When I first began working on family history I had interactions with genealogists/family historians that left me with the impression that men and women approach family history differently and may have different goals when seeking ancestors.My impressions
- Men are most interested in finding their direct line ancestors while largely ignoring the siblings and children of those ancestors unless finding them can lead back to and give more information about the direct line ancestor.
- Women are interested in finding direct line ancestors while at the same time seek to discover the siblings and children of those ancestors, thereby gathering and recreating families.
If this perception is true I assumed it had something to do with what I think of as innate qualities of men (often goal-driven) and women (often nurturing). As time has passed I've noticed that men search for collateral lines but primarily it seems to be for the purpose of aiding the direct lineage and not solely to recreate the families of ancestors.
What do you think? Is this generally true? Have you noticed differences in the way men and women approach genealogy and family history? What is your experience? If you are a guy, what is your approach? If you are a female, what is your approach? Or are the differences related more to the level of experience of the genealogist/family historian?
I hope you'll share your thoughts.
--Nancy.
Copyright © 2015 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
.
I haven't noticed any gender differences like what you're describing. I've just noticed personality and experience drives the researchers I've interacted with. Those who with personaliltes that like research like all parts of the puzzle. Those who are more social like the stories and photos. Those who dabble in the field only want to go if they go back into royalty or to Adam regardless of accuracy. Now my experience is from anecdotal evidence. It would be an interesting study from a broader perspective
ReplyDeleteSo maybe it's just the men and women that I've spoken with and not men and women in general who lean the way I described. Your description of approaches sure makes sense.
DeleteI suspect that all of our responses and experiences are anecdotal for this topic! Thanks for contributing to the conversation, Devon.
Nancy, you've given us food for thought here. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective, I agree there can be differences in the ways in which men and women approach family history and genealogy. Your post brought to mind a conversation I had via email with a man who says he is only interested in tracing his forefathers, adding "women aren't really relevant". I was astonished, and then reminded him of the fact that without women there would be neither forefathers nor descendants. On the other hand, I have a distant male cousin in England whose research interests are aligned with mine. Like me, he is interested in gathering the stories of as many persons as possible on our family tree. 'Recreating the families', as you have said.
What a surprising statement for someone to make, that "women aren't really relevant!" I'm glad you offered him some guidance in his thinking, Jennifer.
DeleteAs Devon suggested in her comment above, maybe one's approach is based more on experience. I hope more people will weigh in on this discussion. Thanks for your contribution. I appreciate it.
Interesting observations, Nancy! Your post is featured in my "The Last Byte" section today - I'm interested to see what others think!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.littlebytesoflife.com/2015/09/best-bytes-for-the-week-of-4-sep-2015.html
Thank you including this post, Elizabeth. I appreciate it. I think it's an interesting topic for discussion and I hope readers will respond but only a few have so far.
DeleteThis is an interesting topic to think about. I know for me, I want to know the details....every little detail I can squeeze out of a record and I find myself reading other things to find out about the issues that affected my ancestors. I love finding and reading the social history of the time and local. Certainly not all are this way though---some just want names, dates and places and that seems to be enough. I think some of us are the "storytellers" but I don't know if it is a gender thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm like you, Michelle: I want to know the details of the place, the time, what people's lives were like, how they lived, etc. It probably doesn't have anything to do with gender.
Delete