Genealogy — Open Access Journal

A critical issue in genealogy is proving genealogical identity. Failure to do so often results in generational linkages and entire pedigrees built on fantasy. Correctly separating different individuals and combining records related to the same individual require careful analysis and consideration of evidence using personal qualities, relations, events, and objects such as places of residence or employment, key dates, occupation, religion, and physical characteristics. This article explores two behavioral identifiers—criminal modus operandi and psychoanalysis. To illustrate the argument that they can serve an important role in establishing identity, it examines the case of John Hatton, a teenaged London thief who was transported to America in 1726. Using a trial transcript and other evidence, the paper argues that criminal modus operandi and psychoanalysis can, where adequate evidence survives, be used to adduce genealogical identity, thus enabling one to combine evidence recorded at different times and across two continents. Full article

This paper explores genealogy through a focus on what I describe as the idea of genealogical relatedness. This is a model of human relations which emphasizes relationships between people defined through the reckoning of connections based on birth and parentage. I offer a geographical analytical framework for exploring both popular genealogy and ideas of genealogical relatedness, shared descent and difference. It is one that both attends to the variety of ways that collective identity is defined or explored through genealogy and is alert to the troubling nature of genealogical categorizations and differentiations especially those which are figured in terms of concepts that seem to be most progressive, including ideas hybridity, diversity, and universal humanity. Full article

The intersection between family genealogy and family communication is an area ripe for scholarly research within the field of communication studies, as well as the broader area of genealogy studies. The opportunity and desire to conduct family genealogical research continues to grow as the services and tools making such research become more affordable and user friendly. In reflecting upon the ways in which genealogy research and family communication interact with one another, this article seeks to make a case for ongoing and increased scholarship regarding the impact of genealogy data upon family communication patterns, family narrative, and family identity. Full article

Genealogical analysis in the present begs reconsideration of Nietzschean and Foucauldian precursors in relation to the ethical subject position of the subject, on the one hand, and application to concrete contexts of lineal connection asserted diversely across cultural time and space, on the other. This paper considers how the relation between genealogy and history has emerged in anthropologically relevant ways since Foucault, including comparisons and contrasts with selected recent philosophical treatments, with implications for contemporary understandings of subversion, resistance, and the critical assessment of truth claims, including concerning veridiction itself. Developments in anthropology resonate with many features associated with genealogical analysis in Foucault’s latter works. In selected respects, the subversive process of problematizing received accounts of historical and cultural development articulates with the subversive process of ethnographic investigation, whereby received Western or other assumptions are defamiliarized by being thrown into contrastive cultural relief. The more general relation between genealogical analysis and the critical understanding of modernity is discussed, including in relation to contemporary political genealogy and ‘inter-genealogical’ analysis. Full article

This article is a first attempt to generate discussion and academic analysis of the modus operandi of genealogy and genealogists. Genealogy is on the verge of becoming a recognised profession and an academic discipline, with one or more qualification routes. This article summarises the author’s philosophy, motivations and experiences in establishing educational/training courses and qualifications in a University context. Definitions of genealogy and related concepts are discussed, in the light of an epistemological analysis. Such philosophical considerations are rarely discussed among professional genealogists. It is hoped this article will be a stimulus to more enlightened debate of the epistemological and philosophical bases of family history-type genealogy. There is also a dearth of research into the motivations of amateur and professional genealogists, and almost no scholarly scrutiny of genealogy as an academic discipline. Nor can it be dismissed as “a branch of history”; genealogy and history are related but separate disciplines with overlapping skills-sets. Full article

The essay addresses the question “What is Genealogy?” through a consideration of the value of traditional genealogical narratives of families for the Chinese state and society, and the implications of their absence for those caught up in the 19th century diaspora to America. Using genealogy as a method of critical inquiry, however, enables scholars to begin studying the significance of this phenomenon in the lives of Chinese immigrants and the centrality of family in safeguarding their legacy. It does this through an examination of the lives of two Chinese community leaders in Denver’s Chinatown. It concludes with a call for a horizontal genealogical study of community leaders in order to have a better understanding of who they were and the role they played in Chinese America. Full article

This article examines the reasons why Foucault thought that morality based on the care of the self died out in the modern age. I pay special attention to his contention that modern political thought was a key player in bringing about this demise. The essay consists of two parts. In Part One, I overview Foucault’s conception of the care of the self and situate it within his later work on ancient philosophy and culture. In Part Two, I turn to his remarks on the incompatibility between the ancient tradition of the care of the self and an ascendant modern political philosophy based on the notions of rights and the juridical subject. To conclude, I suggest that while Foucault may have overstated this compatibility he opened the door to consider how the care of the self could be taken up in the context of modern and contemporary political theory. Full article

Genealogy is an open-access, quarterly journal that publishes original research and theory online immediately after it has completed the review process. The journal will serve as a venue for cutting edge contributions to the field of genealogy studies; making this scholarly work available to the broadest possible reading audience in a timely manner. [...] Full article