To all who have been complaining to this list about people using your research in their family trees or history, please note the obituary of one of the most prolific writers of this century. Also please note my quotation marks at the beginning of Mark Feeney's writing and the end paragraph !


"Stephen Ambrose dies; his books rcounted US epics
By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff, 10/14/2002

Stephen E. Ambrose, whose stirring books on such heroic episodes in US 
history as D-Day and the Lewis and Clark expedition made him one of 
America's best-selling historians and earned him a National Humanities Medal 
in 1998, died yesterday at a hospital in Bay St. Louis, Miss. He was 66.

A longtime smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in April.

Dr. Ambrose, whose multivolume biographies of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard 
Nixon first brought him to prominence in the 1980s, drew widespread 
attention earlier this year over revelations that he had plagiarized a 
number of brief passages in at least five of his books. In each case, Dr. 
Ambrose had cited the source in his endnotes, but did not put quotation 
marks around the words.

''I always thought plagiarism meant using another people's words and ideas, 
pretending they were your own and profiting from it,'' Dr. Ambrose wrote in 
explanation of the incidents. ''I do not do that, never have done that, and 
never will.''

The significance of his carelessness remains in dispute; the cause does not. 
Between 1996 and 2001, he published no fewer than nine books, as well as the 
revised edition of a textbook. In all, he wrote or edited 36 books. To 
maintain such relentless productivity, Dr. Ambrose would rise each morning 
at 4 to get in at least three hours of uninterrupted writing. ''The art of 
writing,'' he liked to say, ''is the art of applying the seat of your pants 
to the seat of the chair.''

So prolific was Dr. Ambrose that in 2001 The Wall Street Journal dubbed him 
and his various enterprises - writing, lecturing, even lending his name to 
historical tours - ''History Inc.''

Several things contributed to Dr. Ambrose's popularity. One was his 
unwavering emphasis on narrative. ''As I sit at my computer,'' he once 
wrote, ''I think of myself as sitting around the campfire after a day on the 
trail, telling stories that I hope will have ... readers leaning forward 
just a bit, wanting to know what happens next.''

Such an attitude made Dr. Ambrose a throwback in an era when historians 
increasingly eschewed storytelling for more analytical or interpretative 
approaches, but it also made him a favorite of millions of readers.

He ''combined high standards of scholarship with the capacity to make 
history come alive for a lay audience,'' said Arthur Schlesinger, Pulitzer 
Prize-winning historian and former aide to president Kennedy.

Dr. Ambrose also focused on subjects with broad popular appeal, particularly 
subjects concerning World War II. ''It's the greatest event of the 20th 
century,'' he said in a 2001 interview, describing the war's hold on him. 
''It was the great victory of the 20th century for the human species.''

The popularity of such books as ''Band of Brothers'' (1992), ''D-Day: June 
6, 1944'' (1994), and ''Citizen Soldiers'' (1997) has been cited as a major 
factor in the vast, ongoing revival of interest in World War II and the men 
who fought it. ''Band of Brothers'' was made into an HBO miniseries (Dr. 
Ambrose won an Emmy Award as one of its executive producers) and he served 
as a consultant on Steven Spielberg's film ''Saving Private Ryan.'' He 
founded the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans and later contributed 
$750,000 to it.

The stance Dr. Ambrose took toward the men who fought the war further 
enhanced his books' appeal. ''I thought the returning veterans were giants 
who had saved the world from barbarism,'' he once explained. ''I remain a 
hero worshiper.''

Dr. Ambrose brought that same adulatory view to such other subjects as 
''Crazy Horse and Custer'' (1976), Lewis and Clark (''Undaunted Courage,'' 
1996), and the builders of the first transcontinental railroad (''Nothing 
Like It in the World,'' 2000).

Finally, there was Dr. Ambrose's emphasis on enlisted men and junior 
officers, which helped make his books populist as well as popular. ''I was 
getting tired of looking at the world from the point of view of the high 
command,'' he said.

There was a certain irony in that switch. Dr. Ambrose's professional 
interest in World War II stemmed from a career-making phone call he received 
in 1964 from the onetime supreme Allied commander in Europe, Eisenhower. The 
former president had read Dr. Ambrose's first book, ''Halleck: Lincoln's 
Chief of Staff'' (1962) and liked it well enough to ask its author to edit 
his papers. Dr. Ambrose eagerly accepted. In addition to his editorial 
duties, Dr. Ambrose later founded and served as director of the University 
of New Orleans's Eisenhower Center for American Studies.

Dr. Ambrose was born in Decatur, Ill., the second of three brothers. His 
parents were Stephen, a physician, and Rosepha (Trippe), a housewife. 
Growing up in the small town of Whitewater, Wis., Dr. Ambrose was an Eagle 
scout and hoped to follow in his father's footsteps as a general 
practitioner.

At the University of Wisconsin, he played football and, captivated by a 
course on American history, abandoned the idea of medical school. After 
graduating, he earned a master's degree in history at Louisiana State 
University, where he studied with T. Harry Williams. He returned to 
Wisconsin for his doctorate.

Dr. Ambrose taught at the New Orleans campus of Louisiana State University 
(which later became the University of New Orleans) from 1960 to 1966. He 
spent the next three years at Johns Hopkins University. While at Johns 
Hopkins, he first demonstrated his interest in the general reader, 
unsuccessfully seeking to become a columnist with The Baltimore Evening Sun.

Dr. Ambrose would later cite his teaching experience as invaluable in 
helping him as a writer. ''There is nothing like standing before 50 students 
at 8 a.m. to start talking about an event that occurred 100 years ago, 
because the look on their faces is a challenge - `Let's see you keep me 
awake.' You learn what works and what doesn't in a hurry.''

Dr. Ambrose also taught at the US Naval War College and Kansas State 
University. He returned to the University of New Orleans in 1971. ''I always 
figured I could write my way to the top of the history profession, whether I 
was at New Orleans or at Harvard,'' he once said.

Dr. Ambrose's first wife, Judith, died in 1967. He leaves his wife, Moira; 
and five children, Stephenie, Barry, Andrew, Grace, and Hugh.

His last book, ''To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,'' which 
he called his love song to his country, is set for release next month.

Mark Feeney can be reached at [log in to unmask]


This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 10/14/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.


One final thought : If you use ANY information obtained from Census Discs, Courthouse files, Church records, tax records,city halls, State Archives, or newspapers, and incorporate that info into your family tree, you are using the work of others ! Public Domain or not, it is still the work of others.This goes for those who hire CGS Genealogists and use their work in the family history without those endnotes or quotation marks, which none of you have complained about.

In defense of the Family History Library of the Mormon Church, the information gathering has long been a staple of their missionary work. Long before the advent of computer and hi-tech technology for disbursement of information, the Mormon church sent young people into the field to gather as much information as possible on as many people as possible at churches, synagogues, courthouses, ,etc..That they did such a memorable and accomplished job ( better than the Census Bureau) is noteworthy of a job well done. This information was released to the public at no charge in the hope of obtaining converts to the Mormon Church, even after death, so I've been told.

One can, if so desired, visit any Family History Center throughout the United States and obtain information there, or F.H.C. will order film rolls from Salt Lake.The only cost for rental of those films is the cost of mailing them back to Salt Lake.For most of this service, the Mormon Church has not received any money.

That they have formed an alliance with Ancestry for the sale of discs and offer same to the general public to cover the costs involved in the manufacture of said discs and other materials is necessary to the business of supplying the general public with information that the public wants to have. They only publish what has been given to them by people volunteering the information.If the information is wrong, then the person who volunteered the information is wrong.
If you don't want that information out to the public as general information, copyright your material and bring suit against the individual who has stolen your identity.

Thank you for reading this far ( if you have)

Bill Woodard

billwood@ mail.utexas.edu

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