Taking the Long View

 

How often we discover one record, one document, one slip of paper, and assume in the victory of locating it that we have found the whole of an ancestor's story. In the case of several of my ancestors—especially those women of previous centuries—that simply isn't so. An example like that serves to remind us all to take the long view when documenting an ancestor's life story.

I had mentioned that problem in reviewing the research difficulties concerning one paternal ancestor, my grandfather's sister, whom the New York family called Aunt Rose. Rose went by three different married names, in addition to the name under which she had been recorded at birth, back in Poland.

To my horror, in trying to add Rose to the FamilySearch.org universal family tree, I discovered there were actually three different women entered instead of the one woman I knew by three married names. Only by demonstrating through documentation will I be able to rectify that situation and blend the three identities into one. Unfortunately, some of those documents are still beyond my grasp.

A situation like this, however, is not isolated to the irregularities of my Polish immigrant ancestors, who, to begin with, were quite reticent about revealing their true identity. Just the other day, as I experimented with a new-to-me research tool at Ancestry.com, I alluded to another example where it takes more than one document to tell the whole of a woman's story.

In eliminating duplicate entries on my in-laws' tree, I ran across several such women whom I had entered twice in that same family tree. As I reflect over the cause for some of these double entries and worked through the documentation to confirm the right display in my tree, it became obvious that following women through name changes due to multiple marriages takes time, patience—and a chain of record keeping. 

For instance—and this is a relatively easy example—my mother-in-law's great-grand aunt, Sarah Mooter, showed in one part of my tree under her maiden name with a marriage to someone named Gibson. In a separate entry, she was mother of a child with a surname of Ebner. How did all that connect? It took piecing together several documents to verify what I suspected: as often happened in that time period, a widow with children remarried, starting a second family.

While we can surmise such an expected outcome, we still need to put together the confirming paper trail. Instead of "filling in the blank," we need to insert documentation to fill in several blanks or the story is not completely told. Sometimes the fill-in-the-blank format of pre-designed genealogical programs doesn't seem to lend itself to this reality of researching our ancestors. Messy lives can't really be contained in a simple fill-in-the-blanks format. I know the still-missing parts of Aunt Rose's story are keeping me from telling her whole story. I suspect I'm not the only one whose family has such a history.

The Trial and Error of Collaboration

 

Yesterday, I mentioned getting together with a newfound cousin to compare family trees. We met at a coffee shop where we could spread out, equipped with two laptops and notebooks. This was not just a social get-together; this was a working session. We were on a mission.

Because we both are also involved in a locally-inspired continuing education program (similar to OLLI), we realized the possible application to future classes of what we were doing—the trial and error effort of collaborating to answer our own research question. We began discussing whether we could use that same approach for a small group learning project in genealogy.

Aside from the limitations of finding a hospitable space for several people and their laptops, such a workshop would need to begin with an agreement: that we'd be willing to be patient enough for the process to unfold organically as each member frames a research question or goal, and we collectively explore ways to resolve impasses.

As I mentioned last week, I believe that this part of the process is actually where learning begins. Not in sitting through lectures. Certainly not in studying for tests. But in the application of techniques as, by trial and error, we learn what works for our particular problem—and what doesn't work.

Launching such a program without testing it first would not be a good idea. It's an experiment; of course it would be messy. In our discussion of the possibilities last week, we talked about giving it an informal trial run. It's just a matter of gathering a few volunteers (and their laptops, of course) at a coffee or sandwich shop with wifi connection, seeing what works best for everyone. Even with just a few willing members from our local genealogical society, we should be able to try that—and then ask everyone what works best for them. What helps people make a breakthrough on their brick wall research problem?

Just hearing one person make a suggestion like this was validating. I've been teaching for a long time and frankly, it can be very disheartening to feel like a lesson is no more than so much "blah, blah, blah." The key is to find what makes a difference for the learner—and every learner is different. It is encouraging for the teacher and empowering for the learner to engage in an approach that becomes a catalyst to successful outcomes. I'm hoping we can find such a catalyst through this project.