From Nuts & Bolts to "the whole house"

While the dates of births, marriages, re-locations, public service, deaths, and burials give genealogists the "bare bones" of a family history, we always need more. Sometimes we are fortunate to have family stories, anecdotes, letters, diaries, and quotes to help flesh out the ancestors' lives, but again, we always need more. What some of us would like to know about our ancestors is "how they lived, thought, and possibly felt" -- what influenced them, what was going on around them, and this is where history books can help in a big way.

Localized history (towns, counties, regions) often provide a context of the area our ancestors lived in. These reference works may contain biographies, city directories, geographical and agricultural information, as well as general history "bits" to help us visualize the environment our family members lived in. Military unit histories can provide us with information about the experiences our veteran ancestors lived through. There are also more general history books that can "help bring alive" our ancestors' time. For those genealogists and family historians who ancestors might be included, I'd like to recommend three books that I've found helpful in getting "a bigger picture" about family history.

If you have ancestors that settled "The Great Plains" area of the United States, I recommend "The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890" written by Everett Dick. Using sources including newspapers, biographies, autobiographies, diaries, personal interviews, and monographs as well as local and historical society materials, author Dick encapsulates the "life on the plains" of "the common man and woman" from the trek westward to settling "the Promised Land". The details of "ordinary life" are rich and evocative.

For those who have traced their ancestry back to 17th century England, I recommend reading Antonia Fraser's "The Weaker Vessel". The New York Times Book Review praised this book as "An almost encyclopedic chronicle of women in 17th century England...wives, warriors, heiresses, preachers...alive with anecdote after anecdote." If you thought your women ancestors were just society ladies or "housewives", reading this book can open your eyes to what they might have been up to in "merrie olde England" from about 1603 to 1702.

The third book is for those whose ancestors immigrated from the UK to America in the early period of this nation's history. It is Albion's Seed - Four British Folkways in America" by David Hackett Fischer. Fischer has proven again that he is a master historian. Pulling from a massive amount of source materials, this book is so impressive in its coverage, I was amazed. From the top of British society to the lowest, Albion's Seed tells the stories of America's early colonists who populated Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and New England in a way no previous history book has. From the way they built their homes to how they furnished them, from the religious influences to business practices, from the environment and geography to daily life, it's all here. I can't recommend it enough.