DNA: a recovered past

I've been away for nearly a month on a wonderful adventure with my family, and I have lots more to write about my Genealogical Research System (and photos will be posted on my art blog)..... but all that will have to wait until I get over jet lag and clear the backlog of stuff  that always accumulates after a trip.

I do want to share an amazing thing that just happened, though.  Just before I left, my father agreed to submit a DNA sample to see what we could learn about the deep history of our paternal line.  When I returned, there was an email saying the results were in, and oh, by the way, you have an exact match.  I was pretty excited, especially since this line is a fairly common surname and represents my "brick wall."

So (jet lagged or not) I contacted the match, asking if we might be related, and she responded almost immediately with a resounding YES!!! As it turns out, Carol is my second cousin once removed, and while we didn't resolve our brick wall, now there are two of us working on it, and it doesn't seem like such a lonely job anymore.

But the real wonder and miracle of this is Carol's story.  You see, she never knew her blood-surname.  There was a family dispute in her grandparents' generation in which one parent betrayed another, and the betrayed one vowed never to have anything more to do with the other.  She took the children, forbade the father from ever having contact with them, and changed their surname.  How she managed that in the small town they lived in is a mystery to me, but Carol's father grew up not knowing his family, although they surrounded him silently, unable to reach out.  Years later, when he learned the truth, he discovered that one of his aunts had even been his school bus driver.

Carol and I spent a long time on the phone, sharing our family stories.  I was startled, but not surprised, to hear that deep blue eyes are a strong feature in her family, because that's something that stands out in my family, too.  As we talked, it was clear that for Carol, making this connection was more than just finding another name on the family tree -- this was about personal identity and belonging.

One reason I am so passionate about genealogy is because family itself is so important.  Knowing our family -- for better or worse -- places us in a context.  The "I am" statement cannot exist in a vacuum.  Things we think of as ours alone (that singing talent, the academic propensity, even our blue eyes...) more often that not are rooted in our genes.  We pursue those deep genetic ties because we realize that at some point, we are all related, we are all one family.

Post Script:

I sent this post to Carol to read before I published it, and she replied with a poem she had written a few years ago:

Daddy said he loved me as he held my hand.

He told me to always remember my family and never forget who I am.

I said, I will never forget Daddy.

He smiled at me and we walked.

Mommy said she loved me as she moved a stray hair from my head.

She told me to be brave and always look for goodness and never forget to forgive.

I said, I will never forget Mommy.

She smiled at me and we walked.

They died that day, on that walk.

But I never forgot.

I never forgot.

I looked up at the sky and smiled as I walked.

Carol Ehrenreich

Using the GRS to record evidence, assertions and proofs

I'm assuming that anyone reading this is already familiar with the work of Elizabeth Shown Mills, and especially her gold-standard reference work on analyzing and citing evidence: Evidence Explained.  If you are not, drop everything and read it!  She is one of the most respected scholars in the field of history and genealogy, and has worked for many years to raise the standards of research in genealogy to match or surpass those in any other academic field of study.  

The Genealogical Research System of templates for Bento is a tool that helps you enter your research data in a manner consistent with the requirements that we track the quality of our data and not just the quantity.  It also provides a framework for analysis -- it won't do the work for you, of course, but it does  provide the outline, and that will often make the difference between doing the work and skipping it.

Like everything else in the GRS, evidence analysis is designed to be accomplished in stages.  The first step comes when you are entering basic information about your source in the Sources library.  Data reliability rests heavily on the type of sources you use, so it is important to record information about the physical nature and quality of the source in the "source evaluation" form:

1. Choose from a list describing the type of media you are consulting, whether it is a book, document, digital image, and so on.  
2. Describe the type of source you are examining, whether it is the original form of a document, original index, official copy, transcript, abstract, index, etc.
3. Describe the category of information provided by this source, such as newspapers, wills, land records, burials, etc.
4. In the notes field, include any other thoughts you have about this source: physical condition, legibility, missing pages -- anything that may affect its reliability.

When you are ready to enter all the evidence from a source into the Evidence library, you will be asked to record additional information about each separate piece of evidence it contains -- keeping in mind that you may repeat this exercise for many different pieces of evidence from the same source:

1. Check the box marked "direct evidence" if this evidence provides a specific statement that answers a research question.  In the example shown above, the source (a daybook written by the brother of an ancestor) directly stated that Rachel Grimes died on 18 June 1852; an indirect piece of evidence might have been a simple note that he went out to buy mourning clothes.
2. Check the box marked "primary informant" if this evidence is from a source that had first hand knowledge of the event.  In this case, I assume that Thomas Grimes knew for a fact that his niece had died, because of their relationship and physical proximity.  I would not have checked the box if he had written that a Mr. Lindsey had told him about the death of a mutual acquaintance in Kentucky.
3. Check the box marked "original source" only if you are using a source closest to the original as possible.  In other words, do your research and make sure that the source you are using is the one closest to the original.  I've embedded the Sources library as a related data field at this point, so information about the source you used is readily at hand. Obviously if you looked at an abstract or compiled data of some sort, this will remind you to seek out and review the original. (Following Dr. Mills' guidelines, I consider a digital image of a document from a reliable online provider to be equivalent to an original source, but rely on the notes that you make when you are looking at the source when deciding whether to check this box.)
4. Discuss the nature of the source and your conclusions in the text fields.

The Assertions & Proofs library contains a further step in the process of analyzing your data.  In this library, you identify a research question, and assemble the evidence that you have gathered.

What this template does is give you a framework for looking at a particular research question, and seeing the arguments for and against your hypothesis together in one place.  This way, you can keep tabs on the current status of your research at any given time.

Of course, all this works only if you think of these templates as an active part of your research process and not just a place to store your data..... but I'll write more about that another day.

Related Data fields in Bento

I want to write a bit about how Bento works, and how I use the Genealogical Research System templates in my research.  Today, I'm focusing on related data fields:  in my opinion, this is the main reason Bento is such a useful program for my genealogy research (...that is, until the day comes when genealogy software developers realize that users want family tree programs to accommodate serious research, and not just to fill out pretty charts.)

Bento is a semi-relational database because records in one library contain pointers to related records in a different library -- and stop there.  A true relational database, however, is a much more sophisticated program that automatically links related data.  It joins two libraries by comparing a key field and generating a new data set from records that meet some predefined criteria.  Bento cannot do this;  instead, links to related data are created through look-up tables, which give Bento most of the functionality of a relational database except that the burden is on the user to maneuver through the data on their own.

In the example below, from the entry for Dickerson Naylor in my Genealogy_people library, Bento won't automatically remember that he is linked to the listed pieces of evidence (nor will it automatically remember the sources from which they were extracted).  I have to physically move my cursor to the library containing the related information, using the icons located on the lower left below every related data table:

Once you figure out how to move around from one library to the related records in other libraries, then the fun begins and you can start using the data interactively.

For example, say you are entering data in your Evidence library and you want to link it to specific individuals.  You go to the related data table called "evidence related to whom" (linked to the Genealogy_people library), and select the appropriate person from that table.  Looking at that person's entry in the Genealogy_people Library, you might realize that this individual is also linked to an entry in the Correspondence library.  That record describes a letter you received two years ago containing information that was meaningless at the time but now makes sense in light of the present piece of evidence.  Without a system for recording related data, you might never make the connection between a new piece of data and a snippet of information filed away in a letter.

By linking your data in one library to the related records in other libraries, you can keep track of how much you know about all the data points you are following at any given time -- and this is what the Genealogical Research System was designed to do.

*********************************************************************************

Related data tables in each of the libraries in the Genealogical Research System

Sources library:                                                      Repositories library:

Repository                                                              Sources                     

Online Database                                                    To Do List                                             

Evidence

To Do List                                                               Online Database library:

                                                                                  Sources

Evidence library:

Sources                                                                    Genealogy_People library:

Hardcopy Lookup                                                 Evidence

Genealogy_People                                                To Do List

To Do List                                                               Correspondence

Assertions                                                               Genealogy_Photos

                                                                                  Genealogy_Artifacts

Assertions & Proof library:                                  all Census years

Genealogy_People

To Do List                                                              Correspondence library:

                                                                                 To Do List

To Do List library:

Sources                                                                   Genealogy_Photos library:

Evidence                                                                Genealogy_People

Assertions                                                              To Do List

Genealogy_People                                              

Repository                                                             Genealogy_Artifacts:

Online Database                                                   Genealogy_People

Genealogy_Artifacts                                           To Do List

Genealogy_Photos

Correspondence

all US Census libraries:

Evidence*

Genealogy_People

To Do List

*The Evidence library does not contain reciprocal related data tables for the US Census libraries because there are so many of them.  I just make sure that any census evidence I add includes the relevant year and head of household, so I can easily look it up in the US census library.

New updates to the Genealogical Research System are available!

The new templates for my Genealogical Research System are now posted on the FileMaker template exchange.  I will give you point by point details soon on what's included in the updates, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, here's the short answer:

• the U.S. Census templates are now included as an integral part of the GRS so there's no need to download them as a separate template; 
• I've added a Library for Proofs; and 
• I've included more related tables.

The whole idea behind the GRS is to support every stage of the research process, from data gathering to analysis, using the Genealogical Proof Standard as a constant guide.  As you might have seen from the first version, the emphasis in the Source library is on data gathering.  Then, in the Evidence library, you move to extracting and recording meaningful information from your sources, linking this data to relevant people or tasks.  In this version, I've added an Assertions & Proof Arguments library, in which you identify a research question and gather together all the relevant pieces of evidence both pro and con.  Once this is assembled, you have all the tools together in one place to write a proof argument.

I make extensive use of Bento's Related Data feature, which allows you to easily add data and move between related records in different libraries.  By moving through your data in a non-linear fashion and examining it through different lenses, you understand it more thoroughly, and often make logical connections that are missed in a straightforward linear record-keeping structure.  The research process itself is iterative, so your research tool should accommodate a flexible, back-and-forth model of recording data.

In fact, that is the key element of a useful research tool: you should be able to record data or perform tasks as they become relevant, from multiple places in your database.  This obviously makes your work more intuitive and seamless, since you don't have to stop what you are doing, close down a page, and start something new.  The related table feature in Bento allows you to do this; here are some quick examples:

• You are at a courthouse, examining several wills, each of which offers several different pieces of evidence.  Add the source and do a "quick add" to the Evidence library right from the source page.  Later you go back to fill in the details.
• While entering information in the Evidence library, you are struck by a common theme in your data; you can enter it as a formal assertion directly from the evidence screen, and analyze it later in the Assertions library.
• You can add items to your To Do List library from almost everywhere in the system; if you are anything like me, you are always thinking of the next step while you are still in the middle of doing the first thing!

The point is that the process is organic, and not linear.

One caution -- if you've been using the earlier version of my templates, make sure to save your data before importing to the new templates.  I tried not to change field names, but there were a few unavoidable changes -- best practice is to always save your data before trying anything new!

details, details.....

A genealogist is nothing if not detail oriented!  That is a wonderful thing when you are researching, because you follow every lead and painstakingly gather every scrap of information, even if it is not immediately relevant.  You know that those seemingly random bits of data often end up as key pieces of the puzzle.

However those qualities that make a good researcher tend to bog down the person!  My youngest daughter just graduated from high school, and my life in the last few months has been busy with entertaining family and getting her ready to head out into the world. Talk about details.... whew!  Thankfully things are beginning to settle down into a summer routine.

I've been meaning to add the changes I've made to my Genealogical Research System to the template sharing page on the Bento website, but all the details of my life these days have kept me from doing it.  If anyone reading this wants a copy of the latest version (the census templates are linked to the main research template, and I've added a new template that helps you assemble your evidence to construct a proof), don't hesitate to email me and I'll send you the updates.

Meanwhile, with my new-found free time, I've been having fun on the Family Search website -- I'm thrilled to see all the wonderful content they are adding.  I've been looking at digital images of wills, birth records, naturalization records, and more as fast as I can find them.

The best part about having immediate access to these records is that it is now very easy to expand my strategy to include the records of my ancestors' friends, family and neighbors. This hasn't always been possible for me in the past.  As a mom with a busy family, my research time was limited; so whenever I visited a records repository, my searches had to be highly targeted strikes.  The fact that I can now sit at my desk instead of traveling is a real game-changer.

Of course this all has to happen now that I am becoming an empty-nester and I want to travel around....

Census templates are now available!

As part of my quest to add more tools for managing the genealogical research process, I've created a series of templates in Bento for recording federal census data.  Each one reflects a different year of the federal census.  My goal is to add another layer of usefulness to my Genealogical Research System.  Once you enter data in any of these census templates, Bento makes it available as a related data table from within my system.  Simply put, you can enter census data for an individual, and it automatically shows up as evidence for that person.  

Well......... technically, only I can do that at present.  

You can certainly begin to use these templates right away for entering data, but I haven't yet updated the Genealogical Research System in the Bento template exchange to reflect the more sophisticated data relationships I envision.  I will do that very soon!  I'm currently working on adding another component to my system, and it would be nice to update everything at once.

So for now, I've included a template for every census year from 1790 through 1940 (except for the lost 1890 census).  This is an image from the main screen of the US Census template folder:

Once you choose a census year to work on, you click on the icon and it opens the data entry form.  All the templates are formatted to include the columns from the original census in their original order, so all you have to do is tab from one to the next as you enter data from the original census page.  I've also included a field for you to drag and drop files from your computer, so you can store a digital image of the census in each record.  I've created separate forms for entering publication information and the actual data from the census, which makes it easier to follow visually.  For some of the early census years, there are also separate forms for the slave and free schedules.

Just to give you an idea, here's a screen shot from the 1810 template:

"publication data" form

"census data" form

Beginning in 1850, every member of a household was recorded in the census.  For all subsequent census years, I enter data for the head of household only, and use the memo field called "household members" to add information on the other members of that household.  This way I keep the household intact in a single entry, yet I can easily search for individuals using Bento's powerful search engine.   This is a sample page from the 1880 census that shows how I enter all the members of one household.

You can, of course, give each person their own database entry, but I think this method saves time without losing function.  Either way, as long as you link the individuals to their entry in your "Genealogy_people" library, you will be able to access related data from your other Bento libraries.

page in the "people" library showing records related to Zebulon Rhodes in other Bento libraries

page in the "people" library showing all records related to Zebulon Rhodes in the 1850 through 1910 census
(this page isn't yet included in my Genealogical Research System templates, but should be up soon)

I hope you find this useful, and would love to have your feedback.

The need for standards in evidence... or why I abandoned commercial genealogy software

They do try...  Family tree software programs used by genealogists often pay lip service to good research practices by assigning a check box for the user to indicate whether a given source is "primary" or "secondary;" sometimes they include a rating system where you assign 5 stars to a "really good" source... whatever that means. 


Unfortunately it is all but useless to the average user who is faced with classifying sources that aren't easily categorized:   a digital copy of an original land record published by a state archives, an abstract of a chapter on your great-great grandfather from a local history published in 1882 and reprinted on a Rootsweb message board, a photo of a tombstone, and so on.  The definitions are sometimes hard to remember, too.... why isn't that chapter on my 2nd g-grandfather a primary source?  It has loads of direct information about him!


Without guidelines it is really hard for a non-academic researcher to assign surety levels in a way that will be commonly understood by other researchers. I just read a brilliant article by Elizabeth Shown Mills defining standards for evaluating and using historical evidence (you can read it here). She identifies three qualities of evidence that establish their credibility:

1)  whether the form of the data is original or derivative,  2) whether the specific data is from an informant with first hand (primary) or secondary knowledge of the matter under consideration, and 3) whether that data represents direct or indirect evidence of the date, name, place, event or circumstance we are trying to prove.  

Recently I set out to create a database application that would allow me to manage my research, and -- most importantly -- track the quality of the evidence I am gathering.  The criteria identified by Dr. Mills can be described as "objective" - that is, the evidence in question either meets or does not meet the definition.  This is key to providing guidelines that can be widely used by researchers with different levels of experience.  This is also key to my Genealogical Research System.   Rather than focus on adding names to a tree, I start with the assumption that sources are the primary points of interest, and accordingly, it is important to track information about the quality of the physical source itself.  My database tool allows the researcher to record each piece of evidence contained in a source and note the quality of that evidence relative to research objectives.  

I've just updated the field names in the analysis page of my Evidence library to more accurately reflect the terms used by Dr. Mills (so the templates I uploaded to the Bento template exchange are now officially out of date).  Specifically, I've added a checkbox field called "Original source," which the user will check if the source qualifies as an original (actual document or digital copy from reputable source) vs. a derivative.  The Source table is supplied to remind you of how the source you examined was formatted. The "Direct evidence" checkbox is checked if the data represents a statement of fact that explicitly supports the evidence, as opposed to data that only provides circumstantial evidence.  The "Primary Informant" checkbox is checked if the person supplying the information in the source did so from direct knowledge of the event.

By recording objective information about the quality of specific evidence, the researcher can establish a strong foundation for any conclusions to be drawn from that evidence.  This tool also allows users to track their research at every stage in the process, from visits to a repository all the way to final proof of an assertion. As a result, any evidence that is subsequently added to the researcher's family tree software will be supported by more objective measurements of value than the program would otherwise allow.

see Elizabeth Shown Mills, “Working with Historical Evidence: Genealogical Principles and Standards,” Evidence: A Special Issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly 87 (September 1999): 165–84; digital image at Elizabeth Shown Mills, Historic Pathways (http://www.HistoricPathways.com : accessed 16 May 2012).