I have access to every book, microfilm and manuscript in the NEHGS library, but because I don’t actually work in the building (I work from home, generally on a 3 pm to 3 am schedule), I have to rely on the staff at the library to make copies. Fortunately, with so many books available on-line these days, I have been accumulating my own mini-digital library using google, archive.org, and openlibrary.org. Each of these has limitations of one kind or another – e.g., poor quality of digitizing, page numbers that don’t match, lack of indexing, wait time to borrow, inability to print, etc. Continue reading Using the HathiTrust Digital Library
All posts by Alicia Crane Williams
An enhanced Early New England Families inventory
Readers have asked for a more detailed inventory of the Early New England Families Study Project sketches. The following list includes all sketches that have been uploaded to the website: Continue reading An enhanced Early New England Families inventory
Trust in a reputable firm
I own some shares in mutual funds and have a basic understanding of the stock market, but I am in no way, shape, or form the person you want to talk to about investing your money. When I am trying to figure out how to invest my money, I face the same kind of information overload that a beginning genealogist faces. In both industries there are cautionary tales about not trusting everything that one reads. So who does one trust?
One piece of universal advice is to trust “reputable firms.” In the case of investments, that might be called an oxymoron, but in genealogy we soon pick up on names of researchers and authors who have good reputations. As human beings, none are perfect, but because of their “best practices” some have gained our trust. Continue reading Trust in a reputable firm
The Great Migration Study Project: a primer
It is amazing to realize that the Great Migration Study Project is twenty-five years old. Part of my fifteen seconds of fame is that I was in the room when Great Migration Begins was chosen as the title for the first series of books! It is nice to see how many new researchers are getting a glimpse of the project through Vita Brevis.
Robert Charles Anderson conceived the project as a modern “genealogical dictionary” of settlers who came to New England during the period we call the Great Migration, from 1620 through 1640. The project began as a consolidation and correction of material in print but soon expanded to include original research in New England and Old England. Continue reading The Great Migration Study Project: a primer
A sense of place and name
The question from the previous post was: “What if John Smith and Mary Brown lived in Barnstable but Abigail Smith and Harry Carey were married at Sandwich?” Barnstable and Sandwich are right next to each other, so why would this raise a red flag?
Although this example involves an early nineteenth-century wedding (1816), and the rules of posting banns and other restrictions of earlier centuries were becoming less common, in New England towns there was still a strong tie to church and community. Girls married in the church to which their families belonged. John and Mary (Brown) Smith belonged to the church in Barnstable – what would their daughter be doing getting married in Sandwich? Continue reading A sense of place and name
Age old problems and comfort zones
In my last post, I left Abigail (Smith) Carey in a Black Hole with conflicting information about her age. Age discrepancies are a common cause of Red Flags and avoiding them requires an understanding of such things as the average age at marriage for men and women in the time period with which you are dealing, the childbearing ages of women, legal ages, etc. I’m not aware of a single source that provides a good overall summary of these questions – let me know if you are. Continue reading Age old problems and comfort zones
Missing nails and black holes
My “Devil’s advocate” pops up and waves red flags at me whenever something is not quite right based on “our” experience. Our most often used flag is for “black holes” – too much missing information. The connection may be right, but it certainly hasn’t yet been proved, and skipping over these holes is like skipping two out of every three nails when you build your deck – it might hold for a while, but it isn’t safe. Continue reading Missing nails and black holes
Blue prints, building codes, and inspections
Okay, so now we have a pile of bricks. Are we ready to start building our genealogical house? No. We need to know what the house is supposed to look like (blue prints) and the regulations about how the house should be constructed (codes). If we were really building a house, of course, this is where we’d hire an architect and a contractor, but the fun of genealogy is in doing-it-oneself, so we have to educate ourselves about construction. Continue reading Blue prints, building codes, and inspections
Genealogical building blocks
A master mason can “butter” a brick and add it to a straight and true wall in a matter of seconds. He learns to do this through repeated practice, laying thousands of bricks in hundreds of walls.
In genealogy we deal with bricks that we call primary, secondary, and circumstantial evidence. A house made entirely of primary bricks is the strongest, but those bricks are often hard to find and expensive. Most of us have houses made from primary and secondary bricks that are perfectly sound. A house of only secondary bricks is substandard to modern building code. Circumstantial bricks are kept for building flying buttresses to hold up wobbly walls. Continue reading Genealogical building blocks
What we inherit, or, critical analysis
The seventy-ninth anniversary of my parents’ marriage falls on 30 March 2014. They were married for 71 years before my mother’s death at age 99 years, 6 months, and 9 days in 2006. Mom was my connection to genealogy. Her mother was the last of her branch of the family and inherited and treasured all of the possessions, lore, and memories that came down to her. They’ve all been passed to me now. Continue reading What we inherit, or, critical analysis