Genealogy offline: A question of access, investment, and wayfinding

It comes to me very often that the problem of genealogy is that the instructions are all together too prescriptive. If this, do this. If that, do that. 

One of the most common tropes that I see in blogs is that "it's not all online", and then proceeds to talk about records that exist as if they are the same for everyone in every state and every country.

I think the biggest thing I learned in 2015 is that there really aren't standard records available everywhere for everyone from every time period. Sounds easy, right? I mean, NY is not the same as IL or MI. But I think genealogy can fool you into thinking this is the case, because so much of our training is about making lists. 

For example:

-Found an ancestor who lived 1800-1890.

1.got the US censuses for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880.

2. then research helpers suggest finding state censuses for the 5 year marks in between (1855, 1865, etc.). 

3. then they suggest looking for newspaper articles to fill in

4. then they suggest looking for vital records to fill in

5. then they suggest looking for land records to fill in

6. then they suggest looking for military records to fill in.

7. then you get into the land of offline records: schools, letters, books, etc. 

The problem with this prescriptive approach is that with the online records available, people are facing an onslaught of information all at once, and get paralyzed at a certain level. Many people stop somewhere in between steps 1-4 and never hit steps 5-7. If they do hit steps 5-7, they get flustered when they can't find what the list says they should be able to find.

The problem with offline records (and even blended offline/online where the database index is online and you have to order for offline delivery) is three parts:

1. Access - generally you have to have access to a physical address to get access to a particular record, or to search when the particular search you started with doesn't work for one reason or another (spelling-ARGH!).

2. Investment - you're going to spend more per record search, consultant hire,or copy fees in terms of dollars. In terms of time, its going to take a lot longer to search offline that it is with a fully indexed record on FamilySearch or Ancestry.

3. Wayfinding - you have to be able to find your way to the proper archive. Sometimes this is easy, if they have a website with clearly listed records that you can plan to find. Other times it takes a series of phone calls, emails, and visits to come to find out if your record is actually at that location OR has been taken elsewhere OR destroyed OR you're in completely the wrong spot entirely. 

Wayfinding is often the hardest part of the problem, because sometimes even the archivists don't know about record availability for a certain time period. I was recently at the NY State Archive, and came back home and found out that what they had told me was false information. Or when I was in Watertown, NY, the local librarian/genealogist/history buff told me information didn't exist any more - which was only partially true, part had been filmed eons ago by the LDS-FamilySearch folks. It wasn't because they didn't like me or didn't want to help me, it was just that they were specialists in their particular part of the archive and not other parts or other archives.

Generally speaking though, you have to know where to go, what you can spend, and how you can get to offline records, and then expect that there is massive variation in what is available. One county might have every state census back to the first immigrants. The one next door might only have a few decades worth. Having the flexibility in-brain to say that this variation is okay and being able to move onto the next part of the search (or hopping off the search path entirely) is a valuable skill that is only honed through practiced off-line research, so its no wonder that people are scared and wondering why they can't find something that they saw online for somewhere else. 

We have to stop prescribing to every genealogy problem a list of steps. We need to encourage people to cast a net, catch all the fish, sort the little fish from the big fish, sort the types of fish, and then figure out which ones to bring home for dinner, and then figure out where to cast the net again, to borrow a metaphor. The net can go many places - offline, online, to a consultant, to a volunteer - but it doesn't need to go in a certain order or the same places every time in order to catch some fish for dinner. 

Rules and the craft

Isn't this a great tattoo design by RageFish21 on DeviantArt? He has some awesome drawings over there. You should check him out when you get a chance.

I titled this post "Rules and the Craft" because it applies in so many situations. The craft could be genealogy, it could be writing, art, music, knitting or crochet, or your hobby of choice. Every St. Patrick's Day, I think about the Irish (not the least because my grandmother believed she was Irish) not because of drinking crappy beer and dressing in green, but because the Irish are a longstanding symbol of rebellion and spirit in the face of untenable circumstances. 

This year I have been thinking of rebellion more often because it seems like there are rules for everything. Rules for how to write (not grammar, but more like "do this" type things), rules for storytelling, rules for how to knit or crochet, rules for how to use Facebook to not become a depressed maniac, etc.  At a certain point, it seems like we live our life within a set of bars and its disturbing how many people just live with that. 

Listening to my favorite album of late by Sia, her song "Elastic Heart" expresses this feeling rather well. Two selves fight each other within her psyche, going in and out of the cage. 

This article and this article have be going around Facebook lately as well as oodles of "instructional" help for everything from how to do one's makeup to how to write a book. 

Everytime I see the posts about how to write a book, I think about how Ernest Hemingway would have reacted to someone telling HIM how to write. Or that he needs to focus on blog headlines. Did he need to follow a series of prompts to write his work? I don't think so.

That's why I write how I write. It's my decision how to write this blog. When I write patterns, I try to be clear and give as much information as possible. When I'm on my blog, when I'm telling a story, I speak in my voice and tell the most organized story that I can. Part of learning to write is to learn that our voice is okay even if we use too many dashes and commas and use the word AND too often. Worrying about all these "rules" leads to a horrible situation: the tyranny of the blank page, the empty needles, the hook without yarn. 

Do you know what my rules for writing are?

1. Start writing.

2. Do it often.

3. Don't tell other people "you're doing it wrong".

And the same thing applies in just about any other craft. There's some guidelines to live between (grammar, stitch names, spelling, paint types) but we should feel more free to do as we can. When you think about how many human beings that are in the world and the unique talents that each of them has, we can let these "rules" go and start enjoying our given talents rather than beating ourselves up about them. There are so many people I know who like to write but are paralyzed with fear because someone told them they should work on their sentence structure or word choice and all they can think about is the "rules" rather than what they want to tell.

To bring this back to the opening, St. Patrick is a great example. His legend is banishing the snakes from Ireland while on a fast. He wasn't thinking about how to kill them, he wasn't thinking about all the rules of snake management or who should be taking care of the problem. He saw a problem, he rebelled against it, and the Irish gave him love in return. That's what it comes down to: you will get a good response from someone somewhere, so you should give your craft of choice a shot! Be a rebel. Start doing something today!

The cacophony of the holiday sales begins...

(Poor kitty! From Icanhazcheeseburger.com)

Over the weekend, the holiday sales season officially began. I don't even know if we should call it the holiday season any more. By far and away, the amount of people, places and things crying out OMG PLEASE PAY ME was just ridiculous.

Did I indulge? A bit. Much less than other years. Maybe I'm getting more self control as I get older.

Mostly though, its just tiring. Why the heck does everyone need a new tv this time of year? Or yet another crock pot? Do people throw these things away on a monthly basis? I don't understand. I got a couple of movies, and some surprise packages from Julep (my husband would probably argue I do NOT need more nail polish, but...) and a pair of pants I needed to replace one that broke on vacation (duct tape no longer holds the pockets together). Oh, and some patterns (feeding the addiction, lol).

I think most of all, it really just came across as a sea of people, places, and things trying to stimulate buying, and none of it really had the effect that it would have had five years ago, even a year ago! Black Friday sales numbers were down, and I think its because of that reason - a sea of external stimuli with no way to differentiate it. Even most "deals" sites were saying the deals were bleh this year.

I think back upon Thanksgiving 1900 and wonder...what would they have thought of all this nonsense? I think they would have gone crazy from a sea of crazy around them. They wouldn't have known what to do with so many advertising messages blaring at them.

Sorry for the ramblings today but that's where my thoughts have been over the last couple days . This week to come: updates on projects completed!

If you are at your computer hiding from the madness, enjoy this cute puppy video:

Don't corrupt your dolls - A note about thinking about the image of crafting and the treatment of women

(tee hee from Quick Meme)

Those who know me know I am no prude, not by far, but some things that I've seen online recently have even made me wonder about where people's minds are heading. And the funny thing is that the things that have really been making me wonder are on their head, very innocent looking. 

I am a huge fan of amigurumi (crocheted toys of animals and dolls). I follow a lot of different fandoms including Lalaloopsy, Lalylala, Rabbiz, NerdyKnitter, etc. and so many of them are so much fun. Who doesn't want a stuffed pony dressed like Doctor Who, for example? 

As a part of this, fans create their dolls and animals and post them online for others to admire, rate and give compliments. Which is awesome that they have a place to go and do that, be it on Facebook, independent sites, Deviantart, Etsy, etc. What's giving me pause though, is the recent trend that seems to be cropped up online, in which these innocent little dolls, with their wide eyes, impossible size, and inability to stand on their own, are used to mimic pornography. 

A recent post, for example, gave the image of a little doll in a wide circle skirt with wide eyes, a tiny waist, and teeny legs that stood only by the virtue of the weight of the skirt. Then a series of photos was posted in which the doll strips down to her underwear while posing provocatively. Another post had a series of cat dolls with wide eyes and big eyelashes "mating" to make kitten dolls. Other posts feature the dolls whipping each other with yarn "whips" with hearts and stars, male and female dolls "mating", still others are in what would be considered a strip club position when real humans hold that position in place.

I can't help but think of the similarities to video games with many of these scenarios. My first thought was that these were male fans doing these poses, but that was wrong of me. Its just as many female fans doing the "naughty doll" thing. 

What does it say about us as women that we want to make our dolls handicapped versions of reality and then place them in abusive or pornographic situations? Are we so deeply ingrained as a society in the mistreatment of women that we do it to ourselves? 

I think what bothers me most about this is that they are dolls. And toys. Kids can see these things very easily - if you image search for dolls or particular brands, 25-30% of the results are images that I wouldn't want any kid to see. Heck, I don't want to see a doll getting violated and I'm in my 30s. Dolls are mini-humans, and how kids treat them will become how they will treat real humans as adults. 

We don't want to teach anyone to do this. I say we stop allowing this now.

Be a fan. Stop beating yourself up over it. No more dissing fangirls and fanboys.

I've been ruminating on this topic since I went to Chicago TARDIS and one of the topics was called "Moffat Fangirls". There's still a real stigma against showing enthusiasm for anything unless it fits with social norms. For guys, that's sports and for ladies, that's cooking and fashion.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiam"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you want to know who was the first fanboy?

Hello, Pope Sixtus! (Thanks Titian for the great portrait, courtesy of Wikipedia). In 1471, Pope Sixtus donated some sculptures to the Musei Capitolini in Rome with the intention of showing off their awesomeness (Okay, awesomeness might not have been a word then, but the concept is the same).

So when did we go from the Pope to this?

Clearly meant as satirical, and yet, that's the vision people have of the fan. Crazed, screaming, nuts, and other such nonsense.

Clue yourself in: fans of anything are great! It doesn't matter if your thing is a geek thing, a Japanese thing, a zombie thing, a music thing, or a movie thing. It just matters that you feel and interact with other people that feel the same way. As long as you don't retreat into that world as a substitute for your own world (which can be unhealthy), being a fan of something is fun, easy, can be as low or as high of a cost as you want, and can bring a little sunshine to your life.

I recently watched the video of the inimitable Tavi Gevinson, and what she says makes a lot of sense. Be a fan. Enjoy it. Figure out why it means so much to you. And have fun.