The relationship between historians and genealogists has long been a troubled one. Each tends to regard the other with bemused contempt.
To historians, genealogists are obsessive collectors of meaningless minutiae, enthusiastic but woefully untrained, churning out dubious family trees studded with even more dubious famous names. To genealogists, historians are utterly out-of-touch academics, obliviously offering one jargon-dripping tome after another to an uncaring and uncomprehending world - Sheila O'Hare. Click HERE to read more.
Modern genealogy—appropriately done—is history in microcosm. Our research projects study “up close and personal” small slices of the past. We pluck individuals from the nameless masses that historians paint with a broad brush. We learn their names. We follow them from birth to death. We see the actual effect upon human lives of the grand world events that historians write about—wars, economic depressions, plagues, politics, and persecutions. We see how one humble person and his or her neighbours can reshape a community, a state, or a country. Then we repeat the process, generation by generation - Elizabeth Shown Mills. Click HERE to read more.
