Why Do We Do Genealogy?

 

I wrote this blog post almost 10 years ago. It still holds true and I decided it was worth sharing again.

A friend asked an interesting question. "Why do you do genealogy?" she asked. Sounds like a simple question doesn't it. And the answer should be simple - "I do genealogy because...."

But guess what? It's not simple. The reasons I currently "do genealogy" are not the same reasons I would have given 20 or 30 years ago. When I began my genealogy quest at a very young age, it was because my father had expressed such curiousity about our Irish McGinnis origins. He died when I was 14 and I made a vow after his death to find out about our McGinnis ancestors for him. In his memory. So my answer to that question, had it been asked, those many years ago, would have been simple. "I do genealogy because I want to find my McGinnis ancestors for my father."

That isn't my main reason anymore. I've grown. This has been a journey - still is a journey, and as on any journey, my needs and desires and goals along the way have changed. For example I've discovered that I can't let a mystery lie without digging into it. I need to find answers. So my answer to that question now would be

"I do genealogy for many reasons. One is my curiousity about my ancestors - who were they, what were they like, what experiences did they live through. My love of history is part of the reason I do genealogy. My desire to solve mysteries is a huge part of my passion for genealogy. And I do genealogy because I want my children and grandchildren to know and recognize the individuals over the centuries whose lives helped make us who we are today."

Genealogy isn't a pursuit well suited for those who require instant gratification. It's a long-term process and seems incredibly boring and tedious to those who are not like-minded. I've spent more hours scrolling through microfilm searching for that one entry with an ancestor's name, then I care to remember. Many people would consider those wasted hours. I don't.

Some of my family are not the least bit interested in our ancestors. Some are interested to a degree. Tell them stories of the more interesting or outrageous ancestors such as our daredevil Peer ancestor who walked Niagara Falls on a tightrope and they listen. Tell them about great great grandpa, the farmer in England, and their eyes glaze over.

I once had a friend say to me "But why do you care? They're all dead!" and yet another said "They're not really your ancestors if they're dead." Hmmm... I can't quite get my head around that mindset!

Some are not interested in the treasured photos of ancestors. To me those are the icing on the cake! They make my ancestor "real" for me. One of my relatives told me she wasn't interested in seeing a photo of our 2nd great-grandfather. Why wasn't she interested? Because, she said "Why do I care what he looked like? I never knew him."

To me that's kind of the point. A photo allows us to "know" our ancestors. With a photo I can study faces and ponder over whether or not great-grandma's nose isn't just like one of my granddaughters.  I can imagine the ancestors in those photos living their daily lives, just as we do today. And I feel a connection to those people.

How about you? How would you answer my friend's question, "Why do you do genealogy?"

What's Black and White and "RED" All Over?

What's Black and White and "RED" All Over? A Newspaper! 

Of course you knew the answer but did you know how much fun historic newspapers are and what great stories you can find about an ancestor? Sometimes you find an obituary or a bankruptcy notice. Other times you find a lurid story of death and deceit. 

Leamington Spa Courier - Friday 17 March 1905

 As genealogists we love those exciting bits of news, so much so that I often think we lose sight of the humanity attached to the story. I try hard not to forget about the sorrow, the pain and yes the joy experienced by the ancestors I read about in newspapers. But it is easy to forget they were just like us and felt the same emotions we do. 

Yesterday I found a newspaper article from 1905 about the death of a friend's ancestor. I was pretty excited because the headline was "FATAL FALL" and the very first sentence began with  

"Richard Booker was indicted for feloniously killing and slaying Frederick Mustin...."

Leamington Spa Courier - Friday 17 March 1905

A murder! Wow. Who doesn't want an ancestor who was murdered? Or better yet, was a murderer? As I read on, my initial reaction of excitement changed to  disappointment. It turns out that Frederick, 84 years old, was arguing with Richard, a much younger man. When Frederick raised his crutch to threaten Richard, Richard pushed him away and Frederick fell. And that was it. The verdict was that Frederick died of a heart attack, no doubt brought on by the excitement and commotion of the argument. After a trial Richard was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter. 
And thus what I hoped was a lurid story was simply a story of two men arguing and a sad accident leading to the death of one of them. I hadn't given one thought to Frederick's daughter who was in the house at the time. What would her reaction have been to the sounds of the argument and the sight of her father lying dead on the sofa? And what about Richard Booker? How did he feel? According to the newspaper story he was quite distraught over what had happened.

What other family did Frederick leave behind? How were they affected by his death? These are the questions I try to ask myself when I find a newspaper story about an ancestor. It is too easy to get caught up in the "the more lurid the better!" mentality of genealogy research.

I suspect that our fascination with the lurid, the dramatic and the unusual is due to the very nature of genealogy research. It's essentially a dry study - full of names and dates and a few essential facts but with no real substance.  Rarely do we get a sense of the person behind the name attached to birth, marriage and death dates. Were they a good person or a nasty bit of goods? Would we like them? It's not easy to learn the character and personality of an ancestor from the ordinary events of life. So finding a newspaper article with something exciting and out of the ordinary is a way of not only putting meat on those bones but also of perking us up and bringing some excitement to what otherwise can feel at times like drudgery. 

Don't get me wrong - I love researching my ancestors! I have been hooked since I was 14 years old. I love the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the chase and the joy at finding one tiny little tidbit of information. But let's face it, it can get tedious looking at frame after frame or page after page or hunting for days, weeks, months and years for one fact. 

But I do think we need to remember that our ancestors lived, laughed, cried and loved just as we do. So the next time you find an exciting and dramatic event in your ancestor's life, take a minute to reflect on how it affected that person and everyone who loved them. 

And if you aren't subscribed to any historic Newspaper sites you might want to think about asking for a subscription to one for Christmas. You never know what you might find.

The Plagiarism Problem Rears its Ugly Head

Plagiarism. What is it? Why is it a problem? 

Plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. Copyright laws are there to protect our work but the internet has given rise a new breed of plagiarists and copyright violators who believe that if something is published online it is up for grabs.

Not so. Plagiarism is unethical and against copyright laws. Publishing on the internet is no different than publishing in a book. Once you write and publish something on a website or a blog it is copyright protected.  

There are many who mistakenly believe that as long as they don't try to make money from taking your work, it is okay. Nope. The reasons for the theft are not important. Theft is theft. Copyright violations and plagiarism are theft. 

Copyright and plagiarism are not the same thing however. Copyright is the legal right given to an author to publish his/her works and to authorize others to share them (or refuse permission for others to share them). Plagiarism is when copyright is violated and the person who took the material attaches their own name as if they had written it.

I have had my own share of plagiarists. The most blatant was in 2011 when a writer for a large newspaper in Texas took an article I had written and published on my Olive Tree Genealogy website, and published it in the newspaper she worked for with her name as the author. She even used an identical layout to mine. This woman, to my shock, was a well known and highly placed member of one of the largest American Genealogy Societies.

After getting nowhere trying to discuss the problem with her privately, I wrote to the editor of the newspaper. He and his Ethics Committee investigated my complaint and found my accusations to be true. This woman had worked for the newspaper writing a weekly column on genealogy for almost 20 years. The Ethics Committee took action.  The newspaper fired her and the article was pulled from its online spot. My article with her name as author had gone out the day before in the print edition so a retraction and apology was issued in the next print edition.

I share this with my readers to point out that Plagiarism and Copyright violations happen frequently and they are a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. If your work has been copied without your permission you need to take action. Do not let it slide. Do you think Stephen King shrugs his shoulders if someone pirates one of his novels and republishes it? Your published work is no different. It is protected by copyright and you need to defend your copyright at all times. 

Your first step should be to attach a copyright notice to your online articles. But be aware that this does not often deter the unethical among us. In fact, the article I wrote which this woman attached her name to, has this notice at the bottom of it

This article was written by Lorine McGinnis Schulze of The Olive Tree Genealogy at http://olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml Permission to copy is granted as long as the article remains AS IS. No changes may be made to the article and all identifying information and website link must remain intact! This Permission to Copy notice must remain with the article

Even though the use of this specific article was clearly defined, the woman who copied and used it not only removed all reference to me or my website, she put her name as the author.

What brought this back to my mind is the latest in a run of unethical behaviour by a genealogist. To learn more please read GenealogyInTime's article Let's Talk About Plagiarism about an apparent case of plagiarism via email newsletters which affects them personally. 

Plagiarism is not okay and we as a community of genealogists must do our best to stop it from happening. 

Monday Musings: Copyright and Plagiarism

A rather lively discussion of Copyright went on yesterday in a Facebook group. Sadly it degenerated into a couple of participants engaging in name-calling and emotional tirades. But the topic is important and I have been thinking about it more this morning.


One the one side were those who insisted that if you put something online (a family tree, an article, a photo) you must be prepared for it to be taken and used without your permission. 

A few declared that if we don't want our work taken then don't put it online. Then there were those who mistakenly thought that as long as the item(s) taken were not being sold or used to make money in some way, it was okay.

Those groups are wrong. We should not simply shrug our shoulders and ignore copyright violations. Anything original online is immediately under copyright and deserves our protection. That's where education comes in. Many times people violate copyright because they truly do not understand how the internet works and what the copyright laws are. 

In response to the suggestion that if we don't want our work taken, don't put it online -  if we independent webmasters stopped putting articles, photos, and data collections online, all the free websites and blogs would quickly disappear. 

As for the misconception that as long as the stolen work is not being used to profit the person who took it without permission, it does not matter what the intent is. Taking published work without permission violates copyright.

Definitions

There seemed to be confusion over copyright vs plagiarism vs fair use. Here are some definitions that were posted during the discussion yesterday

Definition of plagiarism: copying the work of someone else and publishing it as your own without permission and without crediting the work to the author. [Cyndi Ingle on https://www.facebook.com/groups/17834741205/ ]

Definition of fair use: purposely gray area in copyright law. Fair use includes using something for purely educational purposes or for review or for satire. But the *amount* of something that can be copied and called fair use is purposely vague. It depends on a case by case basis. [Cyndi Ingle on https://www.facebook.com/groups/17834741205/]

and the definition of copyright from the Merriam-Webster dictionary

Copyright:  the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work) 

Examples

Basically it means if I write and publish an article on my blog or my website, and you copy it without my permission and republish it elsewhere, you violated my copyright. It does not matter whether or not you gave attribution to me as the author, it's still a copyright violation. 

If you take a paragraph or a few sentences from my original article and use them in a new article you are writing that is fair use. But if you neglect to cite me as the original author of those words, it's plagiarism

How to Play Fair and Stay Out of Trouble

It's wise to always read a website's Terms of Use or Copyright Statement/Notice to find out what the restrictions (if any) are on items on that specific site. Big companies such as Ancestry.com have very specific Terms of Use that must be followed by anyone using the site. Smaller websites, such as my Olive Tree Genealogy, usually have a Copyright Notice of some kind that explains what the restrictions are for copying items on the site.

Suggested Reading

Cyndi's List has quite a few links related to Copyright Laws and Issues at http://www.cyndislist.com/ip/