I think probably the first time I heard the term Cracker was in Gone With the Wind. Maybe it’s a Southern word. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used by a Westerner, at least not un-self-consciously. Many people I’ve asked have no idea what it means even though most have heard it. I read…
Author: Justin Durand
George Washington
Society for Creative Anachronism
Ken Mondschein at Medievalists.net is saying good things about the SCA. No objections here, but it has me wondering how many medievalists have belonged to the Society of Creative Anachronism at some point. I did. Kind of. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I stopped by from time to time. I don’t think…
A Better Diaspora
What does it mean — a better diaspora? I started thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when a friend who is Latina mentioned how often people are surprised when they find out she doesn’t speak Spanish. At the time I just laughed. I don’t speak Swedish or any of my other ancestral languages,…
Excavating Identity
I get edgy when I think someone is too attached to a theory. They’re all theories in my book, some with better evidence than others. And, so often we as genealogists go through struggles about evidence and conclusions when someone really wants a particular result. “Humans add narrativium [“narrative causality”] to their world. They insist…