I wonder sometimes. Genealogists are supposed to use the earliest attested name. The rule is often glossed as requiring genealogists to use the “birth name“. We had a debate on Geni.com a while back about the name of Jesus. I still don’t feel comfortable with the result. The Messianic Jews argued stridently in favor of…
Author: Justin Durand
Stonehenge DNA
Our world is shifting. Once upon a time we thought humans spread from Africa, eventually reached and spread through Europe, then settled down to several millennia of farming — punctuated by invasions and population movements in historic times that are more or less known. Well, we didn’t exactly think that, but if you didn’t take…
GEDCOM is not the Answer
James Tanner warns us about using GEDCOM. Info stored in a way that it is only portable by GEDCOM might be lost. “Even if you were successful in having someone in your family accept the information in GEDCOM format, it is very likely that much of the value of the information would be lost.“ “The…
Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond
Most experts agree this song is about the 1746 Battle of Culloden but there’s disagreement about who is singing and what they are doing. You can read about some of those at Wikipedia. The way I learned it—from Grandma Swanstrom, I think—the singer is a woman who has lost her lover in the war. “Ye’ll…
An Iron Collar Around His Neck
Battle of Culloden, 16 April 1746. It was the end the Jacobite Rebellion, the end of the Stuart dynasty, and in many ways the beginning of the modern era. After the battle, 3,470 people were prisoners of the English. Of these, 936 were transported to the colonies, 222 were banished, 120 were executed, 88 died…