Oh! The Sins of Grandparents

I’ve spent most of the day going through and evaluating the various sources for my genealogical research.  For some time now I’ve had in my possession two sheets of paper with birth and death information of members of the Womble family.  The vital record information contained on these pieces of paper pertains to Albert and Mattie Womble and most of their children. 

When I was taking the NGS Home Study Course I used these papers for one of my lessons and in the critique the grader suggested that I try to figure out who wrote this information.  I studied the photocopies I had made of these pages off and on and couldn’t come to any real decision about them.  Last year, while going through genealogical materials at my parents' house I asked if I could take these papers with me.  My parents said I could take them.  A couple months after bringing them home with me I looked at them and noticed written on one side the first sheet it said Family Record.  I hadn’t noticed that when I photocopied it, so that’ll further hammer it home to you that you should definitely examine only original records because you could very well miss something important.

As I was going through them today and tallying the information with various Womble family members, I noticed for the second time how one section of the document, the one pertaining to the deaths of some of Albert and Mattie’s kids was written over with another writing implement.  Looking at the original document, it appears to be fountain pen ink.  I can still see penciled handwriting underneath the ink, but it made me wonder who did this?  The person who wrote with the fountain pen also made small notations about birth dates for these children and one of these is written in what I consider to be a pretty modern format of month/day/year.  Again, this made me think to myself who wrote this stuff?  Why write over what someone else has written.  It seemed pretty clear that the person writing with the fountain pen wasn’t trying to edit or change what was written since they seemed to be trying to write over the information in darker, more noticeable ink.  At first I wasn’t that bothered by the fountain pen writing, but then I noticed writing in ink pen on the document as well and on the other side writing in green ink.

This really started to bug me, so I thought some more about who was responsible for basically defacing this document.  Sure, whoever they were they thought they were doing the right thing by making the pencil writing clearer by writing over it in pen, but they were essentially obliterating the original author’s information by doing this.  The document has been changed because of what they did and they’ve altered the integrity of the information.

I sat looking at the penciled handwriting knowing I’d seen this somewhere before.  I have little memorandum notepads with this person’s handwriting inside.  The original author of these sheets of paper was my great-grandfather, Albert Womble.  I’m not sure if he recorded the birth and death events of his children as they happened or what, but he did write it down sometimes in varying degrees of neatness (sort of makes me see where I get my horrible penmanship from).  Albert seems to have stopped recording birth information after his son Benjamin Smith Womble was born.  I can only speculate as to why, perhaps he misplaced the papers after that.  The birth information about his sons Jacob and Paul is written in a neater hand.  This is still his handwriting and it’s neater and slightly different because he’s an older person than when he wrote the other children’s information.

On the opposite side of the paper is information about the wives and children’s deaths.  Again this is written in slightly different handwriting, but it still looks like Albert’s just at a different stage in his life, probably before the later birth information on the previous side.  What’s interesting is that Albert didn’t finish writing the death information for his 2^nd wife, makes me wonder if he couldn’t remember when she died.

So now that the identity of the original author is taken care of I’m free to focus on who wrote over some of the death information with a fountain pen and ballpoint.  I thought about this and found it interesting that Albert must have lost this document again after his 2^nd wife died because the death of Joseph Womble is missing from this record.  The good thing is that that the person wielding the fountain pen didn’t ever add that information to this document.

On the backside of the paper titled Family Record, is written the birth information for Albert and Mattie twice and their death information.  The death information about Mattie that’s written with the fountain pen is wrong, and I see how this date got recorded incorrectly.  Now, I’ve asked before on this blog how bad information gets disseminated, and in this particular family I’ve asked myself the question of who passed on this bad information?  In both instances and probably by coincidence I come back to the same person.  The information about Albert and Mattie’s births and death that’s written with a fountain pen uses what I called the slash format of writing dates.  “I’ve got to find out who this person is,” I think to myself as I go through some of the other genealogical stuff I brought back from my parents’ house.  I come across a notebook with masking tape holding together a handmade leather case that’s attempting to cover the notebook.  On the masking tape is written in ballpoint pen information about Albert Womble’s father and grandfather.  The handwriting is identical to the fountain pen writing.  It’s my grandmother Virginia Womble Blickensderfer.

She probably came across these papers after her father Albert Womble died and decided to include her parents’ birth and death information and wasn’t thinking that about the genealogical and historical value of the document.  She wrote down her dad’s birth and death info with her fountain pen and then started writing her mother’s vital data down too.  However, she might not have remembered when her mother died.  So she looked over the document and saw that her dad had written the information and either thought his 4 in the number 14 looked like a 9 so she wrote a 19 instead of 14, or she fixated on the number 19 because that was the day he died and wrote 19. 

Then she looked over the other pages of the record and saw that her dad’s penciled handwriting was hard to read because it was fading and decided, “I’m going to fix this and make it more readable, so I’ll write with my pen over what Daddy wrote.  It won’t hurt anything because I’ll write exactly what he wrote so long ago.  Much later when she bought one of those new fangled ballpoint pens, did she happen to be looking over the document again and decided to write over one of her siblings’ death year that was originally written by her dad. 

Yes, my grandmother doing this helped me to see what would be her dad’s extremely faded writing, but in the process she devalued the information her dad was trying to record for posterity.  Take this as a lesson the next time you’re looking through some ancient family mementos, don’t ‘try’ to improve your long dead ancestors’ information by making is clearer.  You should work to preserve the artifact by putting it in proper storage.  If you want to try to ‘improve’ what they wrote write this information on another sheet of paper or take a digital photo of the item and then make notes on the digital photo.  Don’t try to alter the past, ‘cause you just might be writing on what could’ve been the next Mona Lisa!

Ebooks and the future of libraries

I think the Pew Research Center research findings from their library ebook survey are skewed.  See the article at http://news.yahoo.com/study-released-library-e-book-borrowing-040745060--finance.html. I have ereader software on my iPod and have really gotten into checking out ebooks from my local library.  Yes, the selection could be better, but I’ve found many books I’m interested in reading available as ebooks.  My local library in Arlington, VA has done a pretty decent job publicizing their ebooks.

What people need to keep in mind with checking out ebooks is that sure a book might not be available immediately, but there is the option to put a book on hold just as though you were at your local library and the book you wanted was already checked out.  The great thing with putting an ebook on hold is that you don’t have to trek down to the library to check out the book.  You just log onto your ebook account on your ereader device and check out the book.

Ereaders many times are much smaller than physical books, which makes reading ebooks on them more convenient and more portable than reading an actual book.  Sure there are publishers out there that don’t want to make their publications available in electronic format to libraries, but I believe the tide will shift when there are a limited number of people buying their books. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll notice that the bricks and mortar chain bookstore is a dying breed.  Where will authors go to promote their latest release?   What about new authors?  How will their books be promoted?  The local library is the answer.  Publishers will be forced by market demands to sell electronic versions of their books to libraries to avoid going out of business.

I see many people around me reading ebooks, so it’s unbelievable to me that those people make up the 12% who read ebooks, that they’re part of the 20% reading ebooks, or that they’re the 40% who are aware that their local library offers ebooks.

Sure there is the fact that libraries’ ebook selections aren’t that varied, and this will depend on the community where the library is located.  There’s also the instant gratification factor in being able to check out an ebook instantly or having to first put it on hold verses purchasing an ebook from an online company such as Amazon.com.  My feeling on instant gratification is that it’s a futile and pointless objective to strive for.

Eventually printed books will fade from existence as publishing companies go under and authors either publish their works themselves electronically or their literary agents take over the electronic publishing for their clients.

Humidity, Snakes, and Genealogy

I know I haven’t posted anything in awhile and the reason why was that I’ve been busy preparing for and taking Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Course 4: Advanced Research and Methodology course at IGHR.  This course and other genealogy classes are offered each summer at Samford University’s Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR).  I had always been interested in taking this course even before I began working on the NGS Home Study Course.

Once I was registered for the course I began reading the first two chapters of Mills’ book Evidence Explained per her instructions.  The truth be told I was somewhat familiar with these chapters because I had referred to them when I was taking the Home Study Course.  I spent a lot of time before the course being nervous because I heard more than one person tell me how difficult the course was for them.  

It was a difficult course, but not impossible.  I believe that the Home Study Course helped me to be prepared for it.  The most difficult aspect of my sojourn at Samford was the humidity and the warnings about snakes.

I first saw a sign informing me not to prop open the doors to the dorm because snakes had been seen in the area and they could enter the building.  The signs had a ‘cute’ animated drawing of a snake.  I didn’t think too much about the possibility of seeing a snake, and was bothered more by the intense humidity.

I’ve summered many times in Knoxville, Tennessee and felt confidant in my ability to deal with any humidity that the south might throw at me—of course I was wrong.  When I arrived at Samford in the pouring rain the temperature seemed to be in the low 90’s, and yet it was so damp that I needed a jacket?!  I felt like a nut wearing a jacket in that warm weather, but other people I saw were doing the same thing. 

As the week went on the humidity stuck around longer than the rain and kept the sidewalks moist even though the sun was blazing.  Eventually, the heat prevailed over the dampness and dried nearly everything out with the exception of the students.

Fortunately, I didn’t encounter any snakes while at Samford.  I did hear an interesting story from someone while eating breakfast on the final day.  They and their dormmates had returned from eating ice cream that night and returned to find a copperhead in front of the door to their dorm.  Someone threw a brick at the snake, but it didn’t move.  They screamed and yelled at the reptile trying to get it to slither away from the door.  Nothing seemed to work, the snake seemed content to lie in front of the door.  At last, it eventually slithered away.  The interesting thing was that there weren’t any snake warning signs in their dorm.

Nearly every day of class left me feeling not only tired but also eager to seek out more sources for my genealogical research.  However, as the days passed I realized how crucial it was for me to go through the sources I had accumulated and appraise each one and evaluate the various pieces of information they contained.  Looking at each element in an objective light. 

Since my return, I’ve tried to devote a chunk of time to evaluating my sources.  I started out with the ancestors that I’m directly related to and then will branch out to look at the sources for those of collateral kinship.

Elizabeth gave the class some really great handouts to use to help us see the holes in our research and consider what other records might be available.  I can’t share those here, but will share any findings as a result of my working with them.  So far the only thing I’ve done with them is scan them and overlay a table over them in my word processor.  It’ll be interesting to see what comes of using them.

Yes, I’d love nothing more than to go out and search for more documents on my ancestors, use those research tactics that Elizabeth drilled into us, but I see the importance in analyzing what I already have.