Posts
150 years of history - The Olympian
by John Dodge, published 18 January 2009, in The Olympian
Genealogists and historians need to remember that doing the history of a place can be just as significant, and as intriguing, as doing one's family. This is a great example of that.
18 January 2009
Mentally Ill Folks Harder To Research
Mentally Ill Folks Harder To Research
By Sharon Tate Moody, Tampa Tribune Coorespondent, 18 January 2009
I think Sharon was lucky to find the information she did about someone who was institutionalized. This has come up more than once in my own research and quite often seems to be a dead end--so many records for asylums are not available or extant. But you can never assume there is no information; often, as happened to Sharon, researchers are able to find some records on an "insane" person.
Also it helps to remember that the meaning of "insane" was different before modern times. A person who was committed until the middle of the 20th century could be retarded or have Alzheimers or post-partum depression, or be an alcoholic . . . or like my own great-grandfather, have pellegra, which often results in its victims having delusions. I also get the impression that someone, especially a female, who just didn't "act right" (according to her family or husband) might be labeled "insane."
So, as Sharon writes, these people are harder to research, not impossible.
By Sharon Tate Moody, Tampa Tribune Coorespondent, 18 January 2009
I think Sharon was lucky to find the information she did about someone who was institutionalized. This has come up more than once in my own research and quite often seems to be a dead end--so many records for asylums are not available or extant. But you can never assume there is no information; often, as happened to Sharon, researchers are able to find some records on an "insane" person.
Also it helps to remember that the meaning of "insane" was different before modern times. A person who was committed until the middle of the 20th century could be retarded or have Alzheimers or post-partum depression, or be an alcoholic . . . or like my own great-grandfather, have pellegra, which often results in its victims having delusions. I also get the impression that someone, especially a female, who just didn't "act right" (according to her family or husband) might be labeled "insane."
So, as Sharon writes, these people are harder to research, not impossible.
The Year Without Summer
Terre Haute News, Terre Haute, Indiana- TribStar.com by Tamie Dehler.
Most of our ancestors were farmers. When I research my ancestors and their communities, I try to find context for their lives. Try to imagine what life was like for our ancestors, trying to farm, in the growing seasons of 1816 and 1817. I know that about this time one of my family lines migrated further south. Did this crop-killing weather and the financial ramifications have anything to do with their decision to relocate and/or to start over? The article indicates the problems were pretty far south in the US; it would be great to find some comtemporary newspapers or journals to show us exactly where and how this extraordinary weather had an impact.
Most of our ancestors were farmers. When I research my ancestors and their communities, I try to find context for their lives. Try to imagine what life was like for our ancestors, trying to farm, in the growing seasons of 1816 and 1817. I know that about this time one of my family lines migrated further south. Did this crop-killing weather and the financial ramifications have anything to do with their decision to relocate and/or to start over? The article indicates the problems were pretty far south in the US; it would be great to find some comtemporary newspapers or journals to show us exactly where and how this extraordinary weather had an impact.
27 December 2008
SEX AND SOCIETY: AMERICAN LAW
SEX AND SOCIETY: AMERICAN LAW | Onlinepharmanews. Health News
Excerpt:
The bond of marriage is defined by the law and allows the legal reproduction of people in the form of the family. David Schneider, in his study of American kinship as a cultural system, has identified sexual intercourse as the key symbol of American kinship. This is so, in that sexual intercourse combines the two aspects of kinship as it is understood by Americans: "blood" (or substance) and code-for-conduct or law. Through intercourse, the archtypic relation in law, marriage, is expressed and relations in "blood" (child/parent) are created. The duality of relations in blood (or substance) and in code-for-conduct or law is predicated upon more general notions of nature and culture, respectively. In this frame, relations in law include not only those which are the explicit content of legislation but also relations based in lawlike, ordered sets of interactions. Schneider suggests that in American culture a similar structure of relations in "blood" or substance and relations in law underlies the cultural construction of nationality and religion as well as of kinship.
Excerpt:
The bond of marriage is defined by the law and allows the legal reproduction of people in the form of the family. David Schneider, in his study of American kinship as a cultural system, has identified sexual intercourse as the key symbol of American kinship. This is so, in that sexual intercourse combines the two aspects of kinship as it is understood by Americans: "blood" (or substance) and code-for-conduct or law. Through intercourse, the archtypic relation in law, marriage, is expressed and relations in "blood" (child/parent) are created. The duality of relations in blood (or substance) and in code-for-conduct or law is predicated upon more general notions of nature and culture, respectively. In this frame, relations in law include not only those which are the explicit content of legislation but also relations based in lawlike, ordered sets of interactions. Schneider suggests that in American culture a similar structure of relations in "blood" or substance and relations in law underlies the cultural construction of nationality and religion as well as of kinship.
14 December 2008
Know your family's medical history, know your risk
OrlandoSentinel.com:
Linda Shrieves, Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer, December 9, 2008
Read entire article at link.
Excerpt: "The notion is so popular that the government has even gotten into the act. The U.S. Surgeon's General's Office has set up a Web site -- familyhistory.hhs.gov -- that helps people create their own medical family tree and put it in a format (a pedigree chart) that doctors can use."
Linda Shrieves, Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer, December 9, 2008
Read entire article at link.
Excerpt: "The notion is so popular that the government has even gotten into the act. The U.S. Surgeon's General's Office has set up a Web site -- familyhistory.hhs.gov -- that helps people create their own medical family tree and put it in a format (a pedigree chart) that doctors can use."
The mysteries of DNA--Video
MormonTimes - VIdeo: The mysteries of DNA: "In this 16-minute video presentation, Scott R. Woodward, executive director of Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, explains what DNA is, what it can teach us, what its weaknesses are and how it can be used to understand and track relationships between individuals and groups."
A Queer North Carolina Race (1894)
From The Melungeon Historical Society
Read a transcript of an 1894 article in the New York Sun, describing a "queer race" or people in North Carolina--Melungeons.
Read a transcript of an 1894 article in the New York Sun, describing a "queer race" or people in North Carolina--Melungeons.
A black and white connection through common ancestry - Bellevue Reporter
A black and white connection through common ancestry - Bellevue Reporter
By LINDSAY LARIN, Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer, Nov 14 2008
After years of exchanging e-mails and long-distance phone calls, Norman J. Landerman-Moore and Ann Moore Black met face-to-face for the Western Region African American Conference held at the Bellevue South Stake Center building. The two are distant cousins, related through a common great-great-grandfather, Caleb Moore, of Ten-Mile, Meigs County, Tenn.
Sitting side by side, the newly aquatinted relatives share few similarities at first glance, but their connection runs deep, with common ancestry dating back to the 1600s. [Follow link for rest of article; also see photograph]
By LINDSAY LARIN, Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer, Nov 14 2008
After years of exchanging e-mails and long-distance phone calls, Norman J. Landerman-Moore and Ann Moore Black met face-to-face for the Western Region African American Conference held at the Bellevue South Stake Center building. The two are distant cousins, related through a common great-great-grandfather, Caleb Moore, of Ten-Mile, Meigs County, Tenn.
Sitting side by side, the newly aquatinted relatives share few similarities at first glance, but their connection runs deep, with common ancestry dating back to the 1600s. [Follow link for rest of article; also see photograph]
08 December 2008
Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms
Professor Peter Landstreet’s Sociology Courses » 2050A (2008-2009): "Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms"
Click on the link above (on the linked page from here) to go to 12-page PDF file of the following excellent synopsis of society and kinship terms, explanations, and definitions:
Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms
Contents
1. Kinship Terms (and Related)
2. Other Terms, Primarily Anthropological
3. Other Terms, Sociological or Common to Sociology and Anthropology
4. Societal Types
Click on the link above (on the linked page from here) to go to 12-page PDF file of the following excellent synopsis of society and kinship terms, explanations, and definitions:
Definitions, Explanations and Clarifications of Sociological and Anthropological Terms
Contents
1. Kinship Terms (and Related)
2. Other Terms, Primarily Anthropological
3. Other Terms, Sociological or Common to Sociology and Anthropology
4. Societal Types
Tribal Society and Kinship
Professor Peter Landstreet’s Sociology Courses » Some Conceptual Questions In Context of Tribal Society:
Excerpt:
"Let’s look for the social organization of kinship: You’ll find it:
A) in all the role relationships (e.g. husband-wife, mother-son, grandfather-granddaughter, etc.) that exist within families and which, taken together, “constitute” the families.
B) in kin relations of the more “extended” sort — cousin-cousin, aunt-nephew, etc.
C) in the organization of the lineage, and the clan (to use two common cases)."
Read entire article at link.
Excerpt:
"Let’s look for the social organization of kinship: You’ll find it:
A) in all the role relationships (e.g. husband-wife, mother-son, grandfather-granddaughter, etc.) that exist within families and which, taken together, “constitute” the families.
B) in kin relations of the more “extended” sort — cousin-cousin, aunt-nephew, etc.
C) in the organization of the lineage, and the clan (to use two common cases)."
Read entire article at link.
23 November 2008
World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found
Science Consciousness: World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found
[Main web site: Science Consciousness: Theory, Information and Research Articles.]
[Photo at web site with article, along with other links] Group burial of a 4,600-year-old nuclear family, with the children (a boy of 8-9 and a boy of 5-4 years) buried facing their parents(Credit: Image courtesy of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
The earliest evidence of a nuclear family, dating back to the Stone Age, has been uncovered by an international team of researchers, including experts from the University of Bristol. The researchers dated remains from four multiple burials discovered in Germany in 2005.The 4,600-year-old graves contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – an unusual practice in Neolithic culture.
One of the graves was found to contain a female, a male and two children. Using DNA analysis, the researchers established that the group consisted of a mother, father and their two sons aged 8-9 and 4-5 years: the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family in the world (so far).The burials, discovered and excavated at Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, were also unusual for the great care taken in the treatment of the dead.
The remains of thirteen individuals were found in total, all of whom had been interned simultaneously.Intriguingly, the arrangement of the dead seemed to mirror their relations in life. Several pairs of individuals were buried face-to-face with arms and hands interlinked in many cases. All the burials contained children ranging from newborns up to 10 years of age and adults of around 30 years or older. Interestingly, there were no adolescents or young adults.
Many showed injuries that indicated they were the victims of a violent raid. One female was found to have a stone projectile point embedded in one of her vertebra and another had skull fractures. Several bodies also had defence injuries to the forearms and hands.The researchers reconstruct this Stone Age tragedy using state-of-the-art genetics and isotope techniques, physical anthropology and archaeology.
Lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide said: "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe – to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far. Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities."
As well as establishing the biological relationships of the people buried at Eulau, the researchers were also able to shed light on their social organisation using strontium isotope analysis.
Hylke de Jong, a PhD student working on the Eulau graves at the University of Bristol said: "We measured strontium isotopes in their teeth to give us an indication of where these people spent their childhood. Strontium from the food you eat is incorporated into your teeth as they grow. We can relate the proportion of different strontium isotopes back to regions with different geology and identify the area where a person grew up."
Dr Alistair Pike, Head of Archaeology at the University of Bristol and co-Director of the project, continued: "The strontium analysis showed that the females spent their childhood in a different region from the males and children. This is an indication of exogamy (marrying out) and patrilocality (the females moving to the location of the males). Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities."The burials described in detail in the article are now on permanent display in the newly renovated Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany.
Journal reference:
1. Wolfgang Haak, Guido Brandt, Hylke N. de Jong, Christian Meyer, Robert Ganslmeier, Volker Heyd, Chris Hawkesworth, Alistair W. G. Pike, Harald Meller, and Kurt W. Alt. Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nov 17, 2008; 18226-18231 vol105 no.47Adapted from materials provided by University of Bristol. ScienceDaily
[Main web site: Science Consciousness: Theory, Information and Research Articles.]
[Photo at web site with article, along with other links] Group burial of a 4,600-year-old nuclear family, with the children (a boy of 8-9 and a boy of 5-4 years) buried facing their parents(Credit: Image courtesy of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
The earliest evidence of a nuclear family, dating back to the Stone Age, has been uncovered by an international team of researchers, including experts from the University of Bristol. The researchers dated remains from four multiple burials discovered in Germany in 2005.The 4,600-year-old graves contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – an unusual practice in Neolithic culture.
One of the graves was found to contain a female, a male and two children. Using DNA analysis, the researchers established that the group consisted of a mother, father and their two sons aged 8-9 and 4-5 years: the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family in the world (so far).The burials, discovered and excavated at Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, were also unusual for the great care taken in the treatment of the dead.
The remains of thirteen individuals were found in total, all of whom had been interned simultaneously.Intriguingly, the arrangement of the dead seemed to mirror their relations in life. Several pairs of individuals were buried face-to-face with arms and hands interlinked in many cases. All the burials contained children ranging from newborns up to 10 years of age and adults of around 30 years or older. Interestingly, there were no adolescents or young adults.
Many showed injuries that indicated they were the victims of a violent raid. One female was found to have a stone projectile point embedded in one of her vertebra and another had skull fractures. Several bodies also had defence injuries to the forearms and hands.The researchers reconstruct this Stone Age tragedy using state-of-the-art genetics and isotope techniques, physical anthropology and archaeology.
Lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide said: "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe – to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far. Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities."
As well as establishing the biological relationships of the people buried at Eulau, the researchers were also able to shed light on their social organisation using strontium isotope analysis.
Hylke de Jong, a PhD student working on the Eulau graves at the University of Bristol said: "We measured strontium isotopes in their teeth to give us an indication of where these people spent their childhood. Strontium from the food you eat is incorporated into your teeth as they grow. We can relate the proportion of different strontium isotopes back to regions with different geology and identify the area where a person grew up."
Dr Alistair Pike, Head of Archaeology at the University of Bristol and co-Director of the project, continued: "The strontium analysis showed that the females spent their childhood in a different region from the males and children. This is an indication of exogamy (marrying out) and patrilocality (the females moving to the location of the males). Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities."The burials described in detail in the article are now on permanent display in the newly renovated Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany.
Journal reference:
1. Wolfgang Haak, Guido Brandt, Hylke N. de Jong, Christian Meyer, Robert Ganslmeier, Volker Heyd, Chris Hawkesworth, Alistair W. G. Pike, Harald Meller, and Kurt W. Alt. Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nov 17, 2008; 18226-18231 vol105 no.47Adapted from materials provided by University of Bristol. ScienceDaily
10 September 2008
Kinship and Religion
Anthropologists Develop New Approach To Explain Religious Behavior
This integrates well with my thesis about kinship and religion in my book and also is a perfect example of "fictive kinship," also explained in my book: Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier (Univeristy of Georgia Press, 2004). CEB
[Click on link for entire article]
... "Instead of studying religion by trying to measure unidentifiable beliefs in the supernatural, we looked at identifiable and observable behavior - the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims," said Craig T. Palmer, associate professor of anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science. "We noticed that communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent."
Palmer and Lyle B. Steadman, emeritus professor of human evolution and social change at Arizona State University, explored the supernatural claims in different forms of religion, including ancestor worship; totemism, the claim of kinship between people and a species or other object that serves as the emblem of a common ancestor; and shamanism, the claim that traditional religious leaders in kinship-based societies could communicate with their dead ancestors. They found that the clearest identifiable effect of religious behavior is the promotion of cooperative family-like social relationships, which include parent/child-like relationships between the individuals making and accepting the supernatural claims and sibling-like relationships among co-acceptors of those claims.
"Almost every religion in the world, including all tribal religions, use family kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister and child for fellow members," Steadman said. "They do this to encourage the kind of behavior found normally in families - where the most intense social relationships occur. Once people realize that observing the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims is how we actually identify religious behavior and religion, we can then propose explanations and hypotheses to account for why people have engaged in religious behavior in all known cultures."
Citation: Explain Religious Behavior." ScienceDaily 10 September 2008. Accessed 10 September 2008.
This integrates well with my thesis about kinship and religion in my book and also is a perfect example of "fictive kinship," also explained in my book: Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier (Univeristy of Georgia Press, 2004). CEB
[Click on link for entire article]
... "Instead of studying religion by trying to measure unidentifiable beliefs in the supernatural, we looked at identifiable and observable behavior - the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims," said Craig T. Palmer, associate professor of anthropology in the MU College of Arts and Science. "We noticed that communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent."
Palmer and Lyle B. Steadman, emeritus professor of human evolution and social change at Arizona State University, explored the supernatural claims in different forms of religion, including ancestor worship; totemism, the claim of kinship between people and a species or other object that serves as the emblem of a common ancestor; and shamanism, the claim that traditional religious leaders in kinship-based societies could communicate with their dead ancestors. They found that the clearest identifiable effect of religious behavior is the promotion of cooperative family-like social relationships, which include parent/child-like relationships between the individuals making and accepting the supernatural claims and sibling-like relationships among co-acceptors of those claims.
"Almost every religion in the world, including all tribal religions, use family kinship terms such as father, mother, brother, sister and child for fellow members," Steadman said. "They do this to encourage the kind of behavior found normally in families - where the most intense social relationships occur. Once people realize that observing the behavior of people communicating acceptance of supernatural claims is how we actually identify religious behavior and religion, we can then propose explanations and hypotheses to account for why people have engaged in religious behavior in all known cultures."
Citation: Explain Religious Behavior." ScienceDaily 10 September 2008. Accessed 10 September 2008
31 August 2008
Arkansas Cherokees Strive For Recognition
Times Record, (Fort Smith, Arkansas) Tuesday, 26 August 2008, by Hicham Raache
In its quest to gain federal recognition, the Arkansas Cherokee Nation tribe visited Fort Smith Saturday and helped residents toward claiming their Cherokee heritage.Members of the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, aka Chickamauga Cherokee, met with community members and visitors from afar at Creekmore Park’s Azalea Room Saturday afternoon and advised them on how to become official members of the Cherokee Nation.
The Conway-based Chickamauga Cherokee has been striving since December 2007 to be officially recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, thus becoming Arkansas’ first federally recognized American Indianorganization, according to Principal Chief Harold Helton.“We need to prove we existed as a community,”
Helton said to the handfuls of community members in attendance. “We can’t (be recognized) just by filling out an application and getting an Indian identification card.”While they are currently in the process of petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs for tribal recognition, Chickamauga Cherokee members are traveling throughout the state and educating anyone who may have Cherokee ancestry on how to become a federally recognized Cherokee and gain benefits.
“If you have one drop of Cherokee blood, you’re Cherokee as far as I’m concerned,” Helton said.Guiding Cherokee descendants in registering with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Helton said, helps build his tribe’s base roll, which he said is based on all of the Cherokees who were in Arkansas in the 1800s. . . .
For information about the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, contact Smith at (501) 963-3713 or visit http://www.arkansascherokee.us/ on the Web. {For complete story, click on link]
In its quest to gain federal recognition, the Arkansas Cherokee Nation tribe visited Fort Smith Saturday and helped residents toward claiming their Cherokee heritage.Members of the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, aka Chickamauga Cherokee, met with community members and visitors from afar at Creekmore Park’s Azalea Room Saturday afternoon and advised them on how to become official members of the Cherokee Nation.
The Conway-based Chickamauga Cherokee has been striving since December 2007 to be officially recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, thus becoming Arkansas’ first federally recognized American Indianorganization, according to Principal Chief Harold Helton.“We need to prove we existed as a community,”
Helton said to the handfuls of community members in attendance. “We can’t (be recognized) just by filling out an application and getting an Indian identification card.”While they are currently in the process of petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs for tribal recognition, Chickamauga Cherokee members are traveling throughout the state and educating anyone who may have Cherokee ancestry on how to become a federally recognized Cherokee and gain benefits.
“If you have one drop of Cherokee blood, you’re Cherokee as far as I’m concerned,” Helton said.Guiding Cherokee descendants in registering with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Helton said, helps build his tribe’s base roll, which he said is based on all of the Cherokees who were in Arkansas in the 1800s. . . .
For information about the Arkansas Cherokee Nation, contact Smith at (501) 963-3713 or visit http://www.arkansascherokee.us/ on the Web. {For complete story, click on link]
25 August 2008
Link sought to a Founding Father
Link sought to a Founding Father - The Boston Globe: "
By Kyle Alspach, Globe Correspondent July 22, 2007
DOVER -- Bettye Kearse's ancestors had ties to President James Madison -- they were slaves owned by the Madison family. But she thinks there's more to the story.
She says that Madison fathered a child by one of those slaves, producing her family line.
Her assertion is a matter of much debate, and proof hasn't been found. Kearse, 64, of Dover, still believes it, certain there's truth in a story that has become part of her family's lore."
[Click on link for entire story.]
Also click on this article in the Seattle Times:
African American seeks to prove genetic link to James Madison
By Jonathan Mummolo
The Washington Post
Bettye Kearse hopes to prove she is a direct descendant of James Madison.
MONTPELIER STATION, Va. — Bettye Kearse stepped inside the mansion at Montpelier, President James Madison's estate in Virginia, and found the walls stripped bare. Rooms that were once opulently adorned have been deconstructed by archaeologists to reveal the slatted wooden frame holding together the home of one of the nation's premier architects. . . . [more at link.]
By Kyle Alspach, Globe Correspondent July 22, 2007
DOVER -- Bettye Kearse's ancestors had ties to President James Madison -- they were slaves owned by the Madison family. But she thinks there's more to the story.
She says that Madison fathered a child by one of those slaves, producing her family line.
Her assertion is a matter of much debate, and proof hasn't been found. Kearse, 64, of Dover, still believes it, certain there's truth in a story that has become part of her family's lore."
[Click on link for entire story.]
Also click on this article in the Seattle Times:
African American seeks to prove genetic link to James Madison
By Jonathan Mummolo
The Washington Post
Bettye Kearse hopes to prove she is a direct descendant of James Madison.
MONTPELIER STATION, Va. — Bettye Kearse stepped inside the mansion at Montpelier, President James Madison's estate in Virginia, and found the walls stripped bare. Rooms that were once opulently adorned have been deconstructed by archaeologists to reveal the slatted wooden frame holding together the home of one of the nation's premier architects. . . . [more at link.]
21 August 2008
Your Family. Myths and Legends in Genealogy
Your Family. Myths and Legends in Genealogy at Ancestor.com.
Last Updated: August 20th, 2008
Every family has the age old myth or the legend of the grandmother who was a “full blooded Indian princess”. In fact, the Native American tribes didn’t sport many “Indian Princesses, but almost every family has some degree of native American blood and all of them, by and large due to prejudices that used to, and in some cases, still do exist in this country, want that Native American blood to be something that is a bit more acceptable than just a “Native American woman who was part of the family”.
Admit it, Indian Princess sounds so much more acceptable and so much more romanticized than simply saying that great grandfather married a Navaho woman. In days past, having Native American blood in your family wasn’t quite as acceptable as it is in today’s society, so it was by and large hidden. The family may never had been told exactly what tribe the great grandmother came from, or if in fact she was Native.
Many families who believed their family to have native blood, particularly in areas such as Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginian are finding instead that the blood was of a race determined to be Melungeon, not the Native American they thought it was originally.
Some family legends aren’t truth at all, while others are in some cases, completely factual. Only research is going to help you determine which is which, but paying attention to them only makes sense. In most cases, legend or an old family tale has a grain of some kind of truth to it .
Legends about family history don’t normally get invented from no basis and aren’t usually completely invented from thin air. There will be somewhere in that legend a single grain of truth that you have to sift out of the dune of sand to get the real story for your family.
Some family legends you will hear as you work through your genealogy will be red flags to you however to dig a bit deeper and see if there is a grain of sand, or truth to the family legend or if it is in fact fallacy.
The more common things you might hear that should raise a flag for you will be:
• The Indian Princess Myth. Usually you’re going to hear Cherokee Indian Princess, but it may manifest itself as a Mayan Princess or any other tribe. Rest assured that it may be that there is Native American blood in the family, but Indian Princesses by and large don’t exist. In point of fact there were no tribes who actively made use of the feudal type system that was by and large a Caucasian invention, so the title Indian princess would not have been used. For the most part you’re going to find that this is always a myth, but do pay attention to it and dig around a bit to search for Native blood in your family history. Usually you are going to find it with this kind of legend in the family’s history. . . .
[Click link to read the rest of this post.]
Copyright © 2008 Ancestor.com
NOTE that this entire site has a great deal of valuable information for genealogists. At this point, I could not determine the name of the administrator for the site, however.
Last Updated: August 20th, 2008
Every family has the age old myth or the legend of the grandmother who was a “full blooded Indian princess”. In fact, the Native American tribes didn’t sport many “Indian Princesses, but almost every family has some degree of native American blood and all of them, by and large due to prejudices that used to, and in some cases, still do exist in this country, want that Native American blood to be something that is a bit more acceptable than just a “Native American woman who was part of the family”.
Admit it, Indian Princess sounds so much more acceptable and so much more romanticized than simply saying that great grandfather married a Navaho woman. In days past, having Native American blood in your family wasn’t quite as acceptable as it is in today’s society, so it was by and large hidden. The family may never had been told exactly what tribe the great grandmother came from, or if in fact she was Native.
Many families who believed their family to have native blood, particularly in areas such as Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginian are finding instead that the blood was of a race determined to be Melungeon, not the Native American they thought it was originally.
Some family legends aren’t truth at all, while others are in some cases, completely factual. Only research is going to help you determine which is which, but paying attention to them only makes sense. In most cases, legend or an old family tale has a grain of some kind of truth to it .
Legends about family history don’t normally get invented from no basis and aren’t usually completely invented from thin air. There will be somewhere in that legend a single grain of truth that you have to sift out of the dune of sand to get the real story for your family.
Some family legends you will hear as you work through your genealogy will be red flags to you however to dig a bit deeper and see if there is a grain of sand, or truth to the family legend or if it is in fact fallacy.
The more common things you might hear that should raise a flag for you will be:
• The Indian Princess Myth. Usually you’re going to hear Cherokee Indian Princess, but it may manifest itself as a Mayan Princess or any other tribe. Rest assured that it may be that there is Native American blood in the family, but Indian Princesses by and large don’t exist. In point of fact there were no tribes who actively made use of the feudal type system that was by and large a Caucasian invention, so the title Indian princess would not have been used. For the most part you’re going to find that this is always a myth, but do pay attention to it and dig around a bit to search for Native blood in your family history. Usually you are going to find it with this kind of legend in the family’s history. . . .
[Click link to read the rest of this post.]
Copyright © 2008 Ancestor.com
NOTE that this entire site has a great deal of valuable information for genealogists. At this point, I could not determine the name of the administrator for the site, however.
20 August 2008
Wake Up and Smell the Armpit
Science News / Ground Squirrels Use ‘armpit Effect’
By Susan Milius; Web edition: Wednesday, August 20th, 2008; SNOWBIRD, UTAH
Wake up and smell the armpit.
Ground squirrels use their own odors to reconstruct family relationships after hibernation.
That’s basically what Belding’s ground squirrels do in spring when hibernation has wiped out their memory of their society’s smells, says Jill Mateo of the University of Chicago. Using their own body odors as reference points, the ground squirrels figure out anew each year who’s kin and who’s not.
Self-sniffing as a guide to kinship has earned the nickname “armpit effect.” Biologists have theorized that plenty of animal species rely on their armpits when they do favors for kin or avoid relatives as mates. “There’s tantalizing evidence for the armpit effect in people,” Mateo says, but ruling out other possible explanations has been tricky in any species.
[Follow link for entire article.]
By Susan Milius; Web edition: Wednesday, August 20th, 2008; SNOWBIRD, UTAH
Wake up and smell the armpit.
Ground squirrels use their own odors to reconstruct family relationships after hibernation.
That’s basically what Belding’s ground squirrels do in spring when hibernation has wiped out their memory of their society’s smells, says Jill Mateo of the University of Chicago. Using their own body odors as reference points, the ground squirrels figure out anew each year who’s kin and who’s not.
Self-sniffing as a guide to kinship has earned the nickname “armpit effect.” Biologists have theorized that plenty of animal species rely on their armpits when they do favors for kin or avoid relatives as mates. “There’s tantalizing evidence for the armpit effect in people,” Mateo says, but ruling out other possible explanations has been tricky in any species.
[Follow link for entire article.]
14 August 2008
Public trust societies and kinship societies
Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog
Public trust societies and kinship societies
Huntington famously argues that a clash of civilizations is underway, and locates it as a clash of religious traditions, Christianity and Islam. But it seems to me more correct to think of a clash, less of two universalist religious traditions, than of two fundamental organizational principles, kinship societies and those limited number of societies that have managed to establish, however incompletely, social organization on the basis of public trust that goes beyond ties of kinship. Those ‘public trust’ societies in one sense define modernity, but some of the core conditions predate modernity by centuries - monogamy and out-marriage, to start with.
Monogamy is a necessary, although obviously far from sufficient, condition of a society that is both egalitarian and free: a society in which a group of males has no real access to sexual reproduction is not an egalitarian society, by definition, nor a free one, and that inequality in reproductive access is tied to every other form of economic inequality. And that is to speak only of the men. From this standpoint, the fact that Christianity, for reasons that appear to me, at least, historically and even theologically quite contingent, favored both monogamy and out-marriage over cousin marriage, however much honored only in the breach, sets it apart as a form of social organization.
Modernity in some sense starts with those preconditions. The development of a social ethos that accepts the idea that individuals have fiduciary duties in the abstract, that do not pertain solely to those who are members of extended family groups - even where those extended family groups are as much or more socially, rather than genetically, defined - is what gives rise to the public trust necessary to modern Western society and the modern democratic state: that the state, and its officials, will treat people neutrally, without regard to kinship or other pre-modern markers of identity. Without that trust, the result is the form of the state, but an animating principle quite at odds with it. It is the marker of the rule of law and, it increasingly seems to me, the real line of division between societies today.
What gets the cultural cycle of public trust going in society? I have no idea but certainly it appears to be a long term cultural fact, rather than a short term political creation. Samuel Pepys, for example, wrote his diary at what appeared to be the beginning of a long term shift in English political culture: a time in which offices were still heritable and for sale, but also at a time when officials - in vital public positions such as the Royal Navy - were also beginning to be held to account for corruption and fraud. By the Industrial Revolution, the culture of the civil service was taking hold, and with it an ideal of neutrality in dealing with alternating governments and with the public. The very notion of “honor” and to whom it was owed had shifted.
The idea of equality before the law, in matters related to integrity of person, is a very old one and found widely across cultures. The idea of equality in the distribution of the largesse of state favor, and that it is dishonorable for me as a public official to favor me and mine over you and yours in the matter of state property and privilege, because it is a “public trust,” is a quite new one, and very limited in cultural scope. Yet it is the basis of legitimacy - even more the democracy - of the modern state worldwide. What we call a ‘failed state’, after all, is almost by definition that there is no concept of public trust, that it has been exhausted and depleted.
(Useful reading on this includes James Bowman, Honor; and Francis Fukuyama, Trust. Of course, if your view is that all societies are equally successful in their social and cultural arrangements, just different, but no one is better or worse, then none of this will make much sense.)
From: Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog
Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC, and a research fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, blogs on topics related to international laws of war, international law, related human rights topics, international NGOs, and the theory of the just war. (Everything here is first draft and subject to changing my mind.)
Public trust societies and kinship societies
Huntington famously argues that a clash of civilizations is underway, and locates it as a clash of religious traditions, Christianity and Islam. But it seems to me more correct to think of a clash, less of two universalist religious traditions, than of two fundamental organizational principles, kinship societies and those limited number of societies that have managed to establish, however incompletely, social organization on the basis of public trust that goes beyond ties of kinship. Those ‘public trust’ societies in one sense define modernity, but some of the core conditions predate modernity by centuries - monogamy and out-marriage, to start with.
Monogamy is a necessary, although obviously far from sufficient, condition of a society that is both egalitarian and free: a society in which a group of males has no real access to sexual reproduction is not an egalitarian society, by definition, nor a free one, and that inequality in reproductive access is tied to every other form of economic inequality. And that is to speak only of the men. From this standpoint, the fact that Christianity, for reasons that appear to me, at least, historically and even theologically quite contingent, favored both monogamy and out-marriage over cousin marriage, however much honored only in the breach, sets it apart as a form of social organization.
Modernity in some sense starts with those preconditions. The development of a social ethos that accepts the idea that individuals have fiduciary duties in the abstract, that do not pertain solely to those who are members of extended family groups - even where those extended family groups are as much or more socially, rather than genetically, defined - is what gives rise to the public trust necessary to modern Western society and the modern democratic state: that the state, and its officials, will treat people neutrally, without regard to kinship or other pre-modern markers of identity. Without that trust, the result is the form of the state, but an animating principle quite at odds with it. It is the marker of the rule of law and, it increasingly seems to me, the real line of division between societies today.
What gets the cultural cycle of public trust going in society? I have no idea but certainly it appears to be a long term cultural fact, rather than a short term political creation. Samuel Pepys, for example, wrote his diary at what appeared to be the beginning of a long term shift in English political culture: a time in which offices were still heritable and for sale, but also at a time when officials - in vital public positions such as the Royal Navy - were also beginning to be held to account for corruption and fraud. By the Industrial Revolution, the culture of the civil service was taking hold, and with it an ideal of neutrality in dealing with alternating governments and with the public. The very notion of “honor” and to whom it was owed had shifted.
The idea of equality before the law, in matters related to integrity of person, is a very old one and found widely across cultures. The idea of equality in the distribution of the largesse of state favor, and that it is dishonorable for me as a public official to favor me and mine over you and yours in the matter of state property and privilege, because it is a “public trust,” is a quite new one, and very limited in cultural scope. Yet it is the basis of legitimacy - even more the democracy - of the modern state worldwide. What we call a ‘failed state’, after all, is almost by definition that there is no concept of public trust, that it has been exhausted and depleted.
(Useful reading on this includes James Bowman, Honor; and Francis Fukuyama, Trust. Of course, if your view is that all societies are equally successful in their social and cultural arrangements, just different, but no one is better or worse, then none of this will make much sense.)
From: Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog
Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC, and a research fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, blogs on topics related to international laws of war, international law, related human rights topics, international NGOs, and the theory of the just war. (Everything here is first draft and subject to changing my mind.)
09 August 2008
Nepotism (Kin Favoritism)
Berry makes right call on nepotism - Opinion - Editorial - General - The Canberra Times [Australia]
Berry makes right call on nepotism
7/08/2008 12:00:00 AM
Nepotism, commonly defined as favouritism based on kinship, is a hardy perennial with deep and widespread roots. Considered as an extension to the concept of the selfish gene, there are compelling reasons why people favour family, clan or tribe over strangers. The family is, after all, the rock on which human society is built, and it behoves members to show it allegiance and advance its fortunes where possible.
Blood is thicker than water, but, intriguingly, nepotism does not always advance the long-term interests of the family. Many a family fortune has been squandered, or a dynasty rendered moribund, by those third- or fourth-generation scions who have proved unequal in skill, talent or temperament to the founders. Provided it is kept within the family firm or business, nepotism is considered by most right-thinking people as an acceptable if dubious practice, or at least as being nobody's business but the family's concerned. Where it occurs in public life, or in a business or corporation with a public shareholding, it is held in rather less esteem, if not downright hostility.
Many parliaments and legislatures, mindful of the fact that nepotism discredits entire institutions, have proscribed it in their codes of ethics or conduct. The ACT Legislative Assembly Members' code of conduct, for example, includes the warning under ''conduct as employers'' that ''Members should not appoint close relatives to positions in their own offices or any other place of employment where the Member's approval is required''. But like many such codes, the ACT's is non-binding, and though it exhorts sitting and former Members to respect the spirit of the code, some MLAs, including Bill Stefaniak and Vicki Dunne, have ignored it. Indeed, Labor MLA Mary Porter continues to employs her husband as her senior officer. And in a clear indication some MLAs consider the nepotism clause to be unnecessary if not a nuisance, an Assembly committee which conducted a recent review of the code (introduced in 2006) has recommended that the anti-nepotism clause be dropped altogether.
[The rest of the article available at link, but less about kinship than politics. Emphases added by CEB]
Berry makes right call on nepotism
7/08/2008 12:00:00 AM
Nepotism, commonly defined as favouritism based on kinship, is a hardy perennial with deep and widespread roots. Considered as an extension to the concept of the selfish gene, there are compelling reasons why people favour family, clan or tribe over strangers. The family is, after all, the rock on which human society is built, and it behoves members to show it allegiance and advance its fortunes where possible.
Blood is thicker than water, but, intriguingly, nepotism does not always advance the long-term interests of the family. Many a family fortune has been squandered, or a dynasty rendered moribund, by those third- or fourth-generation scions who have proved unequal in skill, talent or temperament to the founders. Provided it is kept within the family firm or business, nepotism is considered by most right-thinking people as an acceptable if dubious practice, or at least as being nobody's business but the family's concerned. Where it occurs in public life, or in a business or corporation with a public shareholding, it is held in rather less esteem, if not downright hostility.
Many parliaments and legislatures, mindful of the fact that nepotism discredits entire institutions, have proscribed it in their codes of ethics or conduct. The ACT Legislative Assembly Members' code of conduct, for example, includes the warning under ''conduct as employers'' that ''Members should not appoint close relatives to positions in their own offices or any other place of employment where the Member's approval is required''. But like many such codes, the ACT's is non-binding, and though it exhorts sitting and former Members to respect the spirit of the code, some MLAs, including Bill Stefaniak and Vicki Dunne, have ignored it. Indeed, Labor MLA Mary Porter continues to employs her husband as her senior officer. And in a clear indication some MLAs consider the nepotism clause to be unnecessary if not a nuisance, an Assembly committee which conducted a recent review of the code (introduced in 2006) has recommended that the anti-nepotism clause be dropped altogether.
[The rest of the article available at link, but less about kinship than politics. Emphases added by CEB]
Wallace State professor Bob Davis helps trace Indian ancestors
Wallace State professor Bob Davis helps trace Indian ancestors
Friday, August 08, 2008
BILL PLOTTNews staff writer
Bob Davis said he can almost guarantee who will show up for one of his Native American genealogy workshops.
"I get a lot of people who have a family story about a Cherokee princess," he said. "I believe most Southern black and white families have some Native American heritage, even if they don't have family stories about a Cherokee princess."
Davis is director of the Family and Regional History Program at Wallace State-Hanceville"It's purely mathematics," Davis said of his theory about Indian heritage. "Take Pocahontas. She had one grandchild who lived to adulthood, yet today more than 1 million people are descendants of hers. The genealogy's been thoroughly done on that."
Consequently, it's likely most Southerners whose ancestors were around before the United States forcibly moved Indians from their lands in the early to mid-1800s have some Indian heritage. . . .
[My favorite part] "People try to put the cart before the horse. Put Pocahontas back in the box until you've done your basic genealogical research. You've got to know who you're looking for because the Indian records are all indexed by personal names," he said.
[Follow link for entire article]
Friday, August 08, 2008
BILL PLOTTNews staff writer
Bob Davis said he can almost guarantee who will show up for one of his Native American genealogy workshops.
"I get a lot of people who have a family story about a Cherokee princess," he said. "I believe most Southern black and white families have some Native American heritage, even if they don't have family stories about a Cherokee princess."
Davis is director of the Family and Regional History Program at Wallace State-Hanceville"It's purely mathematics," Davis said of his theory about Indian heritage. "Take Pocahontas. She had one grandchild who lived to adulthood, yet today more than 1 million people are descendants of hers. The genealogy's been thoroughly done on that."
Consequently, it's likely most Southerners whose ancestors were around before the United States forcibly moved Indians from their lands in the early to mid-1800s have some Indian heritage. . . .
[My favorite part] "People try to put the cart before the horse. Put Pocahontas back in the box until you've done your basic genealogical research. You've got to know who you're looking for because the Indian records are all indexed by personal names," he said.
[Follow link for entire article]
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