SAMUEL P. HAYS

From an archivist's point of view the intersection of the new social history and the new genealogy requires a look from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Archivists are accustomed to thinking of records in terms of the government agencies that produced them. This is the way they are ordered in the process of being created, the way they are sent to the archives, and the way they are described and controlled. The minimal approach to records is to describe their contents as administrative records, in the style of the National Archives record groups, for example, or of the WPA descriptions of state and local records. The more useful descriptions go beyond this to the details of the agency's goals and methods of operation.

From government records one can reconstruct two processes in the interaction between the agency that produced the records and the individual whose activities were recorded. First, one can visualize an administrative agency reaching out to draw people into some administrative process. Poll lists are made during every election to prevent double voting; the county orphans' court requires guardianship to take care of those whose parents have died;

This is part three of a three-part article by Professor Hays that began in the Spring 1975 issue of Prologue.

property owners are required to pay their taxes regularly; the individual liable for military service must report and enlist if physically fit or be put on a disability list. These records are not simply records of administrative action; they also reflect a process by which the "arm of the law" reaches out to require the individual to do something for the purposes of government. Who does government reach out to? Obviously, the more individuals the government involves the larger the number of records generated and the better their possibilities for either extensive social description or genealogical discovery.

But archival records may also give rise to another vantage point, the individual who is being drawn into some act of record by a government agency. In their daily lives individuals work, buy and sell, own property, are born, marry, die and are buried, vote, go to school, transfer property, will and inherit, migrate to a new area, town, city, or county-in short, engage in innumerable activities which altogether make up the history of their lives. And that history is played out within a kinship group of families and within a given community. Individuals are not merely the product of manipulation by governmental activity; they also carry on a variety of daily activities that the historian and the genealogist can recon

struct imaginatively. Evidence about these is often lacking, but since many of them involve government action considerable evidence is available from public sources to describe much of the course of daily human life.

This is the vantage point of the genealogist. In its earlier phases genealogy was concerned primarily with the facts of birth, marriage, death, and child-parent relationships, and all this mainly of ancestors. In other words, the dominant perspective was that people were born, married, had children, and died. Since much of the earlier genealogy was concerned with proving the involvement of an ancestor in a war, war-service records were crucial. As genealogy moves to an interest in descendants and the web of kinship relationships, however, the range of individuals about whom information is desired expands to the entire population. Hence the U. S. manuscript census returns have become the most important single source of evidence for genealogists, and much energy has been devoted to making those returns more readily available through indexing. From this a far wider range of records came to be exploited in order to prove the presence of an individual at a given place at a given time-poll lists, land transfers, property taxes. It may well be that in the future school records will be the most important single source of genealogical data, for they contain information about the parent-child relationships so vital to family reconstitution. Even now the school enumerations of a number of states-for example, Indiana beginning in 1843-provide not only the names of parents but often the names of each school-age child as well. School enrollment records provide a wealth of information about parents and children, and student records of application and admission in colleges and universities will become of increasing importance.

Because genealogists are prone to follow individuals throughout their lives they inevitably develop a sense of history from the individual outward and from the bottom up. Their perspective focuses on the individual in daily life, in work and play, in religion, in birth, marriage, and death, in place of burial, in daily movement and movement over the years. Until recent years most of the records about such activities were generated at the level of local government, in the township and the county, for it was there that the individual in the daily round of life came into greatest contact with

government. In the early development of a rural community election of local officials often called out more voters than did state or national elections. Most records about individuals in the nineteenth century and earlier are thus at the local level, and it is no wonder that genealogists have flocked to those records to reconstruct life histories.

As time passed new layers of governmental activity were established at the state and especially the federal level, thereby increasing the information about individuals in the archives of those governments. Earlier federal records of this kind have long been important genealogical sources-census, war service, immigration, and land records especially. A few additional types of records have been added more recently, notably income tax and social security data. Despite the increase in federal functions, however, it is significant that many personalized records remain at the local level. As I have indicated, perhaps the most important additional local record for genealogical purposes will be school records because of their crucial information about child-parent relationships. Individualized data in local archives will probably remain the most extensive source of information useful to both the new social history and the new genealogy.

All this requires a new archival perspective, one that shifts from the context of the administrative system within which the records were created to one of individuals as they move through life and come into contact with governmental processes. Many of the new aids to research in public records written by genealogists and for genealogists have this perspective. From one point of view these guides merely provide genealogists with a handy form of knowing about the existence of records. But the material selected and the way in which it is presented reveal something more than just old material in a new guise. They reflect a search for information about the lives of people and a desire to facilitate the ability of the current investigator to reach and follow those lives in the form of mini-biographies and with a focus not on celebrated events but day-to-day affairs. To make their records more useful to genealogists the modern-day archivist must imaginatively reconstruct the daily lives of people and the possible ways in which they came into contact with legal processes, and

then ferret through the existing records to see which human processes are reflected in them.

From this perspective the traditional organizing principles in which archivists are immersed are more of a hindrance than a help. Those principles reflect the formal processes of governmental organization and not the human processes inherent in daily life. If one is interested in the history of public administration or of law as an institution such a perspective is adequate. But the new social history and the new genealogy require a vastly different approach. The context of history is the ebb and flow of human life and not of the administrative agency, and for this the starting point is the individual rather than the processes of government. The terminal points are not acts of the legislature but birth and death, and the in-between steps are not processes of public administration but processes of human maturation, from childhood to adulthood to old age, of human movement and migration, of human affairs such as work, leisure, religion, and family. Moreover, the archival records which remain are not the comprehensive story but only pieces of it, only that small portion of the larger ebb and flow of human life which was written down as the individual came into contact with law.

The new social history is simply the new genealogy writ large, and it requires for its historical base a similar archival approach. No longer can the historical researcher justify a project on the grounds that it exploits a given body of records. This is inadequate simply because the dimensions of an historical problem are quite independent from the system which collected the historical information. Social processes consist of the accumulation of activities in the lives of many individuals which, taken together, add up to social history. The records are not different from those required by the genealogist, but they are required in a different format which enables one to put together the happenings in the lives of many people, not just one family. And the archival perspective is the same, a shift from the context of the agency creating the records to the context of transformations in human life. The archival record is merely an artifact, a momentary product of a given act in time and space, and not a reflection of the context of life itself. It should be used as a window through which the broader ebb and flow of life may be visual

ized and reconstructed. Such a perspective is required for the archivist to increase the usefulness of records for both the historian and the genealogist.

The interests and activities of the social historian, the genealogist and the archivist converge in a community of interest in the records and resources needed for research. I have provided suggestions enough about this; let me stress more explicitly several aspects of cooperative activity that are of special and immediate concern.

First is the need for much greater attention to the preservation of local records. This is an old refrain, but it requires repeating until more is done about it. Local records are in a most uneven state of preservation, with most ranging on the deplorable side. In some states during the past few years action has been taken to do something about this, but for the most part it has not led to significant tangible results. Local records remain in a chaotic state of access. Resources for effective preservation of local records simply have not been made available. I am distressed especially by the limited concern about the matter on the part of professional historians. Too many have their eye on the national event and the personal manuscripts of the prominent individual and give too little concern to the average citizen and day-to-day activities as reflected in the local records. Moreover, much local historical activity is more concerned with the preservation of buildings and the creation of museums than with the records of history. Genealogists are the most important influences for a different approach, and historians should be willing to work with them on this common objective. Certainly a major effort should be made during the bicentennial to correct this state of affairs.

A second major problem confronting both genealogists and historians is the compilation of biographical material. Genealogists are interested in family biography- that is, of family members or generations-while historians are more interested in collective biography, information about many individuals in a given category such as school teacher, city councilman, social worker, iron and steel entrepreneur, or congressman. For this information both genealogists and historians have relied heavily on the biographical compilations in earlier county histories. But such compilations after 1920 are few and far between, and as a result

future researchers will have precious little biographical material on which to rely for research after that time. An ongoing cooperative venture-joining historians, genealogists, and archivists-of compiling biographical information about ordinary people in communities, towns, counties, and cities across the nation is of critical importance for both genealogical and historical research.

There are several possible approaches to this. One is an extension of the clipping and filing of obituaries, undertaken by some public libraries. The task is a simple one that takes only persistent effort for a continuous program, an effort that might well capture the same volunteer energies so admirably displayed by genealogists. Another lies in oral history which is focused on short biographies of many people rather than intensive information about prominent figures. Oral history could well be focused on family biography, and genealogists might become as involved in the preparation of genealogical material by and about the living as well as about those who have died. Perhaps we could envisage trained volunteer groups of oral history associates who could develop this source of information. Still another might be adult education classes in writing individual and family biography as a way of getting into both genealogy and history. Certainly the leisure-time energies that have been such an important element in modern life could be focused on the task of compiling contemporary biographical information for use by later researchers.

The third task deserves more emphasis-a cooperative effort to make individualized data more accessible for both genealogical and social research. Much data of this kind is available, but considerable indexing is necessary to make it accessible. The manuscript census returns are an excellent example of the possibilities. This is the major mass data file to which computerization has been applied by both historians and genealogists. But each has gone his own way and the work done by one is not useful to that done by the other. If it were done cooperatively, with the needs of both in mind, the result would be more effective.

The social historian has usually drawn a sample from the census for research, but a sample is meaningless to the genealogist. After all, any one individual might be just the one who is being sought. The genealogist, on the

other hand, has been preoccupied with indexing the census in such a way as to limit its usefulness for the historian. Most such projects pertain to a single county, without much connection with projects for other areas. Often the information is limited to the name and the census manuscript location only so that the researcher must then go to the manuscript record to find other data.1 These are useful genealogical tools but hardly of the level required for historical research on a great number of individuals. Historical research requires quick access to all the data in the record, not just the surname, and a system of indexing capable of merging data in different geographical areas into one set of data.2

The solution to this problem is to computerize manuscript census data, all of it, in the same format so that it can be alphabetized by individual name for any one geographical unit, the data for one unit can be merged with that for another into one combined system, and all the characteristics of individuals in the census can be analyzed in the aggregate as well as individually. Such a project has been underway for some time for the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny in Pennsylvania. Sponsored by the History Department and the Social Science Information Center of the University of Pittsburgh, the project has already made the 1860 census available for both genealogical and social research; computerization of the data for 1850, 1870, and 1880 for the same cities is in process. This data is used by faculty and students at the University of Pittsburgh for social research; alphabetized printouts have also been made available to libraries in Pittsburgh and are used by genealogists.3

The advantages of this system are manifold. To the genealogist the information in the printout is complete; there is no need to go back to the microfilm copy except to verify the accuracy

'The index for the Ohio census of 1850, the largest statewide index available, cites name, county, township, and page. The reader must use the manuscript census to recover the full schedule of information.

2 Several private firms have computerized census data for given states and census years, most of them prior to 1850; for a fee they will search their files for surnames. See the Genealogical Helper for advertisements.

3 Copies of the 1860 printout are available at the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Room of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Archives of Industrial Society in the Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh. Printouts of the other three census years will be deposited there when completed.

of an entry. Moreover, as other areas are computerized in the future they can be merged easily into one overall alphabetized format. For the historian the format makes possible the aggregation of data for social description of the different wards and subcommunities of the city, occupations of individuals and their geographical location, and a variety of other characteristics. Addition of other areas to the file will facilitate comparative historical research. Such a system could be applied to any county in the nation for the same census years and be equally useful to both genealogists and historians.

The census is only one of many individualized records that could be computerized for ready access to the mutual advantage of both genealogists and historians. Archivists, moreover, should be deeply involved in this venture, for the records so created will be a highly significant addition to their resources for both historical and genealogical research. It might well be time for representatives of all three groups to come together and work out a common schedule of computerization to facilitate the research tasks of both individualized and social research. Veterans' service and pension records should have a high priority. Pension records are usually sought only by genealogists and usually for one or a few individuals. The

* One computerized index already available is Philip W. McMullin, Grassroots of America: A Computerized Index to the American State Papers: Land Grants and Claims (1789-1837).

servicing of these records has been organized to respond to this type of use. The request that the National Archives assemble the records of several thousand veterans for social research, as happened in the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, example cited earlier sorely taxed its facilities. Clearly the Archives is not now prepared for extensive social research into veterans' records for the nineteenth century. Yet those records contain invaluable information for both the genealogist and the social historian. Now that a program and coding system has been worked out for a group of Civil War veterans, it is feasible for projects to be undertaken to computerize more extensive amounts of the same material. These could well be undertaken concurrently by archivists, genealogists, and historians.

Genealogists and social historians have not been accustomed to thinking that their needs and objectives converge in a common set of interests. This lack of contact is becoming a liability. This is especially so as historians become more interested in building up social description through individualized information from local records while genealogists use the same records in pursuing the rapidly growing field of family history. Intergenerational reconstitution of the family is a task which both pursue but which so far has led to little cooperative effort. The possibilities are enormous and eminently worthwhile. It is to be hoped that the separate ways of the past will soon give way to joint activities of great benefit to both.