Reconstructing A Community

The Hangout on line last week was about "Reconstructing A Community". Kirsty Gray talked about not so much putting the flesh on the bones, but joining the bones together! By reconstructing the family links between the people that lived in your study place, using the parish records, poor law records and other records, it also helps to bring the past to life and puts people into context. Family reconstruction can help resolve a number of questions about the community, solve major research problems and may reveal some fascinating findings.

One question posed was - is it reasonable to reconstruct an entire community? And if not, what level would reap the most rewards? Reference was made to Andrew Todd's book, Nuts and Bolts: Family History Problem Solving through Family Reconstruction Techniques [Allen & Todd, 2003] - which lists 10 levels of complexity. There are limiting factors - surnames (especially where common or common to your area); family occupations (so the same names may have the same occupation over many generations); the survival of records; population density (frequency of marriages, etc.); land tenure (may affect migration).

The session then went on to talk about ways to record the information - databases, spreadsheets, FH packages, Word or even hand-written. A useful discussion followed with others on the Hangout giving examples of issues they had encountered and whether they had started any family reconstruction. The recording of the Hangout may be seen here

Steve Pickthall