This is my blog. I will try to allow it to reflect my view of history. For me, history is constantly changing affair, because the tools available to study history continue to become more varied, more precise, and, ultimately, ever more revealing. A rather spectacular example of this is the science of genetic genealogy. Even in its most primitive phases some ten to fifteen years ago, it provided a means for supplementing the surviving written record in a sometimes dramatic fashion. It is now capable of very much more and there are some interesting aspects of history awaiting its application, such as whether the father of the Emperor Paul of Russia was Peter III or one of Catherine the Great's early lovers.. Some would say that history would not change no matter who the father was shown to be, but our understanding of the motives of the Catherine the Great's overthrow of her husband to become the reigning empress of Russia would become rather significantly clearer.
Furthermore, there is the matter of bias. Anyone who attempts to reconstruct the history of the past, necessarily must do so on the basis of his or her own attitudes and life experience. As a man having lived most of my life among individuals who profess a devotion to the ideals of academic research, my view of history tends to value the ideal of proving or disproving preconceived theory and, as new facts appear, to adjust that theory accordingly. I do not belong to that school of historians who attempt to present the facts only. To do so would be to forego the advantages of well carried out analysis. Nor am I of the opposite school of historians who are willing to assert the truthfulness of a story as long as it is a good one that matches whatever preconceptions they might have. The fallacies of this all to common second approach should be self-evident.
The weak point of this research and a major reason for its slow progress has been my discouragement with the often vicious online community of individuals involved in medieval English genealogy at the time I began my research. I rapidly came to the conclusion that this was not a community I wanted to be an active member of.
Over the last eight years I have been undertaking a comprehensive study of the medieval Mallory family which seems to have had its English origin origin with a Geoffrey Mallory (modernized spelling!) who held various lands in southwest England. At the time, I saw the Mallories as being potentially ancestral to myself. Since then, research has tended to support this supposition, though it has so far not proven it decisively.
Nevertheless, as time has passed, my research interests have, correspondingly, branched out to concern other families living in the medieval English midland counties. What started off as a genealogical study has become a far more comprehensive prosopographic study of far greater potential significance. It is to be hoped that, as I rapidly approach retirement, I will be more and more able to devote myself to my historical research in an ever more productive manner and, for this goal, I will continue to make a best effort.
Furthermore, there is the matter of bias. Anyone who attempts to reconstruct the history of the past, necessarily must do so on the basis of his or her own attitudes and life experience. As a man having lived most of my life among individuals who profess a devotion to the ideals of academic research, my view of history tends to value the ideal of proving or disproving preconceived theory and, as new facts appear, to adjust that theory accordingly. I do not belong to that school of historians who attempt to present the facts only. To do so would be to forego the advantages of well carried out analysis. Nor am I of the opposite school of historians who are willing to assert the truthfulness of a story as long as it is a good one that matches whatever preconceptions they might have. The fallacies of this all to common second approach should be self-evident.
The weak point of this research and a major reason for its slow progress has been my discouragement with the often vicious online community of individuals involved in medieval English genealogy at the time I began my research. I rapidly came to the conclusion that this was not a community I wanted to be an active member of.
Over the last eight years I have been undertaking a comprehensive study of the medieval Mallory family which seems to have had its English origin origin with a Geoffrey Mallory (modernized spelling!) who held various lands in southwest England. At the time, I saw the Mallories as being potentially ancestral to myself. Since then, research has tended to support this supposition, though it has so far not proven it decisively.
Nevertheless, as time has passed, my research interests have, correspondingly, branched out to concern other families living in the medieval English midland counties. What started off as a genealogical study has become a far more comprehensive prosopographic study of far greater potential significance. It is to be hoped that, as I rapidly approach retirement, I will be more and more able to devote myself to my historical research in an ever more productive manner and, for this goal, I will continue to make a best effort.
