All posts by Alicia Crane Williams

About Alicia Crane Williams

Alicia Crane Williams, FASG, Lead Genealogist of Early Families of New England Study Project, has compiled and edited numerous important genealogical publications including The Mayflower Descendant and the Alden Family “Silver Book” Five Generations project of the Mayflower Society. Most recently, she is the author of the 2017 edition of The Babson Genealogy, 1606-2017, Descendants of Thomas and Isabel Babson who first arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1637. Alicia has served as Historian of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Assistant Historian General at the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, and as Genealogist of the Alden Kindred of America. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in History from Northeastern University.

Scope

Genealogical Writing, ,

Another way to assess a genealogy is to consider the “scope” of its content. Few genealogies trace all descendants of a seventeenth-century New England couple through male and female lines to the present: just ask the Mayflower Society about their “Five Generations” program, now approaching sixty years of effort with more than fifty volumes – and still growing!

Standard genealogies usually trace descendants of the same surname through male lines because it is a much simpler task to collect data exclusive to one surname at a time. Continue reading Scope →

Who’s who

Genealogical Writing,

Enlarging on last week’s topic about Peer Review, it is always best to know who is who in any industry. The industry of genealogical research goes back almost 200 years, so that covers a lot of “Whos,” but here are some lists to help:

The American Society of Genealogists (https://fasg.org/fellows/all-fellows/) has elected 167 Fellows since 1940 based on their published work in books and articles. The ASG website includes biographies and lists of works by many past and present Fellows. Membership is limited to 50 Fellows at a time, so although many of the most recognized genealogists of the past 78 years appear on this list, it by no means includes everyone. ASG also gives several awards and certificates of appreciation to non-members for their work (https://fasg.org/awards/). Continue reading Who’s who →

Peer review

Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, Technology, ,

Genealogists can learn from Fantasy Football. The focus with which some people research yards per game or number of completed passes is the same that every genealogist should put into learning about the “team” of authors upon whom they are basing their own work. Is your team reliable in the “red zone”?

Fortunately, today we have pretty nearly full access to thousands of book reviews online. Continue reading Peer review →

Perfect 10

Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , ,

With the Winter Olympics almost upon us, we will be hearing a lot about “perfect” scores in the sports where judges assign points for such things as technical difficulty and artistic interpretation.

A “scoring” system for genealogies would be interesting. If, for example, we had ten categories on which to judge a genealogical source, and each category had a potential ten points maximum, the “perfect” score would be 100. Of course, this would all be subjective, but it would give us a way to group works for comparison (top 10%, bottom 50% etc.). Here are ten categories that I came up with, in no particular order (once we have the categories, we will examine them in detail in future posts): Continue reading Perfect 10 →

The three-legged horse

Genealogical Writing, ,

Thanks to everyone who joined in the discussion after my last post and suggested future topics. I should have plenty of inspiration, but please feel free to add new ideas at any time.

Overwhelmingly, everyone wants some kind of aid – a master list, a database – that will provide a one-stop source for researchers to assess bad resources, false claims, mistaken identities, and anything else that is not right about genealogy. Continue reading The three-legged horse →

“But it was published in a book!”

Genealogical Writing,

Vita Brevis has posted more than one thousand essays in the last four years, of which I’ve done a few,[1] but I am having a really hard time lately coming up with appropriate and interesting topics for a Vita Brevis post, so I am throwing it out to you readers. What do you want me to write? Questions? Comments?

In the meantime, I recently read a quote from Isaiah Thomas – the eighteenth-century printer, not the basketball player – that I thought was worth thinking about: “But, to my great disappointment, I soon found that people were not to be reasoned out of measures, that they never reasoned themselves into.” Continue reading “But it was published in a book!” →

Dower vs. inheritance

American History, Genealogical Writing,

After my previous post, the question came up about whether a widow’s dower right in her husband’s property is an “inheritance,” since, as we traditionally see the term being used in seventeenth-century New England, it is held only for the widow’s lifetime and reverts to her children on her death.

However, I found the following on Wikipedia: “Usually, the wife was free from kin limitations to use (and bequeath) her dower to whatever and whomever she pleased. It may have become the property of her next marriage, been given to an ecclesiastical institution, or been inherited by her children from other relationships than that from which she received it.” Continue reading Dower vs. inheritance →

Reverse dower

American History, Family Stories, ,

From a modern perspective, we might think that women had no legal rights in the “old” days, but there actually were many ways in which women were legally protected. For example, husbands could not abandon wives and families (although one had to catch the husband to make him pay up). Another right that we regularly see is the right of dower given to the wife: she was entitled to inherit one third of her husband’s estate, no matter what he might have thought about it. This right is often expressed in land records when the husband sells land and the wife “releases” her dower rights to the property. Not all deeds include this release, but the right was there and the transaction could later be contested without it. Continue reading Reverse dower →

The Phippen chart

American History, Collections, Family Stories, ,
John Symonds, “Genealogical Register with Coat-of-Arms of the Phippen and the Smith families of Salem, Massachusetts,” 1808, detail. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Anna Augusta Chapin Fund

When I compiled the Early New England Families Study Project sketch on Joseph Phippen a couple of years ago, I briefly mentioned that the identification of the maiden name of his wife Dorothy/Dorcas/Darcus as “Wood” depended on an “incomplete Phippen pedigree chart attributed to Joseph, which [Clarence Almon] Torrey noted was doubted; see description of the Chart [by Robert Charles Anderson in his sketch on David Phippen] in GM2, V:455-56 [who did not incorporate information from the chart, deeming it too far removed from the early generations]).” Not having the opportunity to see the chart in question, myself, I followed Bob Anderson’s caution and did not include any maiden name for Joseph’s wife. Continue reading The Phippen chart →

Salt Lake City

Genealogical Writing, News, Research Methods, Technology, ,

Just shy of my seventieth birthday, I finally made it to Salt Lake City. I am a notoriously bad traveler (with a tendency toward such things as sciatica, migraines, and hives), but the occasion was the annual meeting of the American Society of Genealogists, and since this was the first meeting after my election as a Fellow last October it seemed rather rude not to show up.

I survived the trip and got to enjoy three mild, sunny October days in Salt Lake (the fourth day was cold and windy). I enjoyed meeting new colleagues and seeing old faces, some not seen in 30 or more years. Rachal Mills Lennon is our newest Fellow. Continue reading Salt Lake City →