Week 29: Challenging #52 Ancestors
“Challenging?” Really? You can’t just click on the “little leaf” and easily grow your family tree? While I love Ancestry.com, that commercial irks me a little. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still get a little thrill when I click on a leaf and some new record about my ancestor pops up. It’s just that I see so much wrong information on family trees that, even though genealogy is really fun and interesting, for it to be taken seriously, we researchers can’t be sloppy or careless. That’s why I would define the whole field of genealogy as “challenging.”
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “challenge” as “[t]he quality of requiring full use of one’s abilities, energy or resources.”[1] So true!
If you are a newbie to genealogy (or not really interested in it at all), you may not be aware of the Board for Certification of Genealogist. This organization was formed in 1964 in order to foster public confidence in genealogy as a “respected branch of history.”[2] One thing they do is award the “Certified Genealogist®” credential to people who have submitted a portfolio meeting their specific requirements. Being certified is in no way a requirement and many of the top genealogists in the field are not certified.
One of the other things the BCG does is publish genealogy standards and all of the many articles I’ve read and classes and lectures I have participated in follow these standards.[3] Rightly so, and this is where the word “challenging” comes into play. The latest version of these standards is 90+ pages and includes standards for documenting, researching, writing, and more, all based upon the “Genealogical Proof Standard”.[4] The five components of the GPS are:
· Reasonably exhaustive research;
· Complete and accurate citations;
· Analysis and correlation of all information;
· Resolution of conflicts; and
· Sound and reasoned written conclusions.[5]
Challenging indeed.
As you can probably tell, the GPS covers a lot of things. It’s not just that you can’t be so sloppy with your research that you have a child born after the mother’s death or a Civil War soldier who was born in 1650. While these are obviously wrong (I have seen both of these things and worse), the GPS essentially calls us to question and analyze everything we come across. Just because we have a death certificate that looks reliable, it doesn’t mean that everything on it is trustworthy.
For example, my sister commented on my Week #26 story about our great-grandfather (Charles E. Spencer) and asked who gave his birth year of 1836 to the headstone engraver. I can reasonably assume that our grandmother provided that information to the engraver because she was his only living close relative and she provided that same information for his death certificate.[6] For as long as I can remember, we were told our great grandfather died at the age of 99 and when I got the death certificate, it confirmed what the headstone said. Gosh, my grandmother provided that information so she must have known the truth. Easy-peasy. Except not so much. Nearly everything else on that death certificate is true – that is, can be corroborated by other pieces of independent information per the GPS. However, the year of his birth is definitely NOT true. It took a couple of years and hours of combing through census records, baptismal records, marriage records, military records and more to me to find the “truth” about the year of his birth.
When I was young(er) and slopp(ier), I believed my great grandfather was almost 99-years-old when he died. Now, I am old(er) and not generally so sloppy and the GPS has helped me find the “truth.”
When I say all of genealogy is “challenging,” I ain’t kidding.
To show you a little of what I analyzed, I’ve attached a chart showing the records reviewed and Charles’ age as shown or calculated.[7] It is so odd to me that he would make himself older. Every other ancestor I have researched that changed their age, made themselves younger (and nearly everyone seemed to do this). What an odd duck that guy was.[8] [Of course, on the 2020 census I am going to say I was born in 1977.]
[1]The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Ed., “challenge.”
[2]“About BCG,” Board for Certification of Genealogists (https://bcgcertification.org/about/: accessed 11 July 2019).
[3]Board for Certification of Genealogist, Genealogy Standards, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Turner Publishing Company, 2019).
[4] Ibid.
[5]Ibid, p. 1-2.
[6]New Jersey, certificate of death, No. 6819 (1934), Charles E. Spencer; New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Trenton.
[7]Please pardon the lack of citations. I don’t think Squarespace will allot me that much room on my blog. LOL I should mention that it wasn’t until I learned he was a big fat liar regarding his age that I was able to find all of these records.
[8]At least when he decided to be that age he stuck with it. We’ve another ancestor for whom I have 4 or 5 different birth years.
Charles E. Spencer birth years in the available records.