Exploring Place in a Family History Collection

Keywords: genealogy, family history, place
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 22

Abstract

What would a family history that prioritized space, a family geography, look like? Genealogies are organized around events ordered by date and discourses about genealogy and family history prioritize time. As a geographer who has spent the past two years exploring, organizing, digitizing, and archiving a large collection of genealogical research, documents, and photographs passed down to me from my parents, I cannot avoid thinking about the importance of geography in my family history. Taking inspiration from the collection I suggest a family geography might be organized around places of origin and arrival, places of travel, and places of home and work. Places of origin and arrival, of both migration and of birth and death, occur most frequently in the database of my ancestors. Places of travel are reflected in vacation photographs, as multiple generations and contemporaries from different family branches stand in front of the same vistas. In a family geography, the everyday aspects of ancestor's lives that occur between the important dates of birth, marriage, and death take on added significance as entries in city directories provide addresses that match the ones in family photographs and information on occupations and workplaces. When all is added up, I begin to see how places connect the biographies of my ancestors to each other and to my own, even if our paths never crossed in time.