Comments on: Working with family historians

By: Bruce Baskerville

Bruce Baskerville — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 09:43:52 +0000

Family history was my entry, as a callow youth many years ago, into the study of history as an organised discipline. I learnt basic research skills and even interview techniques with old aunties and uncles, and also to read a landscape for, at least, connections with family members. It still keeps me occupied – after 40 years!

By: Carol Liston

Carol Liston — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 05:25:26 +0000

I agree with Yvonne. I learnt more practical research skills and gained a greater knowledge of archives working as a professional genealogist for 6 years than I did during my PhD research.
With my students I see that they fall into two groups – those with a hunger for detection and those who need the big picture without the uncertainties of hands on archival research.

By: Yvonne Perkins

Yvonne Perkins — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 11:03:27 +0000

This book demonstrates the benefits of professional historians collaborating with family historians. Will this book presage a developing partnership between historians and those family historians who have developed valuable insights into their family's history through rigorous research and keen analysis? In my review of Fractured Families I said that I had learned my research skills in archives from working with my family on our family history, not from university. These skills gave me a head start when it came to studying history at university. How do history students who don't have a family researching their family's history learn how to research in archives? Is this taught in first year history courses?