It’s such a great opportunity to talk with Warren Bittner,
one of the best speakers on doing genealogy better. The first time I heard
Warren speak, he talked about the importance of source citation. If anyone in
that auditorium wasn’t already using source citations, they were by the time
Warren finished.
NERGC 2017 provides five wonderful opportunities to share
Warren again.
- On Thursday afternoon, April 26, will discuss “Death Records as Starting Point.”
- Friday morning he jumps into German genealogy with ”Where Was Your Ancestor Really From? Germany’s Shifting Borders.”
- Friday afternoon he speaks twice, “Writing to Engage Your Reader,” and “Complex Evidence: What It Is, How It Works, And Why It Matters” (one of the best speeches ever! Anywhere! I reviewed it here).
- Saturday morning Warren will discuss a perplexing issue in genealogy, “Understanding and Researching Illegitimacy.”
Warren, you are one of
the best evangelists I know for putting quality into our genealogy work – the
focus of my own blog. How did this become a focus of your own work?
Well, I had an
interesting experience where I had been doing research for about 20 years,
professional research for 7 or 8, and thought I knew a lot about genealogy. I
hadn’t read the National Quarterly because when I looked at the articles they
didn’t interest me. They were about people I wasn’t related to and geographic
areas where I didn’t do research. Then I read a few articles, and every article
I read amazed me at the quality of the research and the depth of the
methodology in solving difficult problems. I can honestly say my genealogy
education started the day I started reading the National Genealogical Society
Quarterly (NGSQ), and the quality of the research that I saw demonstrated in
the articles published there made me realize how sophomoric and uninformed my
own research was. After that I went back and read 20 years of the Quarterly and
learned how the best genealogists think and how they solve the most difficult
research problems. It also took the quality of my own research up ten steps.
About three years ago
I was in conversation with Thomas W. Jones, current co-editor of NGSQ, and
related this experience to him. He looked at me and said “Warren, I had the
same experience, but for me it was 30 years. I had a Ph.D. and thought I knew
how to do research, and my education started when I began reading the
Quarterly.”
I hear you have a
master’s degree in history. How did your history major and your love for
genealogy enrich each other?
I was considering
becoming a CG or an AG and then I realized that professional licensure as a
genealogist was recognized in the relatively small world of serious
genealogical researchers, but a Master’s degree is universally recognized. So I
made the decision to get my Master’s degree before I went after licensure. It
was a good decision because my history degree introduced me to a broad spectrum
of historical concepts that I didn’t realize and that I didn’t understand.
Concepts like how to read beneath a document to unearth what the document is
telling me about the people in the historical document and the people that
wrote it down. I learned about micro-history, where an in-depth study of an
otherwise insignificant person or event can be used to turn upside-down generalizations
made in histories of a broader scope.
What is your favorite part about teaching and lecturing?
I enjoy seeing the
light that comes into the eyes of my students when I see that they are learning
something in the lecture, and the hope that comes onto their faces as the
mental wheels begin to turn and they see ways of looking for the ancestors they
have almost given up on.
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| The Demanding Genealogist is proud to be an official blogger of NERGC 2017. |
