While sources are not exactly a tool, they are something that goes hand in hand with genealogy research. Over the past few weeks, a common thread running through a number of stacks I read has to do with how we contemporary genealogists will leave our research for others, particularly our own families. Even I am not nearly as excited as I used to be about comparing 3 different sources to verify a fact. I am much more passionate about the how and the why then the date and exact place. So, what role do sources continue to play in our research and how will that evolve for you in your own writing?
My gateway drug to genealogy research was given to me at about age 16 by my “Uncle”1 Enlow Ose. He had spent over a decade researching the family ancestry of all four of his grandparents. For my family, that resulted in two large volumes of work privately published in the late 1970s. Our bound books included family trees that went back to the 1700s, as much of a backstory as he had been able to find for each ancestor, and a full sheet for each family descendent down to children.
I inhaled both books, reading and rereading about my ancestors. I was fascinated most by his write ups of the stories he had found. From him I learned of the Mark family roots in Ireland, the fact that one of my direct line ancestors had been a Torie and how so many of my ancestors were on the edges of the American frontier since before the American Revolution. Those stories stayed with me and continued to inspire me as I took up my own research.
Like many genealogists of his time, Enlow didn’t add his sources to the books. In his writing, he refers to “history books” but doesn’t list their names. He collaborated with several other genealogists but gave us the facts and family stories without the names behind them. As I started to research, having had it drilled into me from classes I took and papers I read that all facts had to be verified with multiple sources, I refused to use Enlow’s work as a source because he had not revealed his own. Instead, I would use his work as where I began, and then look for sources to confirm or deny his findings.
Much later in life I was in a position to actually meet with Enlow again. At his house he showed me the study where he had worked to craft his books. Charts and family documents covered the walls, tracing all of the different lines. It was clear that this had been his life’s work and that he cared about it deeply.
We talked about family stories. We never discussed sources. I can’t say whether his sources were carefully documented somewhere in his files. I can tell you that he had devoted over a decade to research and that because he cared so passionately about letting us know who we came from, that he paid for the books himself. I believe that everything he put down in those books was carefully researched and worthy of my trust.
Before I go further, I want to be clear that I do indeed believe that when working on our ancestry it is important to evaluate the evidence with reliable sources. Further, in collaborative situations, for example, on WikiTree, it is vitally important to include where I found my information so that future genealogists can take it further. Finally, the further back in time one goes, the more important it is to verify that my person is THAT person in the record. For work such as a shared tree, I not only need to believe it, but should be able to show why I believe it.
That said, as I start to move away from working solely with names, dates and places, I want to be intentional about recording my own sources. For my own purposes I’ve come up with a system that I’m happy with and one that has me more comfortable with referring to Enlow’s work.
I work regularly on my own ancestors on WikiTree, and between recording sources there and taking notes in my own research log, I have all my research documented. While building their official profile there, I also collect and save any family stories, photographs and document images into a folder on my hard drive and/or as a link in a Workspace in Microsoft Edge.2 Given the nature of WikiTree, not all family stories belong in a profile. Yet, those same stories put our ancestors into context and make them more than just a black and white image. Honestly, I think those stories are the things that will be remembered, much like my memories of the Torie in Enlow’s.
Using WikiTree as the repository of the factual information for my family allows me to know that any of my descendants will have access to my research for (hopefully) decades if not centuries (call me an optimist). The stories I write will also be on the internet, but I am hoping to do like Uncle Enlow and share them in physical form with my family at some point. We’ll see where that goes.
Finally, doing things this way allows me to link to the WikiTree profile of a person as the primary source for my writing, which gives my readers the option to go trace that person’s tree and examine relationships and facts if they would like. However, if instead they just want to read an interesting tidbit about an ancestor, they don’t have to be concerned with all of that.
What are your thoughts on sources in writing about your ancestors? Are they important? How are you sharing them? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
He was actually my first cousin once removed, but as he was from my mother’s eldest aunt, and my mother was from the youngest of the siblings making him older than my mother.