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From: <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Genealogy as a Discipline
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 23:11:20 -0600
References: <FBAF0338187B43DC9CA46DFD4ABF1E9F@ESMPC>


Not a problem, Elizabeth! I've been so busy writing FGS 2009 lecture
proposals, I didn't have time to read the first email before I also read
this one! So I was blissfully unaware that you'd inadvertently trashed me
<g>.

By the way, for others: Not only did Elizabeth blurb my book, but she also
read it in manuscript form and contributed several ideas and concepts, which
I was able to incorporate into the book and, I think, improved it greatly in
the process.

For those of you who haven't been paying ATTENTION . . . this wonderful,
incredible book is _Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the
Settlement of the Cotton Frontier_ (University of Georgia Press, 2004), in
which I *attempt* to convince historians of how much better their work might
be if they incorporated genealogical methodology and sources into their own
work. I demonstrated this by utilizing a database I had compiled of over
7000 related people and whose lives and families I analyzed to expand our
knowledge of the concepts of marriage, naming patterns, migration,
settlement patterns, religion, politics, and social/economic status.

My dissertation advisor was Dr. John B. Boles, the editor of _The Journal of
Southern History_--a very imminent historian who totally validates genealogy
WHEN it acts as a discipline--in other words, it has theories and concepts,
it defines these theories and concepts, and it addresses macro-issues as
well as the micro-issues of individuals and of individual families.And Dr.
Boles blurbed Elizabeth's book, EE!

Regards, Carolyn

Carolyn Earle Billingsley, PhD
Director, Genealogical Studies Program, Akamai University
2100 Pleasant Grove, Alexander, AR 72002-9154
www.cebillingsley.net
The central organizing principle in the discipline of
genealogy is the reconstruction and analysis of kinship.


----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 11:47 AM
Subject: Re: [APG] Genealogy as a Discipline


> Oh, lordy, I wrote a big bad one last night:
>
>> (I'm saying this to downplay the significance of Carolyn's work, but I'm
>> not giving a free pass to her predecessors--including one I suppose I
>> could have had more influence over.)
>
>
> I hasten to assure the world: There was supposed to be the word NOT
> between
> "to" and "downplay" above! I have tremendous regard for Carolyn's study.
> In
> fact, I said so on its back cover--and I don't blurb books for pay or to
> get
> my name on other folks's back covers. If I praise someone's work, I mean
> every word of it. Carolyn did, indeed, do a groundbreaking work for which
> I
> have tremendous respect.
>
> My apologies, Carolyn! (And my thanks to those who pointed out my gaffe.)
>
> Elizabeth

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