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Genohistory on Purpose

The Supreme Court Shopping Binge: Unlayering a Court Document

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

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

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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Genohistory: The Middle Ground on Purpose

For nearly thirty-five years, I have been moving back and forth between my two passions: genealogy and history. They are sister passions, admittedly. Knowledge of one feeds the other. But I’ve come to realize something: I don’t want to move back and forth between them; I want to cultivate the spot where they intersect.

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