Reddit mentions: The best genealogy books

I wouldn't worry too much right now about knowing everything perfectly; you're still finding your foundations and areas of interests. Sophie's World is sorta where I started too, and I'd recommend maybe going back and seeing if there are any philosophers that you found particularly interesting. That would be one way to start.

If you want to go deeper into general philosophy, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is like a much (much much much) denser and more intense version of Sophie's World. If you're not sure where to go next, this will give you a much more in-depth view of even more philosophers (although he skips Kierkegaard, which is my main gripe with the book, but oh well, still would recommend it). One thing I personally loves about this book though was how he connected philosophy to history, art, science, poetry, and so many other fields. It's really made me want to switch my major to...Everything! Philosophy's still at my core, but this book really got me interested in other fields as well.

To go further in recommendation, Plato's dialogues are generally considered to be pretty important to a foundation of philosophical understanding. The Apology is a pretty easy one; it's less of a philosophical text in the traditional sense and more a sort of kick-off for the field, where Socrates explains why philosophy is important, and why he pursues it. The Republic is also pretty important for understanding Plato's political ideas. All his dialogues, though, are generally pretty good reading, and I'd recommend reading some.

To go past that, Aristotle's often a good read, primarily his Nichomachean Ethics is a pretty good introduction to his philosophy, much of which is a response to Plato.

To move onto modern philosophy, it tends to get a bit more technical and tricky, but a great and very easy-to-read modern philosopher is Descartes. I'd recommend Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method in Discerning Truth in the Sciences as good introductions to modern philosophy, which tends to focus on slightly more technical forms of logic, rather than conclusions drawn from more vague observations.

(NOTE: found a book that combines both the Descartes writing mentions into one here).

Another important thinker who might not be hard to understand but who will definitely shake you is Nietzsche. This documentary is a pretty good introduction to him, but if you want more, I'd recommend this collection as a good overview of his philosophy. His works are quick reads, but they will stick with you, and I consider him to be one of the most important thinkers to understand the modern age.

Eventually though, you'll need to start taking on more challenging texts. Hopefully though, you'll be well informed enough by that time to have found a niche that you personally are interested in, which will make it much more interesting and fun! Never hesitate to come here with questions. Good luck!

>You espouse nothing but poor reasoning

You can't espouse poor reasoning. You can however espouse an idea supported by poor reasoning. Assuming this is what you meant, I still haven't done it. You have no examples for how my arguments rely on poor reasoning, you just keep insisting that they do. This is due to your own reliance on specious reasoning.

>You're an apologist. You've chosen that position and it's an ugly one.

Sigh.... You know what an apologist is right? Lets use the term in a sentence... "The christian apologists tried to defend their beliefs using reason, thinking that belief in god could be found through logic." Hmm... Maybe a definition would still be useful.

Ya... I'm not an apologist. I'm not arguing in defense of a belief. I'm arguing against a belief in moral realism. You, my friend, function as the apologist in this debate. Please stop using words without knowing how to use them.

>My morals are quite measured and I do not follow them blindly, with faith. I quoted this because this is all you do. You make stupid and baseless attacks because you have no defense.

Watch this: "My belief in God is quite measured and I do not follow him blindly, with faith." Just because you use reason to justify things after the fact does not make the original assumption true, or any less "faithful."

You seem to have a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to moral theory and what is possible through moral theory. Sam Harris, while an interesting individual, and right about many things, is fundamentally wrong when it comes to what science can do with regard to morals. Not in the sense that his moral system is untenable, but rather in the sense that you can't get his moral system strictly through scientific study—which he claims we can. Assumptions must be made before you can even begin the study of well-being and suffering, and even more must be made in order to say that you should promote one and avoid the other.

A person's insistence on the existence of universal objective morals is best termed as a FAITH. There is no evidence of universal objective morals, and they are fundamentally unscientific entities in the same sense God is—even if we wanted to, we could never find evidence of them. At best they are commonly assumed entities—like God is for most people.

And I repeat, because you seem to think I am some sort of moral heathen, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MORALS ARE USELESS OR THAT WE SHOULD LET PEOPLE DO WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE MORALS. Your feelings about me being somehow deficient are the same feelings a religious fundamentalist would have toward both of us due to our lack of belief.

That you think a bit of pop-science is somehow "important" for me to read is laughable. If what you know of morals comes from that book, I feel sorry for you. I understand that many atheists will praise anything that comes from the "canon" writers on atheism like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, however, being a fan of someone does not make all of their work good, or even relevant. At best, Sam Harris is simply endorsing the naturalistic fallacy. At worst, he's willfully ignorant of what the naturalistic fallacy is, and simply wishes to push his view as a "counterpoint" to religious morality.

Since you so kindly left me a link to a book, allow me to do the same, by linking you to the most important books in moral theory for you to read, some of which argue directly against me, but at this point the idea is to get you educated, not to get you to agree with me:

Alisdair MacIntyre — After Virtue

Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil

Nietzsche — The Genealogy of Morals

Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics

G.E. Moore — Principia Ethica

I've done my best to find the best editions of these books available (I myself usually default to the Cambridge editions of works in the history of philosophy). You may also want to check out some Peter Singer, along with Bentham and Mill, if only to know what it means to be a utilitarian. After that, read John Rawls, because he'll tell you one reason why utilitarianism is so controversial in ethical theory.

I hope to hear back from you about the results of your studies. I figure you can easily find pdfs of these books (though perhaps not the same editions I linked) somewhere online. Given about a month or two to read them all (I'm not sure how much free time you have... maybe more like three months) you should be up to speed. Hopefully I'll hear back from you after the new year. At that point, I don't expect you to agree with my view on ethics, but I at least expect you will understand it, and be able to argue your own position somewhat more effectively than you are at the moment. If nothing else, think of this as a way to learn how to "stick it" to people like me.

Maybe by then you'll have gotten beyond the whole "I'm taking my ball and going home" disposition you seem to have when confronted with someone who's better than you at debating ethics. I can only hope.

If you take ethics seriously at all, do this for yourself: study the shit out of ethical theory.

At the outset, please note that this topic is exceedingly slippery. I am convinced that the most efficient way to understand these issues is through the study of philosophy of ethics.

> Where do atheists get their [sense of] morality?

Nature, nurture, and the phenomenological self-model.

> What defines the "good" and "bad" that has
permeated much of human society?

Easy: notice that personal definitions of morality between individuals immersed in the same culture tend to strongly overlap (e.g., most moderns consider rape to be "bad").

From this considerable volume of data, it is fairly simple to construct principles that adequately generalize these working definitions, such as "promote happiness", and "mitigate pain".

> [If you're not caught, why not murder? Why donate to charity? Does might make right?]

These questions appear to have both practical and intuitive solutions.

What are you trying to understand?

> How do atheists tend to reconcile moral relativism?

What do you mean?

> Barring the above deconstructions, how do atheists account for morality?

Moral theories largely attempt to bridge the gap between descriptive facts and normative commands:

• Kant argued that norms are not discovered via our senses, but are simply axiomatic principles.
  
• Rawls argued that norms are the product of a hypothetical agreement in which all ideally rational humans would affirm certain values (Social Contract) if they didn't know their fate in advance (Veil Of Ignorance).
  
• Mill argued that norms are best expressed through the need to increase pleasure and decrease pain.
  
• Parfit argued that these three approaches don't really contradict one another.
  
• Nietzsche argued that norms and artistic tastes are the same.
  
• Mackie argued that norms are human inventions that include social welfare considerations.
  
  

>can you please clarify your ideological position

Sure.

I'm a paleoconservative deep ecologist. This means I adhere to the oldest values of American conservatism and pair them with an interest in environmentalism through a more wholesome design of society.

I moderate /r/new_right because the new right ideas are closest to paleoconservatism in some ways. I tried to write a description of new_right that encompassed all of the ideas that the movement has tossed around.

Beyond that, I think politics is a matter of strategies and not collectivist moral decisions, am fond of libertarian-style free market strategies, and take interest in many things, hence the wide diversity of stuff that I post.

I've learned that on Reddit it's important to ask for people to clarify definitions before ever addressing any question using those terms. If you want me to answer any specific questions, we need a clear definition first agreed on by all parties.

I recommend the following books for anyone interesting in post-1970s conservatism beyond the neoconservative sphere:

• Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue
  
• Pat Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower
  
• Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies
  
• Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind from Burke to Eliot
  
• Jared Diamond, Collapse
  
• Mark Steyn, America Alone
  
• Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
  
• Bruce Charlton, Thought Prison: The Fundamentalist Nature of Political Correctness
  
  Other than that, I'm pretty much a mainstream Republican. Not all links I post constitute endorsement, such as this fascinating article.

(a) If your family immigrated to the United States prior to September 3, 1783, he can receive an "honorary" grant of arms from the British Crown. The "honorary" part just means the right of arms is not legally enforceable in British courts (though it's been more than 50 years since anyone has tried to enforce arms in a court, so this is really quite an incidental point), but is in every other way an actual grant from the Crown and comes with the elaborate letters patent (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fc/79/f0/fc79f0783aa6435cc1242b6f05d45ca9--arundel-illuminated-manuscript.jpg), permanent recording in the archives of the College of Arms, and the right to matriculate them to his children, and their children, and so forth in perpetuity. They also handle all the design work (which also means you can't submit your own; they create the blazon as they feel is appropriate). This can be expensive, however. Generally about $6,000 for the grant, plus $150 for each generation removed from September 3, 1783, which covers their cost of confirming pedigree.

(b) If you want to assume arms, you can hire an heraldic artist. Here is a list: http://www.heraldic-arts.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11&Itemid=144.

(c) If that's too pricey and you have only minimal graphic/design abilities, I recommend purchasing a license to Armorial Gold (http://www.heraldryclipart.com/) for $78 and then downloading the free edition of Serif DrawPlus. With a bit of effort you can make a quite nice-looking emblazonment. You should also purchase a used copy of Boutelle's Heraldry (https://www.amazon.com/Heraldry-Charles-Boutell/dp/0723217084) on amazon.com which will teach you how to correctly blazon (textually describe) the arms. Or just describe them here and someone can try to blazon them for you.

(d) If you like, after doing 'b' or 'c', you could even have the arms registered with the South African Bureau of Heraldry (http://www.national.archives.gov.za/PERSONAL%20HERALDIC%20REPRESENTATIONNew.pdf) which gives you an elaborate looking registration certificate (http://www.heraldry.ca/arms/s/sidselrud_certificate.jpg) issued by an actual government (but, more importantly, results in the arms being archived in a permanent format; that is, the record of the arms will exist as long as the Republic of South Africa exists, unlike some of these internet registries which last only until the guy running it gets bored or dies or forgets to renew the domain name). This can cost around $500 (though, I believe, this includes a professional rendering of the arms by a South African herald). South Africa will only register heraldically correct arms so it would be good to get someone experienced to review them prior to submission. An important distinction between 'a' and 'd' is that this is a registration, and not a grant; that is, the Republic of South Africa is simply acknowledging that you have assumed arms and recognizing your legal right to use them, as opposed to 'awarding' (granting) them to you as in the case of the UK.

I'm going to specifically compare Churchill's notion about Greco-Roman thought to the importance of Chinese classics in East Asia. I'd say it is comparable, but distinct from the Roman/Greek case, especially colored by the very recent history running up to where Churchill was.

In the Chinese case, on-and-off dynasties were run according to the precepts of the "four books and five classics." The four books were a set of texts written (or at least compiled by) Confucius and Mencius. While composed as mostly anecdotes, they established a system of propriety, morality, and "right action" that extended upwards and outwards from the home to the government. The classics were the basis of ancient Chinese religious, poetic, and ritual thought. They established a huge amount of the underlying aesthetic, religious, and cosmological worldviews that you see for millennia. These were seen as seminal to almost all literate Chinese individuals, right up until the reforms and upheavals towards the end of the Qing empire as the 19th century ended.

A specific example of their importance is the "Imperial exam system." Set up in the 600s, it determined participation in government work was based almost exclusively on these texts. Specific forms varied and, as time wore on, some texts and requirements were added or subtracted based on which dynasty was giving the test. The underlying basis, though, was always the four books and five classics.

The thought (and, specifically, the Four Books/Five Classics) was also extremely important to the Imperial forms of government in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam (to varying degrees based on place, time, and who in particular was running things).

Chinese Dynastic succession kept up at a reasonably fast pace and established successive, stable empires, with only a century or two of chaos in between--even foreign invaders like the Mongols or Manchu would acquire Han-educated advisors and set up governments based largely on Confucian tenets (Yuan and Qing were both 'foreign' dynasties). The thought of ancient China wasn't seen as something of a bygone age--it was immediate and current, seen as a lineage. As the Qing declined throughout the 19th and early 20th century, however, many saw it as clear to them that the entire worldview was flawed. Western nations, with their own notions of the world, were militarily superior and bullied the Qing Empire (dealing with its own massive internal issues, including a civil war that left more dead than 20 American Civil Wars). As a result, the ancient thought was discredited and a variety of Western ideologies took root. The one that eventually triumphed, Maoist Communism, explicitly sought to utterly destroy Confucian thought in the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese Communist Party has significantly moderated that stance since then, though, and the classics are once again revered. This is at least partially to set up a credible competing nationalist ideology to "the West,"
and one which isn't based on the now also largely discredited (and also, really, Western) Communist thought.

In Europe, you have the fall of Rome in the 400s and largely, there's chaos thereafter (Things are different in the East with the continuation of Byzantium, but Churchill speaks to a specifically Western European mode of thought). There were various Renaissances (many more than most people give credit for, I don't mean to get any Medievalists on me for downplaying the achievements in the period too much)--Charlamagne, the Ottonians, and others. Still, though, none of them succeeded in achieving anything close to the political hegemony of the Romans, much less in physical, engineering terms. Importantly, also, none of them had the control or longevity to be compared to really any of the dynasties that followed the Roman-comparable Han in our contrasting Chinese example. Rather than the living, functional, developing ideology that informed Empire after Empire, Rome was an ancient wonder. It was present--they could see it around them in the roads and aqueducts they used, the Christian religion they practiced, and the cities they lived in--but they couldn't match it. While pretensions to being "successors" to Rome and many aspects of Roman culture had remained, much of the specific text and practice had long passed by the wayside to be rediscovered during the Renaissance.

In the 'Renaissance that stuck' in the 1400s and onwards, they looked on Roman thought and art as something ancient and wonderful. Statues dug up, texts acquired from the Islamic world (where they had been continuing study of Plato/Aristotle for many of the intervening centuries), and other aspects of greco-roman thought created an idealized past of the "ancients" for the "moderns" to compare their world to. Since there was such distance, I would editorialize, it allowed for way more idolization. As the Renaissance and Enlightenment spread, modern nation-states still based a great deal of thought and practice rooted in this source of cultural legitimacy: A perfect empire that existed an untold amount of time ago.

This is where Churchill is coming from; an agent of a modern empire that, still, desperately wanted to cast itself in the mold of the source of ancient legitimacy. Rather than seeing ancient thought as shackles on modernity, it was (mostly rightly) seen as the seed from which the Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution, and subsequent ability to dominate most of the globe had sprung.

To sum up the difference: In China, you have a constant lineage of social and political thought that was in operation in an Empire torn to shreds and thus discredited, though later redeemed as a source of cultural/nationalist pride. In the UK, you have a strain of thought, the specifics of which were lost, held in reverence as a golden age before centuries of intermittent warfare and chaos. Its rediscovery sets off, in part, a sequence of events that sets the UK up as a truly global empire--reflecting on the idealized past, the British Empire is lionized as a "new Rome," necessarily owing much to the ideas from the "old Rome." Nothing legitimizes your social and political thought (in your mind, anyway) than literally conquering most of the planet with it.

Edited to add sources of where I formed these views--by no means exhaustive, mainly what I can remember off the top of my head/can pull off a bookshelf:

Chinese history:

• Fairbanks-- http://www.amazon.com/China-History-Second-Enlarged-Edition/dp/0674018281
  
• De Bary-- http://www.amazon.com/Sources-Chinese-Tradition-Vol-1/dp/0231109393
  
• Hsu-- http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Modern-China-Immanuel/dp/0195125045
  
• I also have read through most of Confucius -- Analects and (Mythically Fu Xi, true author debated) -- I Ching at various times
  
  European:
  
  Roman period:
  
  
• Plutarch, Caesar, Livy
  
  Renaissance thought:
  
  
• Arnold-- http://www.amazon.com/Knighthood-1050-1300-University-Academic-Monograph/dp/0198219601/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374248705&sr=1-1&keywords=German+Knighthood+1050-1300 (Used basically as the background text for the 1000-1500 class I took, basis to build around "dark ages")
  
• Machiavelli- Discourses on Livy (while it's more complicated than simple idolization, he definitely looks back on the Romans as a period starkly different and superior to the one he lives in)
  
  Enlightenment-Beyond:
  
  
• Jonathan Swift: Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns (Focus is mainly on literary tradition, but does add the complication that, especially as time wore on, not everyone agreed that Roman thought should be idolized. It highlights this, while also reinforcing the distinction--this was not seen as "Western" or "European" thought that evolved and developed down the ages--there are ancients and there are moderns)
  
• Levine -- http://www.amazon.com/British-Empire-Sunrise-Sunset/dp/0582472814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374249026&sr=1-1&keywords=levine+the+british+empire
  
• Mokyr-- http://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Athena-Historical-Origins-Knowledge/dp/0691120137/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374248779&sr=1-1&keywords=gifts+of+athena
  
  

First of all, you need to look at the actual record. People who transcribe this information make errors sometimes, so the actual record may be different from the information listed here.

This record is great, but you will need to do some double checking. If you go and look at the original record, I would be pretty certain that the names, the marriage and the marriage date and place are correct, but there is - of course - always room for error.

What's on your side is that this information is a marriage record, so it was most likely provided by the people listed in the record themselves. Unless they had any reason to lie (and people sometimes did!) then it's most likely true to the best of their knowledge. People still sometimes get information wrong, so it's always best to verify. But this record is full of information and clues so have fun with it!

For more info, I suggest you check out the book Genealogical Proof Standard and read about building a solid case.

Best way is to pick a goal! I know that sounds silly but doing it helps.

The best way to start is to just concentrate on the direct line from you/the home person. That way you can just skip worrying about the 5th/6th cousins trees and just work solidly backwards. When you hit a brick wall go back to the start and start working in records that match your info and build up more detail.

Key is to actually make sure the records back up all your info - birth, death, who their parents were, marriage, etc.

Don't trust the other people's Trees on Ancestry!! Too many people just spam "add, add, add" and it's junk data. Only add trees that match with information you already know - then verify the data they add to your tree.

That way you'll have a great, and well researched tree.

I would STRONGLY recommend this book to help you get on the right track of what genealogical "proof" actually is.

A conservative/reactionary reading list:

Jean Bodin - Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576)

Robert Filmer - Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings (1680)

Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Joseph de Maistre - Considerations on France (1797) and Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions (1809)

Thomas Carlyle - The French Revolution: A History (1837) and On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)

Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Genealogy of Morals (1887)

Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West (1918)

Ernst Jünger - Storm of Steel (1920)

Jose Ortega y Gassett - Revolt of the Masses (1929)

Julius Evola - Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and Men Among the Ruins (1953)

Bertrand de Jouvenal - On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth (1949)

Leo Strauss - Natural Right and History (1953)

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - The Menace of the Herd (1943) and Liberty or Equality (1952)

I started my interest in philosophy with Nietzsche when I found Zarathustra in a bookstore. As others have said, it's not a good place to start. I then read all these, and also read some of The Gay Science as well as some of Kaufmann's book which is a good starting place, although I personally found Heidegger's lectures on him more interesting and insightful (although much more biased and with a more explicit agenda).

Personally, I don't know if there's really the place to start with Nietzsche, because he doesn't have a single system in the traditional sense. While he offers hints at a system, and while there are certainly thematic threads that run throughout his thought, there's not a single text where he outlines a single system. He came close in The Will to Power, but never finished it, so we're left with his notebooks and outlines, still aphoristic. It might be worth thinking about why you want to read Nietzsche; his thought covers so much territory, and in such odd ways, it might be helpful to have a "way in" or angle with which to read him. This is why I liked Heidegger's lectures, and am admittedly wary of Kaufmann's book; I'm just not sure a single unified Nietzsche is out there, but he's a fascinating sower of seeds. Whether it's history, art, religion, culture or some combination of all those fields, he's got a lot of interesting things to say, but I'm not sure there's a single place to start, given the lack of a single kernel of thought. This is obviously largely my opinion, but I thought it was worth noting.

Sorry but I don't buy the idea that 23andme's ancestry tracing claims have been scientifically validated, I can't find any article doing so and instead I find plenty saying it is nonsense (above) so you telling it has been, is not convincing

I also don't buy the notion that there's some other kind of genetic ancestry and the math is simply not open to debate because well, we all have 2 parents and get half our genes from each -- it just isn't more complicated than that. The only way your "geneological ancestors" would avoid the genetic mixing of "Genetic ancestors" is if wayy more in-breeding than what is normal



Also, Its not just me btw, please follow the links provided and the book cited:

>We are all special, which also means that none of us is. This is merely a numbers game, You have two parents, four grandparents, and so on. Each generation back the number of ancestors you have doubles. But this ancestral expansion is not borne back ceaselessly into the past. If it were, your family tree around when Charlemagne was Le Grande Fromage would harbor around 13,438,9523,472 individuals on it. more people than have existed

>You can be, and in fact are, descendend from the same individual many times over. Your great-great-great-great grandmother may hold that position in your family tree twice, or many times...

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Everyone-Ever-Lived/dp/1615194045 (page 160)

The most recent common ancestor of us all was quite recent

>By asking how recently the people of Europe would have a common ancestor, he constructed a mathematical model that incorporated the number of ancestors an individual is presumed to have had (each with two parents), and given the current population size, the point at which all those possible lines of ascent up the family trees would cross. The answer was merely 600 years ago. Sometime at the end of the thirteenth century lived a man or woman from whom all Europeans could trace ancestry, if records permitted (which they don’t). If this sounds unlikely or weird, remember that this individual is one of thousands of lines of descent that you and everyone else has at this moment in time, and whoever this unknown individual was, they represent a tiny proportion of your total familial webbed pedigree. But if we could document the total family tree of everyone alive back through 600 years, among the impenetrable mess, everyone European alive would be able to select a line that would cross everyone else’s around the time of Richard II...

>Chang factored that into a further study of common ancestry beyond Europe, and concluded in 2003 that the most recent common ancestor of everyone alive today on Earth lived only around 3,400 years ago. https://www.popsci.com/descended-from-royalty

So you see, it doesn't take too many generations before everyone is pretty much related to everyone else.

If you're looking for a book for kids to start filling in and learning about their family tree then 'This is Me and This is My Family Tree' by Nicky May is a really good one to go for.

You can find it on Amazon and it has great reviews: http://www.amazon.co.uk/this-family-tree-Multi-activity-Ragged/dp/1857143914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416822003&sr=8-1&keywords=this+is+me+and+this+is+my+family+tree

There's also 'My Family Tree Book' by Catherine Bruzzone, available here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Tree-Book-First-Record/dp/1905710151/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418136160&sr=8-1&keywords=kids+family+tree

I featured the top one on our blog post 'A Genealogy Book For Every Research Problem' if you want to see other useful genealogy books too :) http://blog.perane.co.uk/a-genealogy-book-for-every-research-problem

I try to stay neutral about most people I'm researching.

As /u/nosleeptilwhiterun said in a different thread:
> I always say if you are going to be "proud" of your ancestors accomplishments, I hope you then feel shame for their misdeeds. I feel neither.

I agree with that.

Some people I'll find more interesting than others - because they're more active (newspapers) or because you can see them accomplishing or overcoming things in their lives or helping to change/improve their towns or cities where they live. I'm not sure I'd call that pride per se, but more like you're happy to watch them improve.

Quick example, a woman I was researching was the first woman elected to the town's board of education in 1889. She was a suffragette, very involved in local affairs and beat her opponent with nearly double the vote. Good for her.

***
I added this in the other thread, but I think it fits here too.

In The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val Greenwood, he writes:

> "If you are scared of skeletons then stay out of closets. And if you are ashamed of ancestors who do not meet your own social standards then stay away from genealogy." (pg 12) ...

> "Regardless of what you find, your first responsibility is to the truth." (pg. 12)

Fantastic website update--you're definitely moving in the right direction.

Some other off the cuff suggestions I have:

be even more transparent about the resources you have access to, or essentially, what makes you unique? From how you present yourself, it sounds like the bulk of your available research is on Ancestry or Familysearch (which is fine!). If so, why should a client choose you rather than just doing it herself? (This would be a good time to emphasize that history degree).

Have you given thought to how you will provide clients with citations/images of documents? If you're using online sources, you will need to consider their TOS.

For repository lists, also consider area colleges/universities, historical societies, genealogy societies, and even public libraries.

And while you're waiting for clients, purchase or ILL this book, as it is a helpful resource to understanding how a professional genealogist operates.

I just stumbled over these two sources:

• Pennsylvania German Pioneers Passenger Lists; Directory of Online Transcriptions of Palatine Passenger Lists; Palatine German Immigrant Ships to Philadelphia 1727-1808
  
• and Don Yoder - Pennsylvania German Immigrants, 1709-1786 Lists Consolidated from Yearbooks
  
  Haven't checked them, but they look somewhat promising.
  
  On Amazon.com there's the following comment about the latter one:
  
  > This is an awesome book! But only if you have ancestors from Wuerttemberg, County of Wertheim, or Zweibruecken in the Palatinate, Germany, or the Canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. So, if you know your ancestors are from, say, Hesse, this book would not include them!"

I’m excited that I’ve already found gifts for my parents! Ancient Graffiti Lily Cup Rain Chain, Copper Plated https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BSNFU0S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0gCaAbR6VY1MP
For my mom and this: A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615194045/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_IhCaAbCXRVDSY for my dad.

My husband is obsessed this these giant inflatable lounger chair air sofa couch AMAZING Beach & pool float Perfect for outdoor picnic camping eazy to inflate lazy bag hammock with carry bag orange by FUNJOYA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0719DSM39/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_DiCaAb1HBJN6G so he’s getting one for our beach trip.

Kids are late teens so money money money. My son asked for a gym membership for the month he will be home from school. My daughter is going to France for spring break so she is getting a passport holder thingie as well.

Go to your local library. They will have a lot of how-to books and online access to genealogy sites (like Ancestry). Some libraries even offer free classes.

Personally, I started with this book years ago, which is arguably the best text book ever written on the subject: The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Your local library probably has a copy.

Reddit also has a /r/genealogy sub with lots of people willing to help.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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Because humans share genes. All of us have genes in common. The fact that two people may share a gene, doesn't make them particular more related to each other than all the other poeple who have ever had the same gene.

If you read this interesting book, it will explain to you that the latest (not earliest) common ancestor to all humans genetically was alive just about 3000 years ago.

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Everyone-Ever-Lived/dp/1615194045

>Useful even if can't be verified

This usually means that these characteristics aer being used (selectively) to confirm biases -in otherwords confirmation bias. We assume people from a certain place are a certain way because we disregard the information that says otherwise and only acknowledge the information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. Reality, is far more complicated than the little categories we create and attempt to shove it into

So I'm really into genealogy myself, so I just went through my very-long book wishlist and pulled out a couple that might be of interest.

• Forensic Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick and Andrew Yesier. Written by a Forensic Genealogist, it's supposed to go into a lot of novel techniques for analysis.
  
  
• The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn, it's all about this man's search for more information about his families history and their fate during WWII.
  
  
• The Family Gene: A Mission to Turn My Deadly Inheritance into a Hopeful Future by Joselin Linder, this is a memoir about a woman who searches through her family history to understand the health issues in her family.
  
  Generally, you might want to look for books on history that was happening in the time and place that your ancestors were living. It's hard to give recommendations without knowing your family, but an example would be something like books on the irish potato famine or holomodor if your family lived through them.

I've been doing genealogy research for over 30 years, to me this book will be about the best thing to have in your library.

Red Book

Henry VIII most likely has no living descendants, unless you accept the theory that Henry VIII was the father of Mary Boleyn's son Henry Carey.

Assuming you're American, there are genealogical reference works that have lists of the 17th and 18th century American colonists and later immigrants who have traceable and reasonably well-documented royal ancestry: The Royal Descent of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States by Gary Boyd Roberts, and Plantagenet Ancestry by Douglas Richardson; these are both reasonably reliable secondary sources. If one of your colonial or later immigrant ancestors is not included then your presumed royal line is probably bogus.

This is from the Fire Emblem TREASURE artbook, exclusively released in Japan. Here's a link to those who can afford it

Someone on my fathers side has written something similar.

https://www.amazon.com/Genealogy-settlers-Anderson-descendants-interesting/dp/B0006EOSKS

He also wrote a book on the topic: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Guide-Testing-Genetic-Genealogy/dp/1440345325

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Everyone-Ever-Lived/dp/1615194045

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How humans became humans -

I would get these two:

The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy

And the workbook by the same author, which can give you some hands-on practice for how to use genetic genealogy.