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From: "Mills" <>
Subject: [APG] Race & Blind Spots
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 10:41:01 -0600
References: <20031107031550.91100.qmail@web21207.mail.yahoo.com>


This thread sure rocks one of my favorite hobby horses!

Back in 1986, when I started the Advanced Methodology class at the Samford
IGHR, my introductory lecture to the class covered 13 "simple" points that
made a radical difference in our success as genealogical researchers. One of
them is: "Be colorblind!" Obviously, it's a message that still needs
preaching.

There are, oh-so-many ways in which researchers erect their own brick walls
by using race, ethnicity, and religion as a means of REDUCING the amount of
"possibilities" they have to deal with, when the issue should be used as a
means of EXPANDING our possibilities. (Yes, I'm shouting here <g>.) And
there are ENDLESS ways in which, regardless of our own or our client's
background, we can use records on other races to solve our problems -- far
too many for me to cover in a forum like this. For those who may be
interested, some of them, with real-life examples, are covered in the last
half of the "Heinz 57" lecture that I do at various conferences (the most
recent being Pittsburgh).

On a related subject, Tom wrote:
<In my MLS program, I recall learning in some sections
of research courses that race--on census records--is
self determined by the individual/head of household. >

Sigh! You've just emphasized again, Tom, how academia has handicapped
itself by erecting its own brick wall between itself and those they call
"genies." Historians and librarians are now realizing the importance of the
records they once scorned as "genealogical," but by and large they still
scorn the genealogical institutes, conferences, seminars, and major journals
that could teach them how to interpret and apply these records.

Your instructors clearly needed to go back and read the actual instructions
that census takers were given in each census year. Just because "recent mail
in
enumerations" call for self-identification, does not mean that present
practices existed in the past. Different census years had different
instructions, but none of those for 1790-1930 censuses told the enumerators
to just write down whatever racial identification someone wanted to claim.

One of these days when I run out of something to do <g>, I ought to finish
the article on "racial identification on U.S. censuses" that I've had
perking on the back burner. . . .

Elizabeth

---------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Author, *Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
Editor/Author, *Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers,
Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians*


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