Researching the Kids: Babies, Children, and Teens in the Family Tree
Why should you spend time researching the kids in your family tree? Simple! Children are the ones who make us ancestors, and all of our ancestors were children once. They generated records that allow us to trace them from the cradle to the grave. Plus, you may find family information via an ancestral sibling that you can’t find through your direct ancestor. Without the kids, no genealogical research is possible! Let’s start with regional attitudes and time periods that affect records documenting their lives. Settlers in different regions of America brought their own ideas about childrearing with them from different parts of the world. Several factors contributed to these attitudes, including religion, social morés, ethnicity, class, and physical environment. The book Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer provides an outstanding detailed look at these factors and is highly recommended reading. Fischer details the folkways of...
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