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Apr 2006 Issue
by LaRae Free Kerr
We had lunch - salmon mousse - with the Duke of Norfolk at the Savoy in London. The family history I wrote, with the fabulous aid of many family members, was one of ten finalists, and the only American entry, in a contest of the The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in England. The book also won a first place in the Idaho Press Women Contest and an honorable mention in the Heartland Genealogical Society contest.
We sacrificed joyfully and made it fun to write the book, so our family could have a record of their ancestors. Yet some family members did not like the book.
And now I’m ready to ride into the lion’s den again and write another one. Like the first one, it will be accurate and some family members will not like it. But it will be easier on writer and reader if both understand how to read family histories.
In order to read a family history accurately, remember several rules of evidence. The first is: authors cannot put anything into histories they do not know or have. Sounds obvious, right? If the courtship and marriage of the principle parties was never recorded, the courtship and marriage cannot go into the history.
One family who does not care for the prize-winning book mentioned above was angry with me because I did not include a picture about a first wife. I’m glad they told me about it. I was able to ask if I had returned a copy of the first wife’s picture, as I had returned every single picture loaned to me. They said I hadn’t. That meant I had never received the first wife’s picture. I could not put a picture in the history I had not received.
Some family members wanted more heroic stories about their ancestors in the book, but these people did not respond to our repeated requests for information. So we used regular research procedures – interviews, library searches, school records, etc. – to gather information. These sources reflected what others thought of the ancestor and made for a richer, more balanced history, but may not have reflected the love the family felt.
Family histories cannot include information the writer does not have, which brings us to the second rule for understanding family histories. Some sources are more true than others.
If an author is presented with three different dates for a birth, which one should be used in the book? The one whose source is nearest the event in time, place and person. Perhaps one birth date came from a cousin who said, “I remember celebrating the subject’s birthday just two days after mine, so it must be 17 April 1949.” That’s a clue, not a source.
Another record is the birth certificate filled out by a doctor and filed by the nurse at the mother’s home seven days after the event. That date is 12 April 1948. But the third is the daily, faithfully-kept diary of the mother. She writes, “Eight AM this morning, 13 April 1948, I gave birth to my darling baby.” This is the one to believe and use in the book. It was written by a person vitally involved in the event, at or near the time of the event.
Granted, for someone else, the birth certificate written seven days after the birth may be the most primary document. If so, the researcher should use it and give the source in the book.
And that rule, use the truest source, leads nicely into the next: treat family legends as legends. True, over the years, I’ve discovered most legends have a grain of truth. But it’s imperative to find that grain.
Professional genealogists just shake their heads when they hear family stories like these:
three brothers came from ____ and all people with the surname ____ in the United States, no matter what the spelling, come from one of these three brothers. Our family is descended from royalty. My Uncle ____ was cheated out of the money for his invention, his land, his Broadway play, whatever.
Ok, true, a few families do descend from two or three or four brothers. True some families do descend from royalty or gentry. And true, some people were cheated out of their rights. But probably not yours. Do the research to find out.
One of our family legends indicated our grandfather gave Liberty Park to Salt Lake City, Utah. After spending hours in the Salt Lake County Courthouse with a professional deed researcher, I discovered a grandfather did indeed give Liberty Park to Salt Lake City, but it wasn’t my grandfather, Absalom P Free. It was Brigham Young who was indeed a grandfather to some of Absalom’s descendants.
Another legend I heard as a child was that Daniel Hicks was a sea captain. The truth is he was a seaman, and a very poor one. He was injured at sea, apparently, and spent more than thirty years in the Romford Poorhouse in England. It’s right there in the censuses. His wife eventually joined him there and survived him by several decades.
Another legend states that our Uncle Jake invented the jake brake for trains and was cheated out of the patent. This one turned out to be true!
People want their ancestors to have been richer, more famous, more blue-blooded than they could possibly be. Measuring the value of our ancestors by their money, fame and heritage cheats them and us. Try measuring the value of ancestors by their honesty, the trials they were presented with and what they did with them, their humor, their heroism, their love.
Read your family history with a grateful heart. And remember the rules: nothing can be in the history that wasn’t found in some source or other; some sources outweigh others, and hopefully, your family historian used the most valuable sources at all times; family legends tend to be legends.
