I know I haven't blogged in several days -- I've been sick, for one thing, a cold complicated by stomach problems and fatigue. In between naps, I've been trying to get the index for my book finished. I have finally finished, and mailed the manuscript and page proofs back to the publisher, and will e-mail the index probably later today (it's just after midnight).
And I have fallen behind in reading for classes, I have a quiz tomorrow that I hope I will be able to show up for, and my grant application to finish and get in before the Nov. 4 deadline.
I'm looking forward to December!
.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Getting Genealogy Into the Academy
I have come to be of the opinion, in the last few years of my serious pursuit of genealogy as a profession, that genealogy is a social science and should be classified with the other social sciences on an equal footing. Genealogy has its own theoretical base, propounded by Donald Lines Jacobus and Val D. Greenwood. It has its own methodology, made more rigorous by the work of Elizabeth Shown Mills and others. And it produces -- and has for many years -- academic-level work product in professional journals.
And we're getting there. Boston University has recently begun offering coursework in genealogy, though not yet a degree (and, of course, Brigham Young University has been offering a degree in genealogy for decades in an ever-improving program). And there are individuals out there who are both qualified historians and certified genealogists, and who are breaking new ground in combining the sources and methodology of genealogy with the pursuit of historical inquiry of academic quality.
One of these is Carolyn Earle Billingsley, with whose work I became familiar today, when my copy of her book Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier arrived. I found out about the book last week, through a curious set of circumstances which had put me on a similar path as Dr. Billingsley, though on a smaller scale, before I knew about her work.
As I am down to the wire with my present book, Non-Federal Censuses of Florida, 1784-1945: A Guide to Sources, I was casting about for an idea for a subsequent book. I really cannot describe the process by which I arrived at this idea. I'm not sure myself how it happened, as the events of the past couple weeks have been fast and furious. Anyway, about two weeks ago, while I was crossing the campus of the University of North Florida on my way to a quiet uninterrupted morning of study in the library, I saw a sign announcing an undergraduate research grant. I inquired into it and decided to apply, but needed a subject.
At times, we have various ideas amorphously formed in the back brain, where they stew and percolate, and come pouring out in what seems a concatenation of events pushing us in a particular direction. That is what is operating here. I am at UNF studying history and Spanish, and having taken two courses in learning how to read very old Spanish documents, because I have decided based purely on my location to study the old Spanish lineages of Florida. I wrote my book on the colonial, territorial, and state censuses of Florida as a means of familiarizing myself with the extant sources in my area. So to apply for the research grant, I thought I would take a genealogical approach to the history of St. Augustine during the second Spanish period (1783-1820). I want my approach to be one not often used -- to first establish the family relationships of the population of St. Augustine, and then examine the historical events during that thirty-seven year period through the lens of those family relationships.
In perusing the literature as part of preparing my grant application, and as part of a personal inquiry into further educational opportunities for myself, I came across mention of Dr. Billingsley's book. I ordered it from Amazon.com. Turns out that my idea is quite similar to hers.
Dr. Billingsley studied the kinship of one family, and its allied lines, through a longer period of tiem over a larger geographic area, but the basic idea of studying history though the lens of genealogy is the same for her as it is for me. I read the introduction of her book today (I'm home in the process of becoming increasingly miserable through the process of having a cold), and with every paragraph, I liked the lady more and more. She and I are thinking along extremely similar lines! It's exciting.
The professor I have chosen to direct me in my study, as the grant will be used in a directed individual study next term, is the professor who taught the paleography courses. He seems to think I have a solid idea with considerable potential, and is on board with the genealogical angle of it. This is a logical approach for colonial St. Augustine, as kinship ties were very important to the Spanish in those days (not to say they are not important today).
Well, it's quite a feeling being a pioneer.
.
And we're getting there. Boston University has recently begun offering coursework in genealogy, though not yet a degree (and, of course, Brigham Young University has been offering a degree in genealogy for decades in an ever-improving program). And there are individuals out there who are both qualified historians and certified genealogists, and who are breaking new ground in combining the sources and methodology of genealogy with the pursuit of historical inquiry of academic quality.
One of these is Carolyn Earle Billingsley, with whose work I became familiar today, when my copy of her book Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier arrived. I found out about the book last week, through a curious set of circumstances which had put me on a similar path as Dr. Billingsley, though on a smaller scale, before I knew about her work.
As I am down to the wire with my present book, Non-Federal Censuses of Florida, 1784-1945: A Guide to Sources, I was casting about for an idea for a subsequent book. I really cannot describe the process by which I arrived at this idea. I'm not sure myself how it happened, as the events of the past couple weeks have been fast and furious. Anyway, about two weeks ago, while I was crossing the campus of the University of North Florida on my way to a quiet uninterrupted morning of study in the library, I saw a sign announcing an undergraduate research grant. I inquired into it and decided to apply, but needed a subject.
At times, we have various ideas amorphously formed in the back brain, where they stew and percolate, and come pouring out in what seems a concatenation of events pushing us in a particular direction. That is what is operating here. I am at UNF studying history and Spanish, and having taken two courses in learning how to read very old Spanish documents, because I have decided based purely on my location to study the old Spanish lineages of Florida. I wrote my book on the colonial, territorial, and state censuses of Florida as a means of familiarizing myself with the extant sources in my area. So to apply for the research grant, I thought I would take a genealogical approach to the history of St. Augustine during the second Spanish period (1783-1820). I want my approach to be one not often used -- to first establish the family relationships of the population of St. Augustine, and then examine the historical events during that thirty-seven year period through the lens of those family relationships.
In perusing the literature as part of preparing my grant application, and as part of a personal inquiry into further educational opportunities for myself, I came across mention of Dr. Billingsley's book. I ordered it from Amazon.com. Turns out that my idea is quite similar to hers.
Dr. Billingsley studied the kinship of one family, and its allied lines, through a longer period of tiem over a larger geographic area, but the basic idea of studying history though the lens of genealogy is the same for her as it is for me. I read the introduction of her book today (I'm home in the process of becoming increasingly miserable through the process of having a cold), and with every paragraph, I liked the lady more and more. She and I are thinking along extremely similar lines! It's exciting.
The professor I have chosen to direct me in my study, as the grant will be used in a directed individual study next term, is the professor who taught the paleography courses. He seems to think I have a solid idea with considerable potential, and is on board with the genealogical angle of it. This is a logical approach for colonial St. Augustine, as kinship ties were very important to the Spanish in those days (not to say they are not important today).
Well, it's quite a feeling being a pioneer.
.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Where there's a will, there's often paleography
My cousin Ginger, who has been a museum director (and therefore appreciates good research and good citations), returned not long ago from a trip to England, the lucky dog! I wanted to stow away in her luggage, but that would have far exceeded the weight limit!
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Deconstructing conventional wisdom - checking history
Today I'm going to talk about those "facts" of history that we were taught as children and which we take for granted, even though it turns out we should not always do so.
When I was a child, here in Florida, we had some coursework usually in the fourth grade on the history of the state. I even remember the textbook, a green-covered slim volume called La Florida, which is how the Spanish referred and refer to the state. One of those tidbits of conventional wisdom we learned was that in 1513, Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth.
Um, no. It turns out that this is not really the case, though it sounds good.
Actually, it was 1513, though the date itself -- recorded in most histories as 2 April, might be a little off. Spain converted to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian in 1584, and in the month of October, people went to bed on the night of the 5th and woke up on the morning of the 15th, ten days having gone "poof" in an adjustment required by the calendar having gotten off by those ten days, skewing the schedule of Easter.
Juan Ponce de León (the name "Ponce de León" translates as "lion's paunch") did not discover Florida. It was here all along, though those who lived here did not call it Florida. They probably just called it "home." Those who were here were the Timucua (which wasn't a distinct tribe, but a group of loosely-federated bands speaking dialects of a common language), the Ais, the Calusa, the Apalache, and a few others. Ponce de León merely hit Florida while he was looking for Bimini. Navigation was not a precise science in those days. Ponce de León did name it -- "Pascua Florida" (festival of flowers) because it was around Easter, and from the ships, the men could see lots of flowers in bloom.
And he wasn't looking for the Fountain of Youth, he was looking for Bimini, because he had a contract with the Spanish Crown to settle it and become the adelantado, the King's on-scene man with broad powers to grant land and head up the colony. He had already been governor of Puerto Rico, eventually losing that post in a squabble with Diego Colón, son of Cristopher Columbus.
Ponce de León -- yup, that was his name.
So don't always just accept the history you learned as a child, when you're investigating family history. New developments in historical analysis are constantly being made as new information and new techniques come to light.
For further reading, see David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, chapter 2: "First Encounters."
When I was a child, here in Florida, we had some coursework usually in the fourth grade on the history of the state. I even remember the textbook, a green-covered slim volume called La Florida, which is how the Spanish referred and refer to the state. One of those tidbits of conventional wisdom we learned was that in 1513, Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth.
Um, no. It turns out that this is not really the case, though it sounds good.
Actually, it was 1513, though the date itself -- recorded in most histories as 2 April, might be a little off. Spain converted to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian in 1584, and in the month of October, people went to bed on the night of the 5th and woke up on the morning of the 15th, ten days having gone "poof" in an adjustment required by the calendar having gotten off by those ten days, skewing the schedule of Easter.
Juan Ponce de León (the name "Ponce de León" translates as "lion's paunch") did not discover Florida. It was here all along, though those who lived here did not call it Florida. They probably just called it "home." Those who were here were the Timucua (which wasn't a distinct tribe, but a group of loosely-federated bands speaking dialects of a common language), the Ais, the Calusa, the Apalache, and a few others. Ponce de León merely hit Florida while he was looking for Bimini. Navigation was not a precise science in those days. Ponce de León did name it -- "Pascua Florida" (festival of flowers) because it was around Easter, and from the ships, the men could see lots of flowers in bloom.
And he wasn't looking for the Fountain of Youth, he was looking for Bimini, because he had a contract with the Spanish Crown to settle it and become the adelantado, the King's on-scene man with broad powers to grant land and head up the colony. He had already been governor of Puerto Rico, eventually losing that post in a squabble with Diego Colón, son of Cristopher Columbus.
Ponce de León -- yup, that was his name.
So don't always just accept the history you learned as a child, when you're investigating family history. New developments in historical analysis are constantly being made as new information and new techniques come to light.
For further reading, see David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, chapter 2: "First Encounters."
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