What Does it Take to Be a Good Genealogist

I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed today. Due to a windstorm, we were without power for 6 days - and worse yet, without internet for 12. Of course I had my droid and could keep tabs at a high level on my Facebook friends, emails, etc. But now that it's been almost two weeks since I've done any real genealogy, I'm unsure where to start. It got me thinking about all the things that go into being a genealogist.

There was an interesting discussion on a FB page regarding various spellings of names and how to come up with a good list of possibilities. Myra Vanderpool Gormley suggested to make sure you sound out the names. That led me to wondering about dialects in the 1700s and 1800s - especially in the south. A genealogist needs to be a linguist.

Recently I was studying Tennessee County maps using the AniMap tool to understand how far apart certain locations were. Trying to pinpoint locations on a map can be challenging. And understanding the terrain and features of the area are equally important to understanding why a family member settled where they did and did what they did. A genealogist needs to be a geographer and a cartographer.

Of course, it is important to understand what made your family migrate to wherever they migrated to (or what made them stay where they were.) Did all their children die from a measles outbreak? Did the coal in the mines run out? Was there a universal crop failure/drought/earthquake or other natural disaster that impacted their lives. A genealogist needs to be a historian.

Organization and documentation are key to creating and maintaining good records and tracking your family through the years. These are skills that can be developed by taking classes, attending webinars, reading books. A good genealogist needs to be an organizational specialist, a careful note taker and citation specialist. (And a good multi-tasker and time-management expert.)

Working through a family tree is like putting together a puzzle, piece by piece and working through a mystery. A good genealogist has to have the ability to see both the small picture and the big picture. But above all, they must be careful, reasoned thinkers who document and back up their conclusions. Once this is done, they must be able to write out those conclusions. A genealogist must be a writer.

Today's genealogy involves using technology. Understanding how to search records to find what you are looking for, using various pieces of technology to manage your genealogy projects, using a genealogy application and writing your story - all these require technology. A genealogist must be a technology specialist.

One of the challenges of genealogy is to find the resources you need, searching online, searching through library catalogs, searching through archives, courthouses, and wherever records might be found. Knowing how to locate information is a skill that is developed through practice. A good genealogist must be a reference librarian.

A genealogist must be a diplomat when working with others. Often what you find might not be what the family really wants to find. A good genealogist can help the family understand that all  information is important and that all families have black sheep and white sheep.

If all these things seem like a lot (and this is just the tip of the iceberg) I would agree. There are a lot more areas where a strong knowledge base is important - -  law, genetics, religion, foreign languages, handwriting, problem solving and so on. Thomas W. Jones states in Mastering Genealogical Proof  that "Genealogy's knowledge base and skill set are comparable to those of disciplines with graduate-level curricula at reputable colleges and universities." 1

 

And one last thing - a good genealogist needs lots of time in which to learn all these things and put them all into practice. Sigh!

 

^{1  Jones, Thomas W. Mastering Genealogical Proof. (Arlington Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), page 2.}