I heard this quote today at Meredith Hoffman's talk "Who the Heck is Ida Gerskill? The Challenges of Researching Jewish Names"at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston. Meredith, a genealogist specializes in a topic close to my heart, Jewish 19th and 20th century immigration, had many wonderful tips for bringing down brick walls related to Jewish names. Towards the end of the presentation, referring to the difficulty of finding records she stated: "Unfortunately our ancestors were in charge of the records" quoting an unnamed colleague. She then continued, "They didn't always record what we hoped they would have". How many times had I wished ancestors did a better job registering a birth or a death certificate?
I highly recommend visiting Meredith's blog: GenerationsWeb : Mostly Jewish Genealogy, which is full of great resources for Jewish Genealogist.
Nice quotation! If only we could have guided our ancestors' hands. I'm reminded of a quote by Kurt Vonnegut: "The world is run by the people we went to high school with."
ReplyDeleteYou must be in Boston "on the way" to New Britain, to learn more about Max Crane?