Carolyn Earle Billingsley: Communities of Kinship: A New Approach to Genealogy

Intended Audience:
All levels, but probably best suited for Intermediate or Advanced

Outline of presentation:

Genealogists can use kinship theory to enhance their genealogical research
Kinship Theory is just a fancy way to describe how we think about kinship and family.
Genealogy is all about constructing and analyzing the bonds of kinship.
For our ancestors, kinship was even more important to their everyday lives than it is for us today
What is kinship and who do we consider kin? Is it biological or social? The answer seems intuitive but it’s more complicated than we think.
Our ancestors recognized a wider range of kin than we usually do so we have to put ourselves in their place to understand their worlds.
Marriage is the nexus of kinship; marriages create kinship groups.
What is the role of kinship in the South’s racial ideology?
Here are five areas in which you can produce more sophisticated research results by viewing your ancestors through the lens of kinship theory. In the 18th ¬– and 19th –century, kinship was the most important factor in these areas, among others.

Using kinship theory as the main principle to guide your genealogical research will result in greater success.