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History

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Introduction: The Problem We All Face

If you’re a genealogist or historian, I imagine your environment might be something like this—bookshelves overflowing, stacks of books on every surface, forgotten magazines tucked into cabinets, and even digital books lost in the depths of Kindle or Google Books. You love your books and other knowledge assets, but they’re taking over. Dust is piling up, your space is shrinking, and worst of all—you’re rebuying books you already own because you’ve lost track of what’s in your collection. But there is a solution.

You don’t have to choose between loving your books and having a productive environment for new knowledge. I’m not telling you to get rid of those precious assets—just to get smarter about keeping track of them. That’s where Zotero comes in.

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Taming the AI Beast: Avoiding ChatGPT Hallucinations in Genohistory

Genealogists and historians are diving headfirst into the exciting world of AI-assisted research, where tools like ChatGPT offer a wealth of possibilities for uncovering family and community stories. But how do you ensure you’re uncovering truths, not imaginative fabrications? AI hallucinations—those moments when ChatGPT confidently gives you false information—can mislead your research if you’re not vigilant. Here’s how to navigate AI’s challenges and harness its power for genohistory.

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New Year, New Tools: Harnessing Zotero for Family History Research

Make 2025 the year you take your family history research to the next level. Discover how Zotero, the ultimate knowledge management tool for research, can help genealogists and historians merge family history and historical context into compelling genohistory. This New Year’s plan could transform your approach to research, storytelling, and legacy-building.

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A dentist attempts to pluck the tooth of a very nervous patient, whose wife hovers near.

Dental Terrors: How Sarah Made Me Smile

I left my dentist’s office today with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. This, after having a crown replaced. Was it free, you wonder? Not even close. Was it painless then, you ask? There was pain. But something beautiful happened, as needles and drills entered my mouth: I remembered Sarah Gayle and her dental terrors.

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Judging Ancestors: The Distortions of Hindsight (A Cannibal Story)

An earlier edition of this post appeared in my blog, The Golden Egg Genealogist, in April 2019. Genohistorians are encouraged to see the link to our discussions of “the now of then” in recent posts. A “Call to Action” and “Zotero Notes” have been added to the original post.

Hindsight will never be 20/20. The further back we look, the fuzzier the view gets. In looking back past our own personal experience—that journey we call “studying history”—we become strangers in a foreign land. Observing what we see there can be immensely valuable. Evaluating the effectiveness of our ancestors’ choices can enhance wisdom. Morally judging ancestors through the eyes of the 21st century, however, is a destructive misuse of hindsight.

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Writing Genohistory: Waldo and the Now of Then

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

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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