everett: b. 16 Oct 1789/90 CT; d. 30 Dec 1876

Among the statements of fact, we were able to support all but one using the cited sources. That one fact lacking a source citation was the full death date of Charity. Access to printed genealogies at the Connecticut State Library did yield a source for it. That source was a printed genealogy that would be categorized as a derivative document containing secondary information (what historians would call a secondary source).[2]

Earlier, commenters reasonably pointed out that it was likely that there were better quality sources from which we could support these statements of fact. Last Tuesday I was at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford. This is a good place to look for those sources. Never one to pass up a good chance to have fun researching, I decided to see what an hour might teach me, if I spent that hour using the massive indexes in the History and Genealogy Unit of the Connecticut State Library.

I always go to the library with a positive frame of mind. I walk in that door sure that I will crack through any walls in my way, brick or otherwise. If Homer and Charry were born in "CT" I was going to find them. I'm sure we've all run into the type of research day that humbles us and teaches us how much more there is to learn. This was one of those hours.

Homer, the son of Augustin and Lodema Curtiss, was born in Warren, Connecticut, on 20 May 1787 according to the Barbour Index, which cites Warren Vital Records 1:21.

Homer, Augustine, and Erastus, the children of Lodema, wife of Augustine Curtiss, were baptized 31 August 1800 in Warren according to the church record index, which cites Warren Church of Christ, vol. 2, page 45.

Homer Curtiss and his wife Charity were admitted as members of the Warren Church of Christ on 27 September 1818 by a letter from the Salisbury church, according to the church record index citing 2:32 and 5:74-75. They were still church members in Warren on 11 May 1825, for which the index cites 2;39. They were dismissed as members in April 1837, and recommended by letter to any Presbyterian Church, citing 2:41a.

Charry, Betsey, Nabby Brownson, and Abner, all children of Abner Everett and his wife, were baptized on 20 July 1800 in Warren according to the church record index citing Warren Church of Christ records 2:43.

No birth records for Homer Curtiss or Charry/Charity Everett were found in the Barbour index, or in the index to Bible records available at the Connecticut State Library. No marriage record was found in the Barbour or church record indexes.

No quick-and-easy answers here. The original online ahnentafel uses published genealogy books for its citations. To be able to provide citations to original documents containing primary information (what historians would call primary sources), I can see now that I will have to develop a research plan.

That research plan will have to recognize some things unique to this corner of Connecticut. The Salisbury church is not included in the church record index. Many of the towns in the vicinity of Salisbury and Warren are fairly new towns with ancient Kent as their mother town. There is a lot of history to understand before we know where records on Homer and Charry would have been kept. No search would be complete without a look at probate and land records as well.

What will it take to make me happy with the ahnentafel entries for #122 and #123? I want source citations that are matched directly to their statements of fact rather than tacked on to the end of the entry. I want the sources cited to contain primary information whenever possible. There is a lot more to learn about Homer and Charry. More research to look forward to!

_______________________________________________

[1] Robert Battle, "Sarah Palin Ancestry," 15 Sept. 2008, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/palin.htm.

[2] Edward Franklin Everett, Descendants of Richard Everett of Dedham, Mass. (Boston: privately printed, 1902), p. 76.

It Isn't Personal: It's about the Work Product

2011-09-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

This blog has as its focus how I assess the quality of the genealogical work that I see and use. By putting this focus on quality, I learn about what makes some work more reliable or credible that other work. This is not and will not become a discussion about any particular genealogist. Genealogists will appear in the blog only in the context of citations as authors, compilers, editors, and web-based site managers.

I was concerned that I as well as any people who commented on my posts would keep this in mind. For that reason, in setting up the blog, I required that commenters identify themselves. I also required that all comments be approved by me before posting. I did not, however, make my focus on work products completely clear at the outset.

I have permitted a few comments to post that discussed genealogists by name as researchers and as friends. These comments were positive. In the future, however, I most likely will not permit future comments about genealogists to be posted for the public.

My viewpoint about the genealogists who are authors, compilers, editors, and researchers includes these two strong views:

I believe that all genealogists pursue their research with the intent to do that work well.
I am appreciative and grateful to all genealogists who share their work with others, whether in print or on the web.

I have more beliefs than just these. I have beliefs that stem from the process of research and the process of learning. My other beliefs about this are:

I believe that all researchers (especially including me) grow and develop as we go along. We gather experience, attend society meetings, take classes and courses, and become measurably better each year.
I believe that -- when I look back at my older work -- I see many places where it should be improved.
I believe that the analysis of the usefulness and reliability of work by myself and by others will help me to create better genealogy work products in the future.
I believe that no work is ever "finished" or "final" because new original documents may come to light or new historical understandings may give us a different point-of-view.

This blog is about work products in genealogy and not about personalities. There is no need to defend our friends and colleagues. This blog will assume good intentions on the part of anyone whose work we review.

Why We Should Demand Better Source Citations

2011-09-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

The ahnentafel of Sarah Palin's paternal ancestry includes some source citations. For this reason, it initially achieved credibility among the Wikipedia editors. To my mind, though, the citations in the online ahnentafel present two issues, both of which make it lose credibility with this Demanding Genealogist.

For one thing, I want every (and I do mean every) statement of fact to have a source citation. In the case of an ahnentafel, each date, each location, and each relationship to parents is a statement of fact. I do expect that a single source might give more than one of these facts. Birth records, for example, often include the child's full name, the parents' full names, and the date and location of birth.

Looking at the ahnentafel at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/palin.htm , however, shows that the source citations are in many places either distant from the facts or missing completely. Take a look at generation 1. Mr. Battle states:

1. Sarah Louise (Heath) Palin: b. 11 Feb 1964 Sandpoint, Bonner Co., ID; m. Todd Mitchell Palin (b. Dillingham, AK, son of Jim Palin and Blanche Kallstrom) 29 Aug 1988 Palmer, Matanuska Susitna Co., AK [http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-29472133_ITM]; governor of Alaska 2006-, 2008 Republican V.P. candidate

The statements of fact here include:

Name (and parents who are numbers 2 and 3)
Date and location of birth
Full name of spouse and names of his parents
Date and location of marriage
Past job and 2008 political role

We have one source citation. That citation is only a link to a web site. If we were to stay with the online ahnentafel, we would have no idea what information was at this site. A full citation for the site might be something like this (feedback on my citation happily accepted from all):

Andrew Wellner, "Professional marrier has seen all kinds of love: Commissioner: Her calling began in 1988, and two of her first customers were the Palins," Anchorage [Alaska] Daily News, issue of 2 February 2007; http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-158749886/professional-marrier-has-seen.html, accessed 9 September 2011.

This charming article tells us that Marriage Commissioner Kay Fyfe performed the marriage ceremony in the Palmer courthouse. It quotes the brief newspaper announcement but doesn't state in which newspaper it appeared; it does not quote the marriage license or marriage certificate at all. The article does state that one of the parties was then governor of Alaska, but it doesn't explicitly state whether the governor was Sarah or Todd. As for the date of the marriage, the article says that the newspaper clipping is "circa 1988" and then gives the date as August 29th without specifying the exact year.

It is likely that all of the statements of fact for person number 1 would be found on most modern marriage licenses. Depending on the state in the U.S., this information may or may not be open to researchers.

Sarah Palin is a public figure. There must be a myriad of sources that provide dates, full names, and family background. Wikipedia is one such resource and it happens to contain all of the statements of fact in the ahnentafel. Hmmm.

It might not be fair to start with such a public figure. With media coverage the way it is today, it is possible that most Americans feel that we know Sarah Palin personally. Let's look at ahnentafel person #123, Charity Everett, the wife of Homer Curtiss, who appears as:

123. Charity Everett: b. 16 Oct 1789/90 CT; d. 30 Dec 1876

No source citations at all! Maybe we are supposed to infer that the citations to her spouse cover her. Right above her, her spouse appears as:

122. Homer Curtiss: b. 30 May 1787 CT; d. 30 Apr 1886 Waverly, Morgan Co., IL; m. 25 Oct 1810

[Curtis 36; Carter 38; Sackett 254]

[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11767168: account, pictures, links to more data]

Mr. Battle is giving us four citations, one of which has much to offer. The Find-a-Grave site does provide quite a bit of material. It does not all come from the gravestone which provides their names (including Charity's maiden name) and the years of birth and death. You might enjoy clicking through on that link as Cheryl Behrend and Paula Berry Nelson have done a great job with text, photos, and citations. A few family letters are transcribed and a family photo is included.

The other three citations are in M.L.A. style. The bibliography identifies these three books as:

Carter: Howard Williston Carter, Carter: a genealogy of the descendants of Thomas Carter…

(Norfolk, CT, 1909).

Curtis: Laura Guthrie Curtis Preston, The Curtis Family: a record of some of the descendants of

Deodatus Curtis of Braintree, Massachusetts (Marietta, OH, 1945).

Sackett: Charles H. Weygant, The Sacketts of America… (Newburgh, NY, 1907).

The 1909 Carter book is available on ancestry.com. On page 38, Homer appears as a grandchild. Only his birth date is provided. Those who have Ancestry subscriptions can see this page at:
http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=10221&pageno=38

For true amusement, though, what you need to see is Sackett, p. 254. Again, you will need an Ancestry subscription. The page is at http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=14215&pageno=254. That page states that Homer Curtiss married "____ ____?" so I don't think we will get much help there on Charity Everett if she was indeed his wife.

The Curtiss book is newer and under copyright. My online searching revealed that a snippet view was available on Google Books at http://tinyurl.com/3b5vs9k . A set of queries gave me the following two snippets for page 36:

By the way, Charity (Everett) Curtiss has her own Find-a-Grave site at:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11767165 . Remember that I noted that the gravestone photo only had the years of birth and death? Paula Berry Nelson and Cheryl Behrend also contributed to this site; they carefully give only the year of Charity's death. None of the cited material states that she died on December 30th. Come to think of it, both the Find-a-Grave site and the Curtiss genealogy show her name as Charry rather than Charity. That should be noted.

What is the take-away from this? This ahnentafel doesn't meet my demanding standards as far as source citation goes. It does not provide a source for every statement of fact. We should demand better source citations. The ones we have here mislead us into thinking that every statement of fact has a basis. What we have learned by looking into the sources is that this simply is not true. We do not have any source at all for the exact date of Charry's death, for example. Nor do we have the best possible types of sources, that is, the most reliable types of sources. Nearly all of the information used for Homer and Charry (Everett) Curtiss is from the Curtiss genealogy, a secondary information in a derivative document. [An historian would identify this as a secondary source.]

There is more to learn from this ahnentafel. In my next posting, I might reverse-engineer one of the citations, to see just how much it states and how much it doesn't state. Or I might look at whether the search through records has been extensive enough. Or I could ask how credible it is that Charity's parents both have masculine names. Hmmm, so many apples to pick from the tree.

Wikipedia Misled by an Online Ahnentafel

2011-09-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I learned how to correct errors on Wikipedia. There is a protocol and etiquette so that a collaborative editing process goes smoothly. Fortunately, most of the other editors on that page were patient with my learning curve. Once I had been guided into the correct etiquette, the change was made peacefully.

Wikipedia also has policies or protocols about the sources of information for statements made in the articles. Those sources have to be published and available. The sources that led me to realize there was an error were not readily available. Some were on microfilm, some were in manuscripts, and the analysis was in my head. I had to search for a new way of explaining the error using online sources before I could get it corrected.

The other factor that made it hard to correct the error was that the error itself was already cited to an online "published" source. This ahnentafel had achieved credibility with the editors of the page. During the process, one editor told me that the online tree had source citations itself and was created by reputable genealogists. All of this is true, but we can learn a lot by looking more closely at this tree and its sources. When I analyzed it, I found at least five errors in the colonial generations without really trying to find errors. I shudder to think how many I could find if I actually researched it. I did try emailing the web site authors but no one responded. I later learned that one of them was terminally ill at that time and would have been unable to respond.

I'm going to take a few days and discuss the ahnentafel, the sources, and the recognizable errors in more detail as a learning exercise. The Wikipedia entry was for Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut. The error was in listing Sarah Palin as a descendant of the governor. The ahnentafel that was used by Wikipedia to support this attribution was by Robert Battle who acknowledged contributions from Tom Brown, William Reitwiesner, Gary Boyd Roberts, and Michael Hurdle. The ahnentafel can now (2011) be found at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/palin.htm

Feel free to analyze this one yourself. My next step will be to look at the sources and then to discuss just how much of that ahnentafel really is source-cited. Is every statement of fact cited to a source? Hah!@!