Pencils and White Gloves and Standards, Oh My!

I'm waving the white gloves. It seems I may only be an eighth correct, a quarter correct, a half correct, not correct at all - who knows - when it comes to wearing gloves while handling historic documents. I only have my own experiences to guide me and it was wrong of me to think my experiences with archivists and archives were correct without further research.

Archivists the world over, it seems, have no standardized method for handling historic documents. The lovely Lisa Rex commented on my WDYTYA article saying:

For what it's worth, I've handled over a hundred original documents when I was genealogist in England and it's very rare to be wearing gloves. And pencils are allowed in the document rooms. They just ask you to be careful.

Karen Packard Rhodes said...

You are correct in saying that the pencil in such close proximity to the document was a "gasp!" moment. However, gloves are a debatable subject in the archival community.

So I did a little digging. Archives and their archivists appear to fall into two camps. Those saying that when handling historic documents gloves will be provided; and those that say clean hands will be all that is required to handle documents.

So with abject apologies to the experts of WDYTYA; the best practice when handling historic documents in an archive would seem to be:

Do as you are instructed!
You can't go wrong following instructions.

Bill West of West In New England has very kindly provided the link to the History Detectives discussion "Why Don't The History Detectives Wear Gloves When Handling Documents?" in his post "What I Think About Who Do You Think You Are." Thank you, Bill.

On Facebook, Terri Kallio commented that:

I thought that NBC and ancestry.com did a fabulous job tonight. You can pick over the small stuff if you want too (like the gloves and the pencil) but, I thought they did a great job. . .

I loved the show and I believe it did what it was meant to do - foster interest in family history and discussion about the show and its many facets.

Is it Friday yet?

Caution, wear those white gloves, baby, when you handle photographs. Here there is no debate.

What I Think About - Who Do You Think You Are?

"A young man with so much old information."

~ Sarah Jessica Parker to New England Genealogist Josh Taylor ~

The long awaited night of the premier of "Who Do You Think You Are?" has come and gone. I could not be more pleased. Family historians and genealogists, we of the "can't get no respect" avocation, are actually portrayed as wise and winning. Knowledgeable keepers of the history of our families; family history as it twists and turns through the much respected discipline of mainstream history.

Was it perfect? Foolish question. Nothing is perfect. Was it as close as a television program can come? Yes, I think it was. Producing a television program is no easy feat. Producing one that will be picked up by a major network in prime-time is even more difficult. Producing one that will be picked up by a major network in prime-time about family history; 1,000 times more difficult. Producing one that will be picked up by a major network in prime-time about family history that has staying power? How difficult that will be remains to be seen.

Yes, it is populated by celebrities. Many of us would also love to see the stories of those having no name or face recognition. Real people as it were. Is that realistic when we are talking about a major network in prime-time looking for advertisers? I don't think it is. A genealogical reality program can be found on the BYU network in its Generations Project.

So, how did Lisa Kudrow do? The program was produced by a well-liked celebrity who hung her hat on a proven product. WDYTYA has been a successful program in the UK for six years. It's drum has been beaten by WDYTYA magazine. (The magazine will be including the US version of the program). It has a track record.

Celebrities were the draw for those new to genealogy in the UK and Canadian versions and will be here in the US. We who live it and love it would have been satisfied with anyone's story. Are there enough of us to warrant an hour in prime-time on a major network? I think the viewer numbers show we aren't enough. The show needs converts. In my opinion, celebrities will be the key to converts.

A one-hour television program has only about 40 minutes of content, according to Tom Jicha the TV columnist for the Sun Sentinel. And I believe him, as I once conducted my own experiment. That was years ago and my count was 42 minutes of content.

How do you show the minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years of searching in 40 minutes? You don't. You hit the highlights. Which highlights you hit are the purvue of the producer, director, and film editor. If they have made the wrong decisions their audience and their numbers will reflect their success or failure.

This is television. A visual medium. Scenes walking in the gold fields of El Dorado are far more compelling to the viewer unfamiliar with family history research than depicting hours spent waiting for a microfilm viewer, copy machine, or the reference librarian.

My only objection to what I saw last night occurred with the original warrant for Sarah Jessica Parker's ancestor. No gloves? Bad form. And that pencil looming in Sarah's hand over the document? In all my forays into on-site research I have been asked to wear gloves and writing implements of any kind were not allowed in the room.

The blame can not be laid at the feet of Sarah Jessica Parker or Lisa Kudrow. They are family history neophytes. It is the responsibility of the show's expert consultants to advise as to best practices. In this case, best practices were visual and required no explanation. Done correctly, the novice would know what to expect when handling historic documents. It would have taken little effort and gone a long way to establishing the show's credibility.

Sarah Jessica Parker is charming, engaging, and appropriately interested and excited. Her comment about wanting to "fix it" should she find her ancestor was on the wrong side of the Salem Witch Trials was spontaneous and the remark of someone very new to the discoveries of the lives of their ancestors. To all those new to family history, I caution:

It is the wise Family Historian who understands that we can no more
take credit for the accomplishments of our ancestors, than we can
take blame for their failures.

Our knowledge of them is merely insight into ourselves.
You can not change history, take care not to misrepresent it.

Yes, I was pleased. The clear winner here is the genealogy community. We have an embarrassment of riches today with Who Do You Think You Are?, Faces of America, and The Generations Project. This is a first for our community. I want this to last. Support the programs by watching and support the advertisers and those who make the programs possible through grants. We will all benefit.

Thank you NBC, Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Who Do You Think You Are? and the advertisers who made it possible. Television hasn't looked this good in a long time.

Medals Of The Genea-Bloggers Games

In reading the blogs of the GeneBloggers' Games participants I noticed all the medals have black backgrounds. The medals were created in the .png format so that they could be placed on any color background.

If you want to remove the black background, right click on any of the images below and "save as" to your desktop. The images will save as .png files rather than .jpgs.

March Forth on March 4th

Language is something to be celebrated, and March 4 is the perfect day to do it. It's not only a date, it's an imperative: March forth on March 4 to speak well, write well, and help others do the same!

Today Is The Third Annual National Grammar Day

National Grammar Day was established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) and author of Things That Make Us [Sic]. I am a member of the Society and Marched Forth in 2008 and in 2009. There are some of you who would question my membership having read footnoteMaven.

This year I give you myths that well-meaning people argue about every day in offices around the world AKA:

Grammar Girl's Top 10 Language Myths:

I'm giving you the number 10 grammar myth here, but please read the other nine as they are all my favorites.

10. A run-on sentence is a really long sentence. Wrong! They can actually be quite short. In a run-on sentence, independent clauses are squished together without the help of punctuation or a conjunction. If you write I am happy I am glad* as one sentence without a semicolon, colon, or dash between the two independent clauses, it's a run-on sentence even though it only has six words.

In a comment to A Baker's Dozen, I wrote:

My opinion is that commas and periods are highly overrated and often get in the way of a fine writer completing an exquisite thought as it is transferred to the page in one pure stream of consciousness emerging unmolested from the brain to the hand.

It was engineered to be long, but tell me, is this a run-on sentence?

Now go, enjoy National Grammar Day!

Library Maven

One of my good Twitter friends, Missy Corley of Bayside Research Services, sent me a tweet earlier today letting me know she'd seen me hanging out.

Maven? Hanging out? I went to see for myself. Well, what do you know, there was fM on american libraries DIRECT, The e-newsletter of the American Library Association for March 3, 2010.

Yes, fM's face and Family Tree Magazine's Fab 40 were hanging out at the library. I do spend a great deal of time at the library, I just never thought the library noticed. Either that or my avatar was the perfect fit for their article.

This must be what it's like to drive down the street and see yourself on a billboard. Surprise! Surprise! At least my pants weren't on the ground.

It is a pleasure to see that genealogy's day has finally arrived.

No Fleas On Amir

When I wrote the "It's My Party - And I'll Lie If I Want To" post, I did something that I was hoping would be noticed. I presented you with what is called a naked fact. Such bad form! I was hoping against hope one of my readers would catch it and call me on it. Mr. Maven said no one would notice. I love it when I'm right.

I am pleased to announce that Amir Dekel, The Abba (Dad) Blog, noticed. I wish there was a prize. Had no one found this little tidbit I would have had to write an entirely different follow-up article. Amir has redeemed us all.

The naked fact is, "Every blog year is the equivalent of six human years." Amir commented:

"They say that the Web doesn't run on human years, it runs on Web-years. Every blog year is the equivalent of six human years."

Ummm... I'm going to need a source citation for this!

I am so proud!

Researching that little tidbit was very interesting. Whatis.com defined a web year as the length of time it takes for Internet technology to evolve as much as technology in another environment might evolve in a calendar year. Early posts by old line bloggers quoted 3 months as equaling a web year, but that was in 1996 and things have sped up since then.

So I wanted to know if there was a new measuring stick. I kept researching. The author of "Manage your speed in web years," on the Business Management Daily website had the what and why of conversion. In 2006, BMD wrote:

"Ever hear of Internet time? It’s kind of like dog years: Each calendar year equals six Web years.

More organizations are realizing that they have to measure time by this new clock: New-product development speeds up from years to months. Developing new technologies accelerates from months to days. Decisions are yours to make in
hours. . .

Lesson: If you’re not six times faster than your competition, you’re in trouble. Your dog days are coming."

So there you have it. No fleas on Amir.
You have the source of my naked fact.

It's My Party - And I'll Lie If I Want To

Today Is The Eighteenth Anniversary
Of The footnoteMaven Blog

I can hear you. You're saying, "There goes Maven lying about her age again." But it's true.

They say that the Web doesn't run on human years, it runs on Web-years. Every blog year is the equivalent of six human years. That means that today footnoteMaven celebrates three human years of blogging, the equivalent of 18 web years. No wonder my hair is gray.

GeneaBlogging has changed a great deal since my first post. Today there are many more genealogists who read blogs than disparage them. Yes, there are still those who rail against the quality of our content, but their numbers are dwindling. Genealogists who blog are a fast growing segment of the genealogy population. The Genealogue's blog finder is tracking 1,556 genealogy blogs.

We blog in exciting times and I look forward to the year before us.

This year genealogy hits the masses with Faces of America on PBS, The Generations Project on BYU, and NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?

This week Family Tree Magazine recognized the GeneaBlogging community by publishing its selections for the Top 40 Genealogy Blogs.

This day, I celebrate my personal triumph of being a member of the GeneaBlogging community for three years.




As it's my party and I have the magic lamp, I'd like to make three wishes:

May I continue to blog in these interesting times

May I continue to enjoy writing, and you continue to enjoy reading what I write

May I find what I'm looking for, whatever that may be

And to those who take the time to read, enjoy, comment, and

become friends, thank you! I wouldn't be here without you

and it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

A Baker's Dozen - Traits Of A Family Historian

Trait

a distinguishing quality (as of personal character)

A posting of What Does It Take To Be A Successful Genealogist on the Genoom Blog and Are There Common Traits All Genealogists Share? on Elyse's Genealogy Blog prompted me to compile my list of traits.

For me, most traits are things you are born with, although they can be acquired if you are hit over the head often enough. Knowledge; citing sources, research techniques, even organization can all be learned provided you have the necessary traits.

1. Self-Discipline - Must be a self starter and able to often work alone.
2. Common Sense - if it looks too good to be true . . .
3. A Logical Mind - able to make a whole pie from the pieces.
4. Curiosity - You must love a mystery, as life is filled with them.
5. Generosity - family history is all about giving.
6. Tenacity - like a dog shaking a bone, never give up.
7. Discretion - many of the things we find will require it.
8. Luck - Hopefully "Good Luck." I'll take luck over skill any day. In my case if it weren't for "bad luck" I wouldn't have any at all.
9. Enthusiasm - the drive to learn something new everyday. The reason you get out of bed every morning.
10. Conscientiousness - If you say you're going to do it, do it. Even if you only say it to yourself.
11. Humility - Don't worry. If you don't have this trait you will soon acquire it.
12. A Keeper - both personally and professionally. All the Family Historians I know are keepers. Our families couldn't do without them.
    
13. Intelligence - Be smart enough to know you don't know everything.

Want To Add Something?
See Trait No. 5

Could the Day Get Any Better?

You blog, you wonder if anyone reads, then along comes a day like today. Holy Cow!

I started the day with an email from Diane Haddad. THE Diane Haddad, Managing Editor of Family Tree Magazine. Thank you Diane for a great start to the day!

The email said:

Congratulations! Your blog was voted one of the Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy blogs!

You can see our announcement and the full list on our Genealogy Insider blog here.

You may recall we had a round of nominations and voting last fall. We’re grateful to everyone who helped spread the word about that process, and to you for your hard work in promoting the pursuit of family history.

Recall? Of course I recall.

Thank you, to all those who voted and to Family Tree Magazine. I am so very honored to be in such esteemed company; people I enjoy reading and admire greatly.

Thank you, Maureen Taylor, for the really great write up you did for all the winning bloggers. No easy task. And thank you, Maureen, for the lovely comments about the mysterious footnoteMaven. Does this make me MfM?

Thank you to the entire list of Top 40 winners. I read you, I enjoy you! The great work you do makes me a better blogger.

The winners in the All-Around were:

• Creative Gene by Jasia Smasha
• footnoteMaven by footnoteMaven
• GeneaBloggers by Thomas MacEntee
• Genea-Musings by Randy Seaver

Those who were nominated in this category were:

AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors
CanadaGenealogy or, "Jane's your aunt"
Creative Gene
footnoteMaven
GeneaBloggers
GeneaBlogie
Genea-Musings
The Genealogue
Tina's Genealogical Wish List
Transylvanian Dutch

Every single one of these nominated blogs deserves this award.

But quite frankly, today I feel like a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Seinfeld (Yes Kathryn, you won't like this analogy).

I've often said this blog reminds me of Seinfeld, a "blog about nothing;" focused on the minutiae of searching for those elusive ancestors and coping with the petty injustices of my efforts.

Who knew there was a category for this in the Family Tree Top 40 called All-Around.

So where does the Wizard of Oz fit into this? Well, I honestly feel like the all-seeing, all-knowing Oz just before someone pulls the drape and finds out that behind-the-curtain is nothing more than a computer, an internet connection, an office filled with stuff (lots of stuff), two dogs and a cat, and the Maven still wearing her slippers (and they're not Ruby) at ten in the morning.

So what's the best thing about GeneaBlogging? Awards? I am grateful, but no. It's the relationships; no not the kind you can chart on a family tree. It's the great friends I've made, and the generosity of spirit I've experience every day.

Thank you my friends, for reading, for commenting, for sharing,
for encouraging! I could never have done it without you!
In particular, Jasia, of Creative Gene for giving
me my start and for her continual encouragement!

Raise a glass with me to the Family Tree Top40!

P.S. The day did get better, Maureen Taylor's two new books arrived. Jackpot!