Learning "Thorough Research" from Elizabeth Shown Mills

Last Saturday I got to represent KHS at the annual seminar of the Kentucky Genealogical Society.  I was extremely excited because the speaker this year was Elizabeth Shown Mills, who is known as a leader in the field of genealogy.

If I could use only two words to sum up Ms. Mills’ presentation, those words would be “thorough research.”  So often people think of genealogy as a family chart, listing birth, marriage, and death dates, and linking one generation to the next.  Ms. Mills was quick to point out that “genealogy is not the gathering of names – it is the study of people, people who led lives beyond their birth, marriage and death.”  Since our ancestors lives consisted of more than just birth, marriage, and death, we need to look at other records, maybe records we don’t often think of as being “genealogical records,” in order to piece together the events of their lives.

Also, just as you and I live in connection with other people (friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family), so did our ancestors.  Mills suggests familiarizing yourself with neighbors (looking at 15-20 households listed before and after your ancestors in the census), family members (who may also be neighbors), and fellow church-members.  She calls these relationships a person’s “FAN club” (Friends, Acquaintances, Neighbors).

Going back to the “thorough research” idea, one of the things Ms. Mills emphasized is the use of original records.  Several of the cases studies she used in her presentation started with people only looking at abstracts and indexes and never going to the original record.  Okay, we all know that handwriting is a pain to read, especially when it’s on microfilm, but there is no way to be certain that you have all the possible information unless you have seen the record yourself.  Even if the record contains information that you may consider “extraneous,” make note of that information because you never know when it may become useful.  Perhaps that extraneous information will connect to the next record you find!

I’ll admit, as I listened to Ms. Mills, I couldn’t help thinking, “This sounds exhausting!!”  (Maybe that’s where the phrase “exhaustive research” comes from.)  However, her case studies proved again and again that if you research thoroughly, if you go to the original records and pull out every bit of information you can find, the answers can be found.  They may not be in black and white on a single record the way we would like, but you can make inferences and connections and discover ways through and around the “brick walls” in your genealogy.

Thanks to the Kentucky Genealogical Society for bringing Ms. Mills to Frankfort and putting on a great seminar!

-Jennifer Howard

PS...If you attended the seminar, please use the comments section below to add your thoughts on Ms. Mills’ presentation and what you found most useful.

 

Images:

1) Elizabeth Shown Mills

2) Portion of the will of J. Nelson of Madison County, Kentucky. Full document and transcript available on the KHS Digital Collections.

 

Comments

[James Gill]

There was a lot to learn in Ms. Mills' presentations, but the one thing I found most interesting was that when you are lacking the "smoking gun" (euphemism for that one record that proves a key fact) you can still build an acceptable proof. Building such a proof begins with exhaustive research, which always raises the question about how much is enough and how to organize it. Perhaps Ms. Mills will explain that next year at the NGS conference in Cincinnati.