Sep02
Types of Genealogy
This past month on the Vaughan Pioneers group something rather sad happened. Many members of the group became annoyed at a member who was, in their opinion, posting too many personal posts. The irritation grew until finally, to try to keep the peace, I started a new group, Vaughan Chat, for personal conversations and imposed a new rule that non-Genealogical or DNA related posts were now no longer allowed. It has bothered me that I have had to do this. It all stems from what I feel is a sort of “philosophy of Genealogy”. There are two schools of thought. The first school looks at genealogy as records and data, stories briefly told about long deceased ancestors and connecting these ancestors to historical times, places and events. This philosophy regards genealogy as something connecting a person to their more distant past and as more of an academic pursuit. These Genealogists tend to be very good at research and keeping records, but they often lack a more recent connection to their more current ancestors, if that term is not a contradiction.
The other type of Genealogist tends to view the hobby as a deep connection to family. The facts and data is good, but to them, the stories and the individuals are more important. They may not be as precise at research, maybe sometimes willing to take an old family story as the absolute Gospel truth even when it seems very unlikely to everyone else. To them, the more distant the ancestor the less interested they are in them. They want to connect to something they know and understand.
These two schools of thought are about 50/50 in their make-up of Genealogists. Sadly, sometimes these two groups have trouble seeing eye-to-eye on things. If someone pulls apart an old family story about Granny being a Cherokee Princess, some feel personally insulted. Or, in the other direction, if some distant cousins chat as if they grew up together, this seems unimportant and somewhat silly to members of the other philosophy of Genealogy.
The ballance is, of course, a combination of the two: Looking critically and carefully at one’s ancestry, but understanding that the root word for Genealogy, “Gene” comes from Latin word meaning family. It is all about family, both ancient and current. Embracing the distant past, but welcoming the recent past as well. Only then is a Genealogist really fully in harmony with the ’science’.
Also, this month we were happy to be connected by a Ted Vaughan who lives in Nova Scotia and who’s ancestors also lived there, at least since the early 1800s. Ted’s 12 marker Y-DNA test was a perfect match to the first twelve markers of William and John. He is having the other 25 markers tested as I type this, so hopefully soon we will find if the connection plays out to 37 markers (and I think ti will). As more non-William and non-John Vaughans connect to our group, a pattern is starting to develop. It is unclear now what exactly it will show, but I am certain our ancestors’ lines will merge into an ancient Vaughan line that may finally answer our questions on where they came from and what greater family did they belong.
Eddie Davis