From: hiscrp@nuscc.nus.sg (C R Pennell)
Subject: Re: Royalty GedCom and GEDCOM program
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 09:26:42 GMT

fr@compu.com (Fred Rump from home) writes:

	[among other things]

: 
: As for the Royalty files that are available in Gedcom mode - that is so that 
: you may import those files into your favorite genealogical software system. 
: But why would you want to do that? Are there any indications of noble lines in 
: your background that you wish to further identify? 
: 
: The vast majority of us are descendents of the ordinary rabble that roamed
: this earth and had very little to do with the handful of noble savages among
: us. Once we get back to our European lines we are lucky to find even the 
: tiniest shred of info about who most likely were our serf ancestors.


Hm, I'm not sure about this. It raises a question about WHY people do
genealogy anyway. You can see it in two ways, I think. As a way of
collecting	information about how YOU got to where you are: that's obvious
But also as a tool to build up a wider picture of the past. Its pretty
clear that at every level, and in any society you care to mention, that
kinship connections were used to advance - or protect - economic social
and political position. For a historian these connections are pretty
important. Three examples"

1. Something I'm working on myself: the way in which, in the first half of
teh nineteenth century, the long-term resident consular corps in Tangier,
Morocco intermarried, to the distinct advantage of the British consuls
(father and son for sixty years) and teh distinct disadvantage of the
French consuls, who generally were not there long enough, and so felt
excluded from the rest of the diplomatic scene. One part of the way in
which they were cut down to size more generally until this particular
family of  British consuls was repalced in the 1880s, more general
dplomatic rivalry hotted up, the germans got in on the act etc. These
family connections are only a part of the story, but they are a
significant part.

2. In the 1950 Noel Annan wrote an article in which he showed that the
leaders of British finance, administration, military church, education,
goverenment etc came from a very restricted number of families. A
genealogical approach again. There is the basis of a re-run of this in an
artcile in the ECONOMIST a few weeks back which shows the extent to which
the class structure is holding up in Britain - people going to many of the
same schools and universities.

3. In the past week I have been talking with colleagues here about what to
do with the lists of jury members from the late 19th century Straits
Settlements (Singapore Malacca and Penang). The jurors were drawn from a
permanent list, updated each year, membership on the basis of sex (all
male) wealth (property qualification) language (good English - this was a
COLONY remember). The lsits give full name, profession, address. What
makes them interesting is the way in which Chinese Indian adn Malay names
filter in in the course of the 19th century, and the way in which Eurasian
names crop up firstly in all three places (Sing, Malacca Penang) and
secondly are still around today, instantly recognisable. One way of
handling them is to show marriage links between the Eurasians especially.

But in no case is kinship relationship enough. The British consuls's 
links with the best of the US consuls - whcih were really tight at one
point - were based not on marriage relationships but on a shared love of
hunting. The same hunting friendship bonded them to parts of the local
Moroccan elite with whom they very definitely did not marry. The questions
about old-school-tie relationships are fundamental to understanding the
British elite. In the Straits Settlements marriage between Chinese and
Europeans may have been quite rare, but commercial and religious links
were important. That is where the recent discussion on software and its
limitations comes in. Firstly it is not enough to be able to show ALL the
people: you should be able to pick and choose who you want in to a
particular chart: excluding "irrelevant" lines for the particular purpose
of what you are doing without deleting them from the database. Secondly
you must be able to produce charts wich pick out particlar features:
different families represented with different styles of line connecting
them, ways of printing different sorts of boxes round different names: so
all the French come out with shadow boxes and all the Germans with Gothic
ones etc. or by profession: churchmen in gothic (has to be!) traders in
boxes made up of little pound signs, or (if you're lucky enough to use a
colour printer) in different colours. And there has to be a way of
recording the sort of informal relationships which are also inherent
in the questions raised about homosexual realtionships which were
discussed earlier. Quite apart from the ability to source every field, and
to show uncertainty. What would be useful would be a concept of a database
which proceeds horizantally - across generations, vertically - down
through generations - and in depth, with stacks of information UNDER each
name, in a logical sequence, so that the top layers can be removed. That
sort of program would be a very powerful tool for historians, as well as
genealogists who are collecting their own family histories. And that is
why, incidentally these royal genealogies are important: the sort of links
they make, where real, do help to explain what is happening now (look at
the British royal family!) and where unreal (are the genealogies including
 Alfred accurate?) help to explain processes of legitimation. And what I'd
like is a genealogy, as large as possible, of those who claim descent from
the Prophet Muhammad . . .	

Enough. Sorry about the length. Happy New Year.

Richard Pennell, History NUS.
Newsgroups: soc.roots