I read a fun paper last night. Fun because of the way it conceptualizes “genealogy”. For me, method and technique are always more interesting than mere facts. “Genealogies are not institutions or even families. Genealogies are components of rhetoric about families and, sometimes, about the institutions they lay claim to.” And, “In the case of…
Not Exactly Cherokee
White Americans love to say they’re part Cherokee. Experts say identifying as Cherokee gives people a feeling of being native to America, but that doesn’t explain how they get the idea. There are a lot of theories here, as you might expect. RF Tree Genealogy suggests many of these people have Melungeon ancestry. The Melungeons…
Heraldry is vanity
This title really caught my eye. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a heraldry aficionado willing to give time to anything that implies a criticism of heraldry, particularly an outright moral failing. “Medieval churches still abound in coats of arms depicted on tombs, epitaphs, windows, altarpieces and other commemorative devices. And of course it was…
Compare a Face
Which Ancestor Do You Look Like? Use Compare-a-Face at FamilySearch.org. Looks like I need to upload more family photos. “Unfortunately, there are no menu links to this Family History Activities section of the website. You can most easily find it by doing a Google search for FamilySearch activities. A link to the Activities page is also…
You’re Descended from Royalty
Everyone is descended from royalty. It’s just the way it works. At this point this fact should be so well known the universal reaction should be a yawn. But somehow the news hasn’t reached a lot of researchers. So, worth another post. Adam Rutherford wrote about this recently. He starts off, “Charlemagne, Carolingian King of…