Paul Drake wrote:
>  I feel that recognition, treatments and results of mental problems (or
any other serious illness) are vital to understanding
our ancestors and their lives.
> [What does this have to do with genealogy?] Very much, in my opinion;
genealogy is the study of ancestral families of any age and place, and
surely finding her at that institution explained her absence from the census
rolls and revealed the reason for the long periods (1862-1896) when she
seemed to have been absent from all family records and anecdotes.

Well said, Paul. We cannot properly reconstruct our families without
understanding the context of their lives and we cannot understand the
records relating to our ancestors if we do not understand the context in
which they were created and the social and political views of the time.

The "traditional" view of genealogy as an assembly of names, dates, and
places has led to many erroneous guesses and assertions about identities and
kinships. IMO, there is no type of record that is irrelevant to genealogy
and no type of history that will not make us better genealogists if we'll
make the effort to expose ourselves to it. Across nearly four decades of
helping others resolve their brickwall problems, I've invariably found that
the breakthrough came from either information or context that the client
assumed to be "irrelevant" to genealogy.

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Advanced Research Methodology & Evidence Analysis
Samford University Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research

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