SLIG: Day .5

I felt my Saturday was split into three parts.

Part 1:  The Advanced Practicum students were invited to attend the Colloquium, a gathering of advanced/scholarly genealogists who discuss the thoughts and concepts of genealogy. (That is not the Colloquium to the left; that’s the State Capital) This is the group where emerging concepts are vetted before they become a part of our lexicon.  For example, this group vetted the concept of Source (original, derivative, authored work), Information (primary, secondary, unknown) and Evidence (direct, indirect negative) which appeared in Mastering Genealogical Proof (MGP).  Thanks to the Utah Genealogical Society for being the host.

There were three papers presented:

Jay Fonkert: “The GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) and Beyond: Challenges for a Genealogy Profession” which got the group discussing the “profession,” the “discipline” and the challenges of raising the standards and public awareness of our field of study. This is a future blog post.

Jean Wilcox Hibben: “Field Dependency of Arguments/Stories as it Relates to Genealogy Instruction” Jean presented the an approach to the theory of logic and its application  to genealogy.  This raised the questions of “how to analyze” and how to talk about analyization with others. The GPS requires us to analyze and correlate (it answers the “why” question); MGP presents us with tools to use (tables, narrative, bullets, timelines etc.( it answers the “what” question))  and Jean presented the next level of depth. She urged us to analyze our sources using Ethos (credibility), Logos (logic) Pathos (emotion) and Mythos (traditions).  Her presentation answered the “how” question. An audience member suggested adding “Chaos.”   🙂

Blaine Bettinger: Blaine presented the freshly crafted and not yet vetted Genetic Genealogy Standards.  You can read the announcement here. The conversation began with privacy and then went to consent.  The committee has been working for some time on these standards and they are now listed on the Genetic Genealogy Standards site which you can read here.

Part 2: I went to the library to finish up the review of the mid-18th c. tax records for Sweden I had started the day before.  My goal was to complete the search until the parents of “my guy”moved into the village of Hankshult.  As part of an exhaustive search sometimes you are observing and recording that there is nothing there (negative evidence).  As I reviewed the 1749 document for the village—something was very different!   The parents of “my guy” were predicted to move into the village around 1746 when “Dad” marries “Mom”.  But here was the 1749 record without his name recorded as paying taxes.  I quickly got a translation and found a partial answer to a log-held mystery.

It appears that the “Dad” and “Mom” married and lived in another part of Sweden, gave birth to their first child, Margareta, and THEN moved to “my parish.”  No wonder I couldn’t find their marriage in “my parish”!  And why I couldn’t find Margareta’s birth in “my parish.”

Sometimes you find things when you aren’t even looking.

Part 3: Zola Noble flew in from Indiana and we moved into the room.  Zola is a writer extraordinaire and a ProGen 19 classmate.  We went out for dinner and came back and collapsed.  It had been a full day.

Sunday, Zola and I walked over to  to the Tabernacle to attend the Sundnay morning  taping of the Morman Tabernacle Choir for TV and then walked up to the state capital.  Of course, we also did our grocery store run! The Strosheins videotaped me as a speaker for the Northwest Genealogical conference to be held in August. I was selected to give my presentation on House Histories Wherever you Live.”

I attended my first Advanced Practicum class where we got our assignment for tomorrow. The evening  reception reunited some old friends and I made some new.

I anticipate that I will not be blogging consistently, if at all, the next week.  I hope the cold is not too intense wherever you are at.

Happy Hunting!

Jill

What I have done since the last post:  See the above.