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eLearning Series: Geneology
My Family Tree is Important to Me
( 50 articles in this series )
Ancestral
Research: Use Historical Museums
Genealogy is, essentially, a historical endeavor.
Genealogists attempt to discover not only the history of a
family but also the history of individuals living during a
specific time period. The importance of understanding the social
and cultural forces shaping your ancestors during a particular
slice of history can not be overstated. Historical knowledge
will shape your research efforts and give you a very personal
understanding of your ancestors. Knowing where they lived,
what they did for a living, what religion they practiced, and
even what they died from can tell you something about yourself
and your heritage. Our ancestors shaped history, and history
shaped our ancestors. Accordingly, as you begin researching
your family tree, it is beneficial to simultaneously study
history. Historical museums can offer a multi-sensory learning
opportunity, a chance to step out of the book racks and see,
touch, and even hear information about the period or place
in which your ancestors lived.
Before you try to find the right museums to visit, you must
first narrow down the time period and geographical
location you want to study. For example, are you most interested in
your Great-Grandmother Gretel from Germany or your Great-Grandmother
Maria from Italy? Look for social or political upheavals that
may have lead to your ancestors’ emigration from their countries
of origin. Other changes in society, such as abolition or the
end of a war, may have inspired a change of residence or the
birth of children. If you construct chronological profiles
on the ancestors you are interested in, you may be able to
pinpoint seemingly out-of-place events in their life or the
life of their family that could be the result of external forces.
Once you have narrowed down the time period and geographical
location you want to research, look for museums that
specialize in that particular era, region, or ethnicity. For example,
if your family escaped the Potato Famine in Ireland, look for
museums that specialize in Irish History or have an exhibit
on the Potato Famine. If your family was a specific ethnicity,
such as Chinese-American, look for museums in locales with
a high concentration of Asian Americans. These museums are
your best bet for research, but don’t rule out large national
museums, such as the Smithsonian. The size and comparative
wealth of these museums allow them to have extensive information
on a variety of topics and time periods and may be worth a
visit.
What will you find once you locate an appropriate historical
museum? In addition to informative exhibits, museums
might contain archives with special collections, such as maps, atlases,
gazetteers, or manuscripts that you could use in your research.
The National Museum of American History in Washington, DC,
which is part of the Smithsonian, collects a large number of
artifacts on a variety of topics, from agriculture to food
to sports and leisure. The museum can only display a small
number of these artifacts at a time, but the whole collection
is available to be researched on an online database. The museum
also contains a separate database for its extraordinarily extensive
archives, which contains letters and other personal papers,
photographs and other images, music, films, videos, tapes,
business records, advertisements, sheet music and publications
of professional organizations. The sheer abundance of materials
that you can research at the Smithsonian is almost overwhelming,
and smaller museums may possess equally detailed and unique,
if less extensive, collections. Museums are more than just
places for the public to see a few exhibits. They are repositories
of history.
Curators and other research historians in the employ of the
museum are also a valuable, yet frequently untapped, resource.
Contacting them and asking for their aid can lead you to valuable
manuscripts, collections, or information that you may not have
found otherwise. Curators at the Smithsonian, for example,
frequently have advanced degrees in American History and knowledge
of many other specialties, such as African-American history.
A visit to a museum can also be used to gain information from
people who witnessed history firsthand. Some veterans are reluctant
to talk about their unique experiences in the military. You
can encourage them to share their history by taking them to
visit applicable exhibits at museums. Sometimes reliving a
war through pictures and artifacts is enough to make them begin
reminiscing.
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by SolveYourProblem.com
: 2006
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