APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 2003-11 > 1068143880


From: CynthiaSwope <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Blind Spots in Searching
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 10:38:00 -0800
References: <20031106232437.67152.qmail@web13402.mail.yahoo.com>


Ray, your points are well taken. You may find the following story
interesting. At work yesterday, a white colleague mentioned that her
sister recently retrieved the death certificate pertaining to their
grandmother. She was astounded to learn that the deceased had been
erroneously listed as black.. My colleague mentioned that the 92 year
old died some decades ago, and expresed amusement as a result of her
own difficulty handling this grandmother's terrible life long bigotry. I
immediately took the conversation to the possible loss of substantiating
data for some future genealogist searching her who might dismiss the
information or be led astray in this 92 year old's ascendancy because of
the clerical [or remarkably stupid pronouncer's] error, but my colleague
was too busy considering how her own grandchildren's children might be
able to use the information to benefit for their own distant college
admission if only they could be protected from the knowledge of her true
race, and so not be fraudulent in the endeavor [thus suggesting the
possibility for furthering the documentation of black ancestry in the
line possibly to be encountered by some yet unborn and future
genealogist ].
Cynthia

Ray Beere Johnson II wrote:

> Recently, on this list, someone (I am not
> mentioning any names, to avoid singling anyone
> out) stated that they found the "Race" category
> in census records useful for quickly eliminating
> certain individuals. I am humiliated to have to
> admit that I have caught myself thinking this way
> as well on a few occasions.
> Leaving aside what it says about our
> attitudes towards race, what does such an
> assumption say about us as genealogists?
> We know that names can be misspelled, the
> wrong surname can appear, or even the wrong first
> name. No one expects the record has to show the
> name exactly as they know it to be a 'match'. We
> don't trust ages, as some of them appear to be
> guesswork, and others copying errors. We assume a
> person might have briefly held another
> occupation. Even the sex of a person can be wrong
> - in the 1880 Census, in my wife's family, there
> is a child named "Percival" and listed as Male.
> Further research established, without much doubt,
> that "Percival" was really Persis, and was
> Female; she married and had children, so there
> would have been no physical reason for confusion
> (such as hermaphroditism).
> We know that anyone with black ancestry
> would have had sound practical reasons for
> "passing" as white if their skin colour was light
> enough to allow it. It seems possible a person
> without black ancestry might be mistaken as black
> if their skin was dark enough; this is not any
> less likely then getting a person's sex wrong.
> Certainly, if any other piece of information on
> the Census forms could be copied incorrectly when
> the enumerator transferred that information to
> the sheets sent on to Washington, the letters in
> the Race column could become mixed up.
> In spite of all this, it seems natural to
> many of us that, if a person is listed as black,
> they cannot possibly be the ancestor of a white
> family. This is just plain bad genealogy! Who
> knows how many brick walls would crumble if that
> assumption could just be forgotten?
> It appears to be an attitude inherent to our
> culture, and thus one we should be especially on
> our guard against. It is the points we don't even
> think about which will trip us up, every time.
> Ray
>
> =====
> Ray Beere Johnson II - Genealogist
> 279 East Central Street, Suite 259
> P. O. Box 95
> Franklin, Massachusetts 02038
>
>
> FAX: 508-541-6788
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
>
> ==== APG Mailing List ====
> The Association of Professional Genealogists
> http://www.apgen.org/publications/apg-l/index.html

This thread: