Testing Family Lore: She Married A Distant Cousin in Virginia
Saturday, 10 May 2014, 8:00 a.m., S401
 |
| J. H. "Jay" Fonkert, CG |
She dressed herself and stood in the style blocks, and he rode upon a fine horse and she mounted behind him, he put the spurs to his horse and he ran down the road. He wheeled the horse around and cried out "now shoot" but no one took any notice of them. The rode away and were married a real Lochinvar.1
Could you have a much better family story? If you are like me, you are a bit jealous of friends and colleagues who have entertaining, amusing, or even shocking stories to tell about their ancestors.
Genealogists are historians in pursuit of what really happened. Family stories, like DNA, can mutate as they are passed down through generations.
- Details regarding timing, place or other facts may shift.
- Identities may become confused.
- The story may be enhanced to make it more exciting, or
- Important details may be lost or even purposely left out.
In my Saturday morning lecture in the BCG Skillbuilding track, I will share an account about how a broad search across time and geography can determine if the right people were in the right place, at the right time, for a family story to hold up. We will discover that one of John C. Fawkner's four wives was Elizabeth Nuttall, consistent with family lore, while debunking an Internet genealogy.
Celebrate and enjoy your family stories, but use them as a starting point for discovering what really happened in your ancestor's life.
1. Martha English Green, “The History of Elijah Nuttall,” 20 May 1898, Louisville, Ky., photocopy received from Lindsay Nuttall , Bloomington, Ind., 7 February 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment