The term ‘family history’ has recently been widely used in the media. But what does it mean? Is doing family history the same as putting together a family tree? Is there a difference between family history and genealogy?

Despite areas of common interest, there are clear differences between the work of the family historian and that of the genealogist. A genealogist aims to record, often on a family tree, the names and dates of birth, marriage and death of those people connected by blood or marriage in a family. Historically, genealogies, in places as far afield as Ireland, England and India, were constructed to set out the membership of a family, tribe, or clan, and that membership not only conferred power and social status through family titles, but also gave rights to property.

Recent examples of genealogy include the work of the Church of the Latter Day Saints whose members believe they need to trace their ancestors so that they can be ‘baptized’ into their church. The Nazi regime used genealogy to trace Jews for inclusion in concentration camps. Some Jewish people use genealogy to trace relatives lost in the pogroms of the 19th century, the Holocaust and the subsequent diaspora.

In genealogical work such as this, identification of an individual may suffice. A family historian, on the other hand, aims to extend this identification with a detailed investigation of the family and family relations in the past and so explore the connections between individuals and their society. Family history, then, takes the bare genealogical facts and works with them to consider their broader context and how those facts might be interpreted.

When putting together a family history, there are three key areas of work. Finding source material for information and evidence about the family in the past, exploring the historical context to find out about the kinds of circumstances the family may have lived in, and analysis of the information to work out what it can tell about the family history.

First, having identified source material, (easier said than done, sometimes), the family historian needs to understand what it means. This, too, sounds easy enough and it would be if people always wrote or said what they meant, spelt names and places consistently, never lied, prevaricated or were economical with the truth, and if census or registration forms did not change over time – and so on.

However, birth, marriage and death certificates, census reports and official reports, as well as, more obviously, letters, diaries and biographies, are all texts created within a particular context by people who may, deliberately or otherwise, have written in a way that may mislead someone reading that material. To gain a robust understanding of source material, we need to consider that material critically by thinking about five major questions. Who created the material? Why it was created? For whom was it created? What type of material it is and when it was created?

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Content last updated: 09/11/2005

About our expert

Evelyn Kerslake is an Associate Lecturer with the Open University and teaches on the course Start Writing Family History. She has published widely in the areas of information management and library history.

Evelyn's publications include Training for Part-time and Temporary Workers (1996) and Gendering Library History (2000). She was co-recipient of the 2001 UK Library History award for work on The History of Librarianship and Gender.

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