I approach this working group and its expansive issues having undertaken a book project on the relationship between genealogy and the American self. Since I teach and otherwise work within university walls, I am not well situated to address directly the working group’s questions about public history practice and funding—the part of the group’s title that stresses “building capacity.” But I am fully ready to address the second part of the title, “challenging exclusive uses of the past.”
Genealogy, in its very nature, is small-bore, in its focus on particular families and surnames. So one might reasonably ask, to what extent can U.S. genealogy practices nourish broader approaches to grass-roots and community history? I have a related thorny question. How could genealogy practitioners help diversify public-history practice, when the very distinction between genealogy and history is an open and vexing question in the first place? The two genres overlap, but, as far as the academy is concerned, genealogy and history have long been estranged, since the time of history’s professionalization a century ago.
Philosophically, things are richly problematic. But I have also learned in the course of my work that while genealogy is intensely personal, it can simultaneously be intensely political when undertaken by groups excluded from the archive, such as the descendants of enslaved people or displaced indigenous people. To research one’s ancestry means, among other things, to uncover the acts of sexual predation that were at the heart of power relations. The law professor Patricia Williams, in her memoir, reveals an enslaved forebear who was impregnated at the age of twelve by her master, who was also a lawyer. Research on individual families or surnames uncovers other buried matters, such as the lived experiences of Jewish communities in Poland that were later eradicated in World War II. Maybe there survives a memorial book in America, of a particular village; maybe there does not. Family genealogies show another form of cultural survival.
But also among the descendants of better-documented American populations—white Protestants—genealogists could be induced to challenge exclusive uses of the past. Genealogists predominate among the patrons of historical societies, libraries, and repositories of all kinds, large and small. Reaching out to as many genealogy communities as possible, including to online communities such as the “Special Interest Groups” within American Jewish genealogy, makes good financial sense for public historians simply because of genealogists’ vast numbers and willingness to travel in person, as well as to venture online from one’s home. Old documents and buildings and burying grounds are as precious to genealogy as they are to history. Because of their numbers, genealogists are in a good position to shape the cultures in their surrounding communities to advocate for historic preservation, and for better funding for public history.
Now that I’ve struck this hopeful note, I’m ready to return to those questions I first asked. We are now living in an interesting historiographical moment: a perigee in which genealogy and history are operating the closest they’ve done since the 19th century. There has long been a scholarly, professional guild among genealogists that shares the values of professional history and public history, such as the importance of doing primary research, and of fully documenting one’s evidence. Especially since the 1970s, history, for its part, has been expanding outside university walls once again, more than ever; I hardly need to remind my audience of the origins of public history as a concept. Genealogists insist on renaming their field “family history”; note the “history” in that locution. Many historians themselves have recently written family history and incorporate genealogy into their methods and concerns, going far beyond examples from genealogical materials familiar to social history. I have noticed the deepening ties between U.S. history and genealogy especially in African American studies. For example, in Saidiya Hartman’s account called Lose Your Mother, she mourns her inability to document her enslaved forebears.
My bottom line is to suggest collaborations between public historians and genealogy institutions, periodicals, and websites of all kinds, or to put more into such collaborations if they have been tried before. I predict that among genealogists and family historians, public historians will find communities that care deeply enough about the past to commit meaningful resources, of time and cultural values as well as money, toward historical knowledge and preservation.
~ Francesca Morgan, Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago)
This is fascinating to think about and as a result I have several thoughts forming in no order. From archivists, I hear that amateur genealogists are the largest users of archives not historians. Genealogy is a great example of DIY history that can and has scaled in scope from “my family” to Ancestry.com. That genealogy is about geography as much as it is about history. I think of the burning of the Irish Records Office in 1922 that has created obstacles for those of Irish descent who wish to research their family history. And my colleague’s digital humanities project which maps all the lynching occurrences mentioned in Ida B. Wells The Red Record along with the date, name, specific location, and supposed offense. This interactive map introduces a level of technology that is likely to engage students, researchers, individuals, especially younger ones, with the subject matter more readily than the text itself. I think the use of digital information technologies will certainly be part of the methods proposed for building capacity. That was rambling, sorry.
You’re so right about digital history! A field that is changing under our feet as we speak (and type).
Well said insights and observations into the world of genealogists and their potential to interact with Public Historians. This large group of the public practicing History seems it should be a natural partner of Public History, yet this is one of the few times I’ve seen it addressed so directly. I look forward to hearing more insight on the subject on the discussion boards and in Baltimore.
I’m looking forward to discussing this in person, too.
Genealogy reveals the disparities in history and I’d like to flesh out how it can be used to challenge the exclusive past. There’s certainly widespread interest in learning about one’s family history yet for many communities archival records provide partial or limited details. As a result, public history, particularly oral history, has filled in many gaps. The two are complimentary and I’m eager to continue the discussion.
What great questions. I view those 2 communities as overlapping circles, perhaps irreconcilable in their various intents. I can imagine public historians’ patience would wear thin re the narrowness of genealogy projects, for example. But my answers to your questions about funding also make the case for considering the relationship. Many genealogy communities are nonprofit, and depend on donations of time (labor) as well as money; I see that especially re Mormon and Jewish forms of genealogy. But it’s a mixed picture; masses of Americans these days are also willing to pay hundreds of dollars for DNA testing, DNA analysis, those Ancestry.com fees, etc. Those dot-coms would not exist if there were not a market of consumers for their services. The same is true for the very lively roots-travel scene, even in this era of on-line genealogy; there are lots of overseas tourists seeking tangible family-history information. So, regarding public historians, I want to believe that historical societies (for example) that could not otherwise afford to have their old documents digitized could go about fundraising from those same kinds of genealogists. There could be partnerships. The website of the Allen County, Indiana, library system (Fort Wayne), which bills itself as a genealogy tourist destination, might shed some light in this regard.
As someone who knows very little about the profession of genealogy: Maybe we can learn from genealogists, in creating the historical record and marketing our skills and sources for broader consumption. I’m skeptical about creating alliances with genealogists – I wonder about the intent and audience of genealogy. What is the goal of genealogists, and can we reconcile their goals with those of public historians’? By extension, I wonder about how genealogists fund their practice – who are the consumers of ‘family history,’ and how do genealogists engage with the market? All this being said, I do see the similarities and the richness of genealogical research…
Oops, I should be more clear. I meant to reply to Minju Bae’s questions right then, but I put the reply in the wrong place . Ms. Burchall, I look forward to discuss the history of oral history in Baltimore. You’re so right that non-textual forms of evidence, such as oral evidence, and written evidence from archives are both needed for genealogists; each type of evidence fails if used alone.