Re: Genealogy For The Beginner

In article <W9idnfZPVtVAzy7anZ2dnUVZ_uCinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
singhals  <singhals@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Haines Brown wrote:
>
>> Eagle@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (J. Hugh Sullivan) writes:
>> 
>> 
>>>On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:44:18 -0800 (PST), "dogqruomlrsa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
>>><dogqruomlrsa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>Genealogy has become a hobby - lots more than just a pasttime.
>>>
>>>The term Family History is an abused term - many people use it as an
>>>excuse to depart from bloodlines and that is not acceptable in
>>>genealogy. We need to keep the distinction in my opinion.
>>>
>>>Genealogy is also full of DNA surprises. I find that my closest MRCAs
>>>are three different surnames, none Sullivan so far.
>> 
>> 
>> Hugh, it is even more than just a hobby for it is an im****tant tool
used
>> in historiography. From the historian's viewpoint, it is what is
>> referred to as an "auxiliary science".
>> 
>> Your comment about the im****tance of limiting genealogy to bloodlines
>> struck me as interesting. You seem to imply that some people
>> (improperly) use the term "family" more broadly than for just blood
>> relations. Is that what you meant, and why is bloodline the litmus
test?
>> Allow me to some examples that may muddy the waters.
>
>Blood lines are the litmus test because non-blood lines such 
>as foster parents and godparents aren't generally 
>responsible for the genetic makeup (or defects) of you or 
>your siblings.
>
>Even before DNA, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" 
>and it was called "in the blood".  Genealogy, IOW.
>
>Family History is a term that was in the 
>not-yet-forgotten-past used to mean one included tidbits of 
>the "She won 27 blue ribbons at the county fair in 1978" or 
>"he won the greased-pig-catching contest at the Sunday 
>School picnic in 1954" sort.  Color tidbits, in other words, 
>which are nice to have but unim****tant in providing 
>provenance for one's existance.
>
>And, in a broader sense, we're all the "family of man."

  Hi cuz!

  The provenance question ... we may disagree.  Now, if you mean that 
a do***ent describing my ancestor Moses (no, not _that_ one :-) doesn't 
provide proof of my own existence, then agreed.  Whether he was indeed 
in a grain business in Bureau County, IL, in the 1870s and 1880s, has 
little to do with whether I exist, much less am related to him.  

  But whether _he_ existed, I think, is greatly improved by finding a 
source which gives a biography of him and his wife.  A birth certificate 
alone only shows that someone with that name was born.  We don't know 
that they lived to reproduce, or that the Moses Grumbine I find a birth 
certificate for in PA 1843 is the same guy who got married (according 
to a marriage certificate) in IL 1868.  With the family history
information 
about him, however, the two are connected.

  Granted my chances are better with rare names like Grumbine, and I'm 
blessed with a bunch of rare names in my tree.  Still, I'm always 
happier to find historical do***ents and history of the family 
information than to have only a string of birth and marriage certificates.

  Plus, my interest is not simply the begats, nor even the stories 
about what my direct ancestors did.  I'm coming from the side of 
having an interest in world history and my ancestors are an excuse 
to learn more detail of what was going on in their times and places.  
Further, some thought about why they might have left where the
were for where they went.  And so on. 

-- 
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/
Science faqs and amateur
activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too
much 
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than
they 
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New
Sciences