What does it mean — a better diaspora? I started thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when a friend who is Latina mentioned how often people are surprised when they find out she doesn’t speak Spanish. At the time I just laughed. I don’t speak Swedish or any of my other ancestral languages,…
Author: Justin Durand
Excavating Identity
I get edgy when I think someone is too attached to a theory. They’re all theories in my book, some with better evidence than others. And, so often we as genealogists go through struggles about evidence and conclusions when someone really wants a particular result. “Humans add narrativium [“narrative causality”] to their world. They insist…
Modern Frauds
When I think of genealogical frauds I usually think about those quirky amateur genealogies published in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Lofty connections with little or no evidence. Lots of oral history. Then too, I think of the defenders of this old material. Generally people who fulfilled the requirements for a high school diploma…
Name of Jesus
I wonder sometimes. Genealogists are supposed to use the earliest attested name. The rule is often glossed as requiring genealogists to use the “birth name“. We had a debate on Geni.com a while back about the name of Jesus. I still don’t feel comfortable with the result. The Messianic Jews argued stridently in favor of…
Stonehenge DNA
Our world is shifting. Once upon a time we thought humans spread from Africa, eventually reached and spread through Europe, then settled down to several millennia of farming — punctuated by invasions and population movements in historic times that are more or less known. Well, we didn’t exactly think that, but if you didn’t take…