Using Homestead Records to Tell Your Ancestor’s Story

Incorporating social context in a Kinship-Determination Project isn’t just about weaving historical events and descriptions of daily life into a family narrative. Community and culture shape behavior and relationships. To understand and document our ancestors, we need to understand the society in which they lived. When we estimate a marriage date based the birth of a couple’s first child (or that the birth of a child implies a marriage), we base those assumptions on context. This lecture will explore social context and illustrate how to research and write about it within a Kinship-Determination Project.