Historical Elements

As a genealogist, you need to know about the historical eras of your ancestors. Problem solving often becomes easier when you know the historical context in which a situation existed. For instance, some Southern families in the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War tended to wander from one area of newly opened Native American lands to the next. To understand which Native American lands were opened for settlement, you could start with the technical listing by Charles C. Royce, Indian Cessions in the United States (1900. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1971). From this source you could go on to explore local histories. A great many examples can be marshaled to prove the importance of understanding history. As a hypothetical example, suppose an ancestor was a Methodist circuit rider, an occupation about which you might be vague. Could circuit riders be married? How long were they assigned to one circuit? What and how large was a circuit? Where and in what sorts of Methodist records would you look for records about a rider? What is the difference between a circuit rider, a regular Methodist preacher, and a lay exhorter?

Assume the immigrant ancestor whose British origins are not known arrived in a colony around 1690 and was soon appointed as the crown's legal officer for a county. What sort of legal education would such a person likely have? Could he have been a lawyer in the colonies without having gone to the London Inns of Court? Was there any other school in England that trained lawyers? Would a degree from Cambridge or Oxford be sufficient? What was the Scottish or Irish equivalent of these English schools? Would study in them permit the practice of law in the colonies? Could one be a lawyer in 1700 just by apprenticing with a practicing lawyer? Would such an apprentice-trained lawyer likely be chosen as King's Counsel? Is this legal background even a plausible avenue to search for the man's British birthplace?

Suppose a family tradition says ancestress Mary Jones was born a Catholic but was adopted as an eight-year-old by Quakers after the French and Indian War. It helps to know that adoption did not exist under colonial law and that the earliest adoption law in the United States seems to have been the 1851 Massachusetts law. Perhaps this "adoption" was really a guardianship. If her parents were Catholic, were there laws suppressing the Catholic Church about 1763, and would there ever have been a Catholic Church register naming Mary? Was it illegal to practice Catholicism in New York in 1763 but legal in Pennsylvania?

Such examples could continue endlessly. Obviously, a genealogist needs such information. It is easy, however, to put off background reading because the appropriate book or article can be hard to find. Which books explain anti-Catholic laws in the Mid-Atlantic colonies? A good local library is an obvious boon, though the interlibrary loan of history books is practical. Helpfully, many college libraries offer borrowing privileges for non-students for a quarterly or yearly fee.

Finding the history book or article you need is a hit-and-miss affair that is called developing a bibliography. Even the most expert historian or genealogist suffers from the frustrations of trying to learn what has been published. Take such frustrations in stride. Certain finding aids will help.

The bibliographic Harvard Guide to American History, edited by Frank Freidel, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974), is a good place to begin. It leads the user directly to specific history titles by topics. Do not overlook using the Family History Library Catalog of the LDS Family History Library as a subject index. (See chapter 2.) This catalog is also available at the many LDS family history centers located across the United States.

American associations compile yearly bibliographies. The two major services are America: History and Life and Writings on American History, also online at university library computer-search centers. If Annadel N. Wile, et al., C.R.I.S.: The Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974, 11 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Carrollton Press, 1977), is available, check it for articles on obscure subjects. Many state bibliographies also exist either in book form or as yearly bibliographies in state historical journals. If you are concentrating on a particular area and have access to the back issues of historical journals devoted to that area, first seek a cumulative index to the periodical and, if there is none, examine the title pages of each issue to see what was published. Also check the titles in the book review sections.

This scattershot approach is the way things are done. There is usually no one-stop service for building the good bibliography you want. And without that in-depth knowledge of the world of your ancestors, you stand a much smaller chance of solving lineage problems.