Shut in because of the COVID-19 virus for a couple of weeks now. I’m catching up on some old genealogy chores, but I’m ready for some variety. Maybe this is the time to work through some of the online learning courses I’ve bookmarked.
I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours with YouTube videos. Mostly history and politics but also a big chunk of web development. I’ve also dabbled a bit with Coursera and FutureLearn.
Now I’m thinking that instead of browsing these sites for courses that might be interesting, maybe it would be more productive to think about what I want to learn then look for those things online.
The courses I’m thinking about now are all at National Archives UK. (Caution: they use Flash.) I’m choosing these because I did Accelerated Latin as an undergrad, and loved it. I ran out of time to do Medieval Latin, then never doubled back for it. Also because my paleography skills suck. It remains to be seen whether I still have the self-discipline to start and finish.
So often someone sends me a solution to a genealogical knot, along with the expectation I will see it as the final answer. That’s surprisingly common with reconstructions of early medieval dynasties but it also happens with routine research into ordinary people.
My expectation is quite different. A good test of the evidence is whether, given what we know, could it reasonably have been any other way. If yes, then we have a theory not an answer.
It might surprise you that I learned this perspective from years of reading material about the search for the Historical Jesus. (That’s the connection to Easter, today.)
I came across an excellent example last night, reading before bed.
John Shelby Spong (former Episcopal bishop of Newark), writing about influences of the Old Testament on the Gospels. has a passage about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (“Palm Sunday”). The episode parallels Zechariah 9:9. The debate here is whether this is a prophecy or propaganda. Did Jesus just happen to fulfill the prophecy or did he set it up so he would be seen to fulfill it? Most people I know believe it was a set up.
After briefly scoping the debate, Spong surprises us with an insight that transforms the problem: “The argument of the traditionalists that Jesus must have deliberately and overtly acted out this image as a way of making a messianic statement is, in my mind, the last gasp of a literalist mentality that is in perpetual retreat from reality.”
Wonderful. There are more than just the two alternatives we hear about everywhere in the literature.
Spong suggests a third alternative: the Gospel writers are telling a metaphorical story inspired by Messianic prophecies. In fact (he believes), the Gospels follow a story line suggested by both Isaiah and Zechariah. (Jesus For The Non-Religious (2008), 189).
Wonderful. Now we have a fuller range of possibilities. To my way of thinking, that means less certainty. Given the evidence we have, it could have been at least two different ways, and maybe three. That means we don’t really know. And that’s huge.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise alternative history works the same way. When I talk to anyone who has read Holy Blood, Holy Grail or anything on a related topic, I can pretty much bet the ranch they believe it. It’s rare, very rare, to find someone who also read something that challenged it and even rarer to find someone who read critically.
Bottom line: No matter the topic, everyone has a theory. And most people seem to believe the theory presented in the one and only book they read. A good genealogist will think of more possibilities, look for other reasonable theories, not try to cut off debate by being too sure, too soon.
I’m in love with Raphael Falco’s Cultural Genealogy. It’s the book I wanted to write but never did.
Genealogists who work on ancient and early medieval genealogy often think it’s all pretty simple. There are chronicles that show the generations. Enter those in your software and you’re done. You have descents from Adam, King David, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and so on.
Tell these people there are problems with this simplistic approach and you’re likely to get lynched. That was an almost daily occurrence for me when I was spending my time working on Geni.com. The folks working there now seem to have arrived at an accommodation—fake lines are fine. It’s collaboration that matters, not accuracy.
Discussing the problems with ancient and medieval lines can be very weighty and academic, but it can also be relatively easy and straightforward.
It begins with a simple fact that most people learn in college history. Our European ancestors aren’t really the heirs of ancient Rome. Instead, we’re the heirs of the barbarian tribes, and only by adoption are we heirs of Rome and Greece.
Our Renaissance ancestors re-discovered ancient texts. The texts weren’t lost but they were largely marginalized. Their discovery led to a mania for Antiquity. It was fashionable. The experts translated texts and the rich paid for it. They studied the philosophy and law codes. They excavated old buildings and recovered ancient statues (that sold for small fortunes). They copied the art and architecture. The period we call the Renaissance was one huge recovery project.
And this is exactly the period when we first begin to see those texts that connect the nobility of the time to the early medieval history of the region, and those early leaders to the remnant families of the Roman empire. And this is the period when Europe’s royal families began to collect and publish stories that linked or seemed to link themselves to the royal families of antiquity; to the Romans and Trojans.
Where we can test the links, they don’t hold up. Instead, these genealogical texts seem to be aspirational. They gave a sense of connecting to the ancient past that was so fashionable. And they gave a sense of eternal authority to rulers. They were rulers because they were established by God and their ancestors have always ruled.
I’ve known people who refuse to accept the evidence. They hold firmly to the idea that there must have been an underground oral tradition that lasted for hundreds and even thousands of years, and just happened to be written down in the era of genealogical invention and fakery.
But most people, when they get over the surprise that these venerable old tests are just examples of our ancestors “putting on the dog”, have a good laugh about it.
Of course, everyone wants to know the stories. Knowing they’re fakes doesn’t detract a bit. It just changes things. Instead of being proof of our ancient lineage, now what we have are the stories our ancestors wanted to believe about their place in history.
Publisher’s Description
“Cultural Genealogy explores the popularization in the Renaissance of the still-pervasive myth that later cultures are the hereditary descendants of ancient or older cultures. The core of this myth is the widespread belief that a numinous charismatic power can be passed down unchanged, and in concrete forms, from earlier eras. Raphael Falco shows that such a process of descent is an impossible illusion in a knowledge-based culture. Anachronistic adoption of past values can only occur when these values are adapted and assimilated to the target culture. Without such transcultural adaptation-without this “lie of descent” strategically deployed to violate and suppress the boundaries of time-ancient values would appear as alien artifacts rather than as eternal truths. Scholars have long acknowledged the Renaissance borrowings from classical antiquity, but most studies of translatio studii or translatio imperii tacitly accept the early modern myth that there was a genuine translation of Greek and Roman cultural values from the ancient world to the “modern.” But as Falco demonstrates, this is patently not the case. The mastering of ancient languages and the rediscovery of lost texts has masked the fact that surprisingly little of ancient religious, ethical, or political ideology was retained — so little that it is crucial to ask why these myths of transcultural descent have not been recognized and interrogated. Through examples ranging from Petrarch to Columbus, Maffeo Vegio to the Habsburgs, Falco shows how the new techne of systematic genealogy facilitated the process of “remythicizing” the ancient authorities, utterly transforming Greek and Roman values and reforging them into the mold of contemporary needs. Chiefly a study of intellectual culture, Cultural Genealogy has ramifications reaching into all levels of society, both early modern and later.”–Provided by publisher.”
Introduction 1. The lie of descent 2. The technology of descent 3. The web of myths 4. Manufacturing discontinuity 5. Demythology and vertical time 6. The blood myth and the bee 7. Not so deep as genealogy 8. Epilogue: The privilege of myth
I’m using my COVID lockdown time to organize some of the genealogical projects I’ve had on the back burner. One of those is joining the Society of Boonesborough, a lineage society for descendants of early settlers at Daniel Boone’s Fort Boonesborough.
My ancestor James Kenney was an early settler at Boonesborough. As James Kenny he signed an agreement there in 1779 with the other men in the settlement.
The application process should be relatively painless. My mother and sister are members of Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) through our descent from this same James Kenney.
Settlement of Boonesborough
In 1775 the Transylvania Company hired Daniel Boone to cut a trail from what is now Kingsport (Tennessee) through Cumberland Gap to a spot in the middle of what is now Kentucky. The Company had recently organized with the idea of establishing a new colony to be named Transylvania on land purchased by Richard Henderson from the Cherokees—all of the land bounded by the Kentucky, Cumberland, and Ohio rivers. The trail became known as Boone Trace and the fort they erected was Fort Boonesborough.
Ft. Boonesborough, 1778 (Source: Wikipedia)
The idea was that the fort would be the capital of the newly opened west, and Boone Trace would open the way for settlers.
It didn’t work out that way. In the Proclamation of 1763 the British crown had prohibited settlement west of the Appalachians. Moreover, private land purchases from the Indians were also prohibited. Virginia assumed control in 1776 and turned the Transylvania colony into its Kentucky county.
Siege of Boonesborough
The settlement also had problems with the Shawnees and Cherokees, who objected to Anglo incursion. In February 1778 the Shawnees under Blackfish captured Daniel Boone and a party of settlers who were collecting salt some distance from the fort. They took the captives to the Shawnee town at Chillicothe but, long story short, Boone escaped and raced back to Boonesborough. An Indian coalition under Blackfish and the Detroit militia under Antoine Dagneaux de Quindre laid siege to the fort in September 1778 but were eventually defeated.
The Siege of Boonesborough has become an iconic episode in American history. The story is reenacted yearly at Fort Boonesborough State Park.
Aftermath of the Siege
We don’t know whether our ancestor James Kenney was present at Boonesborough during the siege, but he was there the following spring. In April the men of the area set up a system of keeping watch for Indians as part of their precautions for protecting their corn crop that year. James Kenney was one of the signers. Kenney was an early settler of Kentucky, but as far I’ve been able to discover this is the only evidence we have he was at Boonesborough.
Association of the Settlers of Boonesborough in 1779 for making a crop of corn
Wheras, we the subscribers being willing and desirous of making a crop of corn at the station of Boonesborough, on the Kentucky, do think it essentially necessary for our own safety and the public good, to enter into rules that may be obligatory on each subscriber, and are as follows:
1st. That three men (towit) Nathaniel Hart, George Madden, and Robert Cartwright, be and herby appointed as overseers or directors to said company
2nd That ever subscriber shall immediately enrole his name on a list prepared for that purpose, and shall every morning appear at the beat of a drum or some other notice given, and receive such order as the overseers or directors shall think convenient to give.
3rd That if any man refuse or neglect to perform such tours of duty as shall be assigned him by the overseers or directors he shall be erased out of the list, shall forfeit all pretensions to any claim in such crop.
4th That every morning two or more men be sent out as spies, to range round the grounds and fields to be cultivated by us, and that such number be thought necessary be stationed as a guard, the whole day, or to be relieved by others as occasion requires.
5th That no man be allowed to absent himself from the company on any pretense whatsoever, either hunting horses or provisions, or any other occasion, without leave of the overseers first had.
6th That the managers and overseers shall have full powers and authority to determine all unforseen disputes whatever, and that the subscribers shall be obliged to abide thereby. In testimony whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this 15th of April, 1779.
“Association of the Settlers of Boonesborough in 1779 for making a crop of corn” in Lyman C. Draper Manuscript Collection, Kentucky Series 29 CC 59, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Allan W. Eckert. The Court-Martial of Daniel Boone. 1973. “Based on a true but little known episode in Daniel Boone’s life, Allan Eckert’s first full-length novel re-creates the legendary frontiersman’s severest test – the trial for his life at Boonesborough in 1778.”
“The Siege of Boonesborough.” CBS television series Season 1, Episode 24. IMDb <imdb.com>. Retrieved Apr. 9, 2020. “This two part episode recounts the story of Daniel Boone and the 1778 Siege of Boonesborough by the Shawnee.“
I’m a member of Sons of the American Revolution through my ancestor Capt. Andrew Grant. I’ve been thinking lately I might want to do supplemental applications for other qualifying ancestors. There are a lot of them. My first thought was to do a supplemental application for James Kenney, because my mother and sister belong to DAR through him. Also because I’ve been thinking I might use that line to join Boonesborough Descendants. But sister Laura suggested there might be a better use of my time and resources.
Instead of doing ancestors who are already done, Laura suggested I could focus on ancestors who’ve never been used to join SAR or DAR. Maybe even focus at first on my dad’s side, where—frankly—it’s not very likely anyone else would be interested.
That’s when I had the idea of doing a memorial application for my step/adopted father Carroll Place. His ancestor Thomas Place served in the Vermont Militia. I wrote about that last week.
It took a bit longer for me to think of the obvious. Why not a supplemental application for my paternal ancestor, Jacob Howry, of Howrytown? He served in Capt. Andrew Pawley’s Company, 5th Battalion, York County Militia (Pennsylvania).
