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From: "Mills" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Cluster genealogy
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 19:56:27 -0600
References: <200203152044.g2FKi8D24725@athena.rpl.regina.sk.ca>


Kenneth wrote:
> While reading articles in old issues of NGS Quarterly I have noticed I
seem to have trouble distinguished between the following techniques or
methods
> Cluster genealogy
> family reconstitution [or reconstruction]
> "Whole family" research
> If they are, as I suspect, labels for the same thing, it might be useful
to learn to speak the same language. and if they differ, I need to
understand how they differ.


Kenneth, you definitely have a point about the need to all "speak the same
language." But try telling that to quite independent-minded genealogists who
like *their* term better than somebody else's <g>. Editors can have enough
of a problem persuading authors to change words when something is
grammatically or syntactically wrong and the writer isn't aware of the fine
point involved. But you'd hear screams all the way from here in Alabama to
there in Saskatchewan, if NGSQ changed an author's key term just because
we've decided to "standardize" terminology *our* way <vBg>.

On the other hand, there *are* some differences, IMO. If you've heard any
of my lectures or read my published case studies, you'll know my soap-box
oration on the need to study friends, neighbors, in-laws, and enemies -- as
well as the whole family. That concept goes considerably beyond family
reconstitution or even whole-family research, no?

Similarly, we might argue that there are shades of difference between
"family reconstitution" and "whole family research." We can reconstitute a
family, without really doing much research on all its branches --
particularly if we find a nice probate file or a set of sacramental records
that lets us record the barebones for a family unit with a minimum amount of
work.

All things considered, I'd place the terms above on a sliding scale,
starting with the one that calls for the greatest amount of research . . .

Cluster genealogy [although I'm not particularly fond of the term]
Whole family research
Family reconstitution [or reconstruction]

Thoughts, anybody?

Elizabeth

=========================================
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Editor, *National Genealogical Society Quarterly*
PO Box 861406, University of Alabama Station
Tuscaloosa, AL 35486

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