"The true potential for history-genealogy (or professional-nonprofessional) collaboration, with the common goal of a wider audience and new ways of presenting research, is already emerging on the Web."

Genealogy and History
Sheila O'Hare

Part I | II | III | IV

Issues and Prospects

Where does the history-genealogy relationship stand today? Both historians and genealogists see the uses of the Web as a repository in its own right, at least for preliminary research. Indications of acceptance and collaboration are usually found in the fine print at the foot of a Web page. Some academic Websites contain links to Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org or included components thereof (examples I located in a quick search included University of Pennsylvania, University of Buffalo, Marquette University, and Wellcome Library's History of Medicine Internet Sites page). Many USGenWeb sites link to American Memory; Valley of the Shadow shows up on Rootsweb and other genealogy pages. There is, however, little or no discussion of the value of collaborative efforts and the rewards to both groups.

Fig. 3. Holograph family tree by James Madison, prepared between 1813-1819, included on the American Memory Website. Madison Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

The Web both reflects areas of convergence and presents possibilities for the engagement of large numbers of nonacademic parties in the preserving, creating, and presenting of historical material. Some of the best historical Websites are the results of those collaborations. However, even as historians and genealogists find common ground, the traditionally dismissive attitudes die hard. Thus while historians are highly motivated to engage K-12 and college students in the practice of history--in working with documents and engaging in interpretation--their level of interest in building ties with genealogists, local historians, and other nonprofessional groups is difficult to discern. It is almost as if there were a tacit assumption that well-instructed college students will either move on to graduate programs in history or simply become a discerning audience for the professional historian. However, the non- or postcollegiate individual with a keen interest in historical research does not appear to be content with mere spectatorship; that is why genealogical research is thriving and "amateur" historical Websites continue to flourish. Similarly, genealogists have been happy to ignore developments in the history camp, though the Web seems to have partially bridged the gap (e.g., the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society's training classes in the use of American Memory, the University of Michigan and Cornell University's Making of America site, and other large historical sites, accompanied by criteria for judging the credibility and completeness of information on the Web).

The true potential for history-genealogy (or professional-nonprofessional) collaboration, with the common goal of a wider audience and new ways of presenting research, is already emerging on the Web. If the end result is that exciting new source materials can be combined with contextual analysis and shared with a wider audience, all students of history will be grateful to both groups.

Further reading:

On history and the Web, see Roy Rosenzweig, "The Road to Xanadu: Public and Private Pathways on the History Web," Journal of American History (September 2001): 548-79; Michael O'Malley and Roy Rosenzweig, "Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World Wide Web," Journal of American History (June 1997): 132-55; Patterson Toby Graham, "Researching American History Primary Sources Online: A Librarian's Perspective," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 3(2) (August 2000); Gary J. Kornblith, "Venturing into the Civil War, Virtually," Journal of American History (June 2001): 145-51. On genealogy and its uses, see Robert M. Taylor, "Summoning the Wandering Tribes: Genealogy and Family Reunions in American History," Journal of Social History 16(2) (1982): 21-37; Mary Beth Norton, "Getting to the Source--Hetty Shepard, Dorothy Dudley, and Other Fictional Colonial Women I Have Come to Know Altogether Too Well," Journal of Women's History 10(3) (Autumn 1998): 141-54. On the new social history and historiography: Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988); Gertrude Himmelfarb, The New History and the Old (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); Edward N. Saveth, "The Problem of American Family History," American Quarterly 21(2), (Supplement, Summer 1969): 311-29. On public interest in history and genealogy, see David Lowenthal, "The Timeless Past: Anglo-American Historical Preconceptions," Journal of American History 75(4) (March 1989), 1263-280; John R. Gillis, "Heritage and History: Twins Separated at Birth," Reviews in American History 25(3) (1997), 375-78; David Chioni Moore, "Routes: Alex Haley's Roots and the Rhetoric of Genealogy," Transition 64 (1994), 4-21; James A. Hijiya, "Roots: Family and Ethnicity in the 1970s," American Quarterly 30(4) (Autumn 1978), 548-56. On comparative methodology, particularly the use of an authoritative voice in presentation, see Jay Ruby, "Speaking For, Speaking About, Speaking With, or Speaking Alongside--An Anthropological and Documentary Dilemma," Visual Anthropology Review 7(2) (Fall 1991), 50-67.

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