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Genohistory on Purpose

The Height of Modernity: Newspapers and the Now of Then

8 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Newspapers / By / 10 minutes of reading

We live in the height of modernity—the newest and most sophisticated of everything. But guess what? Just about every generation who has ever lived could say the same. And future generations will look at the world of 2020 with bemusement at our backwardness and pity that we lived without their comforts. It is a tale as old as time.

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And Then There Were None: Mortality of an Alabama Household

7 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Interconnected Families / By / 10 minutes of reading

Members of the Charles Sanford household seemed to have everything going for them on August 10, 1860, as the federal census taker arrived at their home in Centreville, Alabama. Wealthy white-collar town dwellers with an average age of 22.5, the mortality statistics were in their favor.[1] But death claimed them, every one, long before the census taker returned.[2]

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Semantics: What Did They Mean by That?

9 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Research / By / 11 minutes of reading

Friday was my birthday. Yes, 9/11. In the years after the World Trade Center disaster, people tended to express sympathy to me on my birthday, saying things like, “ I hope you can enjoy it, in spite of everything.” This past Friday, though, I heard nothing at all about 9/11 in my birthday messages.  

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Writing Genohistory: Waldo and the Now of Then

13 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, History, Writing Genohistory / By / 12 minutes of reading

Some say it is not history until you write it. I have a bit more expanded view of history. Inevitably, though, we who are starting to call ourselves genohistorians will start to think of writing genohistory projects. I have tiptoed in with my blogging. As we expand in this field, what will writing genohistory look and feel like?

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Sinful Souls and Church Discipline for the Genohistorian

4 Comments / Church Records, Genohistory on Purpose / By / 6 minutes of reading

I had been predisposed to see the worst in my great-grandfather, George Lewis Cox of Randolph County, Alabama. I saw him through the eyes of my grandmother—his daughter-in-law—who remembered him without a speck of fondness. As she recalled it, he was a drunken philanderer who drove his betrayed wife to suicide. But he was also, apparently, a church-going man. Might he have been called out under church discipline?

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Formal Education: An Investment in Excellence

6 Comments / Education, Genohistory on Purpose / By / 5 minutes of reading

Genohistory on Purpose will be brief and to the point this issue. After an intensively valuable week at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research, I am exhausted in the best sort of way. This was my fourth course at IGHR and, like everyone else, my first time to attend from the comfort of my own home. This year, like every other year, I am reminded of the importance of committing to and investing in formal education.

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The Genohistorian’s Grain-of-Salt Approach to History

2 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, History / By / 10 minutes of reading

History is not the past. It is not “what happened.” History happens after that. It is an interpretation of what happened, based on the fragments of information or memory that have survived. Even if the event happened two hours ago, and it happened to you, the history you might record of it is already likely imperfect. It is also potentially very valuable.

Genohistorians must ingest lots of published histories. This is essential to our work. But for our own work to be credible, we must ingest them always with a grain of salt.

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The Supreme Court Shopping Binge: Unlayering a Court Document

8 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Legalities / By / 9 minutes of reading

Not long ago, a historian friend surprised me with an email referring to “the high-rollin’ kids” of my ancestor, Jacob Mayberry. He included a link to a summary report of the Alabama Supreme Court case of Sanford v. Howard.[1] In the eleven-page summary, I learned that Jacob’s kids had created a Supreme Court–caliber stir by shopping. They had racked up a huge tab at a local store, buying luxuries in 1852, the year after their father died. Their uncle, executor of Jacob’s estate, had refused to pay the tab.

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Degrees of Connection: What the Neighbors Meant to Your Ancestors

12 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Interconnected Families / By / 10 minutes of reading

My mid-nineteenth-century small-town ancestors would be utterly baffled at how little I know about my neighbors. Neighbors were their family, in-laws, society, colleagues, entertainment, education, support system, and source of marriage partners, gossip, trade, and annoyance. They were the cast and crew of our ancestors’ life dramas.

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Mapping Ancestral Lands

15 Comments / Genohistory on Purpose, Land and Maps / By / 10 minutes of reading

Welcome back, genohistorians. I hope you got a good sense of what I mean by “genohistory” in the introduction I posted two weeks ago. This week, as we start this genohistorical journey together, let’s get our heads around something important. Something huge. Ready for it? Here goes. We are preparing for time travel.

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