Published July 29, 2018
| | Leave A ReplyWhen I wrote the curriculum for a continuing ed course in 1991 that I’ve seen analyzing during the last few “Roots & Branches” columns, I know that I was building up to a “big finish.”
And that “big finish” I called “Making the Trans-Atlantic Connection.”
There was more than a bit of conceit and Euro-centrism in that title. While it left no one in that particular class out in the cold, it certainly wasn’t inclusive.
I’m certain that both the title and the narrowness of how I approached the topic was a result of my own genealogical quest … which involved seeking the immigrant hometowns in Europe for as many of my Colonial German immigrants as possible.
This is one of the many ways in which the addition of DNA technology to genealogy searches has affected many people’s outlook.
Sometimes a DNA test will reveal that the genetic family is quite different than the “legal” or “paper trail” family, often due to misattributed parentage.
Other times, it will reveal deep ethnicities that were unknown simply due to brick walls that hadn’t been broken down.
But no matter how they come by it, seeking the names and characteristics of our ancestors as far back as we can seems to be a deep desire. For Europeans and Asians, it’s often able to put names to the ethnicity back into early modern times; for Africans, especially those whose ancestors were enslaved, often the best that can be done is assignment to a tribal group. Likewise, Native Americans came to the Americas before written records, so for them, too, tribal allegiances might be all that is possible.
After all these years, I remain most acquainted with the European immigrant story – primarily the Colonial German immigrants and to some extent the later Germans.
I’ve become well-acquainted with the records created about the Pennsylvania Germans especially, which I guess is an example of “go with what you know.”
And that leads to another realization I’ve come to after so many years in the genealogy field: There are an awful lot of specialties and sub-specialties.
To be perfectly honest, I probably wouldn’t even seek out the opportunity to do a course such as this … leaving it to someone whose niche is better aligned with beginner genealogy.
For a long time, I said that I had three specialties – Pennsylvania … Germans … and Pennsylvania Germans! This has changed a bit with some other types of records (if you don’t know already what they are, you’ll have to wait for another column for that reveal).
At the end of the continuing ed courses, I always left time for a roundtable of questions and answers to take away from the class. Next week’s “Roots & Branches” will kind of be a Q&A with myself, reflecting on the course as a whole.
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The Best of "Roots & Branches", Fifth Edition published July 2017, edited by Terri J. Bridgwater.
It contains a selection of columns from Beidler’s award-winning newspaper column (currently published in the Altoona Mirror), which is the only syndicated newspaper column on genealogy in Pennsylvania.
The book can be ordered online, or purchased directly from Jim when he speaks at a conference.
Sandra Hucke Sowers
6 years ago
I have been wishing for years that I had been close enough to take your courses. All my lines
are Pennsylvania German (Hucke, Baechner, Prechtel, Hawk, Diehl and more. I grew up
in Allentown, PA. Am now enjoying your emails. Thanks! Sandra Hucke Sowers (married
name from the York, PA area).