I don’t remember what year it was, but some time when I lived in Salt Lake City (1977-1987), the city was doing some work at Pioneer Park. I’ve done some searches. From what I find, it seems it must have been 1986. Construction crews were digging a foundation for a new apartment building near Pioneer…
Author: Justin Durand
Scottish Witch Map
Here’s something to fire the imagination of genealogists in Britain and its diaspora. A map of some 3000 witches in 16th and 17th centuries Scotland. Who doesn’t have (or wish for) a Scottish witch in the family tree? “It builds on the university’s breakthrough work on the Scottish Witchcraft Survey which brought to life the…
Moniac Problems
I just finished this wonderful book, Independence Lost. Like the rest of America, I’m used to reading and hearing about the American Revolution in terms of people in New England and Virginia. Events elsewhere are just part of an unimportant periphery. I read somewhere that we forget only 13 of the 22 British colonies in…
Fremont Village
They found this ancient Fremont village long after I left Salt Lake, but it’s not too far from one of the places I lived. The Fremont people were related to the Cliff Dwellers (Anasazi, Ancestral Pueblo, whatever we’re calling them now), further south. And like the Cliff Dwellers, the Fremont culture seems to have collapsed…
Race vs Ethnicity
Masaman asks, “What’s the difference between the terms race, ethnicity, culture, ancestry, heritage, nationality and other terms that seem like they all should more or less be discussing the same thing?” I’ve written about this before, including: Ethnicity, Nationality, Race, Identity, Culture & Heritage (Feb. 9, 2019). Changing Ethnicity (Feb. 20, 2019). I come back…