Here’s another story to illustrate the malleability of oral history. We should not trust our family stories, but always look behind them for ways they might have been elaborated over time. This story comes from Mircea Eliade, a Romanian historian. “Sometimes, though very rarely, an investigator chances to come upon the actual transformation of an…
Author: Justin Durand
Naming Conventions
One of the canards of genealogy is that professional genealogists always prefer the earliest recorded name. The idea is that name is the most authentic. More or less true, but not quite, not always. William Shakespeare, for example. You think you know his name? His baptismal record, the earliest in a scant collection, calls him Gulielmus…
Almost Métis
I used to think my dad’s ancestors were Métis. They’re not, but I ended up with a seemingly permanent interest. The Métis are a Canadian group, a mixture of Anglos and Indians from the area between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. Not all mixed-race people in Canada are Métis, just the ones where…
Anglo-Saxon Genealogies
“Germanic pre-Christian ideas of ancestry wouldn’t necessarily be totally intuitive to a modern person looking back.“ This is a favorite topic of mine. I rarely pass up a chance to point out others who agree with me. Here, Simon Roper. The old, poetic genealogies handed down by our remote ancestors “were probably not completely reflective…
Sublette County Wyoming
A video about the scenic beauty of Sublette County. That’s where my grandmother was born and raised. So many familiar names. Big Piney, Marbleton, Daniel, Cora, Pinedale, Boulder. Someday I’m going to take a couple of weeks to explore. Bridger Productions, Sublette County and Pinedale Wyoming, YouTube <youtube.com>, Nov. 12, 2012, retrieved Aug. 17, 2020.