On Feb 13, 9:26 pm, Steve Hayes <hayesm...@hotmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:09:56 GMT, Ea...@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) > wrote: > > >The term Family History is an abused term - many people use it as an > >excuse to depart from bloodlines and that is not acceptable in > >genealogy. We need to keep the distinction in my opinion. > > I'm not sure what you are getting at there -- it seems contradictory. > > You seem to imply that family history should NOT depart from bloodlines -- but > wouldn't that be blurring the distinction rather than keeping it. > > If two unrelated families from the same village in one country emigrate to > another, settle in the same town and go into a business partnership that lasts > for several generations, that is surely part of the family history, even if it > departs from bloodlines and has nothing to do with genealogy. > > The business partnership is part of the family history even though it is not > part of the genealogy, because genealogy is converned exclusively with > bloodlines (or, more accurately, DNA lines), whereas family history is not. Since my research predates the ability to compare DNA amongst descendants of somebody, I always thought of my work as family history. My rationale was that documents and other source materials have some credibility while anybody's claims to some ancestors genes was considerably less credible. My goals are to document all I can about my ancestry and since that will include both source documents and DNA comparison, what should it be called? I suspect most of us have our research goals and don't really care whether it is genes or history that gets us there. Jim