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Showing posts from August, 2007

Rootsweb, and how to Use it

How to search the mailing list archives : http://genweblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/searching-list-archives-by-joan-young.html List Archives : start at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ to browse, or click the Search link to search one or all of the Rootsweb lists. http://lists.rootsweb.com/ if you don't know what list you want. Formulaically - Archiver (browse) : http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/LISTNAME One wonderful tool Rootsweb has, that many people fail to use, is the Post-Em . You can place Post-Ems on individual records found in WorldConnect , the Social Security Death Index , User-Contributed Databases , and some of the other available vital records databases . Don't forget to register your research interests in the Rootsweb Surname List . If you have a website, add a link to the RootsWeb Resource Pages . If you don't have a website yet, get one ! Once you have created it, register it . Search all of Rootsweb with Google , by clicking Advanced Search , filling in yo

Genealogy, or Family History?

I read a wonderful comment today on Dick Eastman's site, by Geoff Riggs ... Genealogy is the bones - gathering of the facts about ones ancestors such as names, dates, places. Family History is 'putting the flesh on the bones' - finding the stories, history, geography, and so forth that shaped the lives of our ancestors. Rudyard Kipling wrote: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who I added a second verse to this some years ago: For pure Genealogists 'Who, When and Where?' suffice But Family Historians> Add 'Why, What, How?' for spice Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. - Eugene S. Wilson

Word of the Day: Prosopography

Prosopography: the study of collective biography, for individuals of a certain group (social class, profession, time frame, geographic origin, etc.). By accumulating data on individuals in a group, one learns more about the group. The term may have been coined by anthropologists but it is widely used among medieval historians, particularly social historians. - Nathaniel Taylor, ntaylor@fas.harvard.edu freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~randyj2222/gendictp.html Prosopography is an important methodological tool within historical research, its goal being the collection of all known information about individuals within a given period, often in the form of a register or database (frequently also known as a "Prosopography", e.g. The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopography Thanks to Sharon Sergeant of the APG list for introducing me to this term. She references Mel Wolfgang's presentation Researching 'Birds of a Feather'