Page News & Courier
Heritage and Heraldry
Interpretations of history often stray from documented fact
Article of November 19, 1998
"Just the facts please, just the facts." While I temporarily borrow a phrase from that favorite old show "Dragnet," it brings to mind thoughts of where American history has gone astray. Interpretation of history is a natural process for the genealogist, antiquarian, and chronicler - much like solving a mystery. However, just how many become strays from documented historical fact?
I'm personally a big fan of family legends and stories passed down by word of mouth through generations. There is in fact one story in regard to a great-great grandmother of mine that died - supposedly - as a result of a curse from a witch right here in Page County all because she had taken her tobacco pouch and used it as the object of her curse. Good ol' Appalachian folklore huh!? OK, OK, sounds wild I know - but an interesting story - that I have absolutely no way to prove.
So before we take the "word of mouth" for fact, try this simple test. In a classroom of a dozen or more people - take a story about a paragraph or more in length - and whisper it to one person, who will whisper it to another and so on (remember - say it only once) until the story has gone one-to-one throughout the room. Also remember not to allow any third parties in the class to listen in on the story as it is passed individually from person to person. Now, ask the last person who received the story to repeat aloud the story as he/she had received it. Has the story retained its meaning and how different is the story from when it was initially circulated? Odds are that several words have been altered if not the entire meaning of the story.
While we should continue to value and even document (A MUST that even I am occasionally guilty of in my genealogical research) these great family stories passed down from generation to generation, if possible we should also try to validate them through dependable historical resources. As my history professors used to say - "documentation, documentation, . . . ." Gee, odds are you have figured I was a history major. . . .
So where am I going with this? First, always take family stories with a grain of salt, and then work to prove these stories. Don't rely simply on other family stories. Though collaborating stories can help confirm, it is still not accurately documented. I'm cast from the mold of historians that originated from the pursuit of genealogy. Over the years I "evolved," in a sense, into a more objective and critical historian. I found it absolutely necessary to scrutinize an issue or subject before I proclaimed it as historical fact. If you stand by a conclusion that you simply cannot fully support with valid resources - the obvious need is to return to the grindstone.
There is an excellent book that delves into all of this that was written a few years ago. Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob worked together and created the thorough book entitled "Telling the Truth About History." Within one chapter entitled "Truth and Objectivity," the authors make several valuable points that sift through fact and fiction in history. They write:
"We have redefined historical objectivity as an interactive relationship between an inquiring subject and an external object. Validation in this definition comes from persuasion more than proof, but without proof there is no historical writing of any worth."
Need anything else be said beyond this?
Return to the Page News & Courier sponsored directory for
Heritage & Heraldry articles.