GEAN Prosopography
If you thought clicking to get here would save you a trip to Webster's, you were
sadly mistaken. Mental improvement requires self application, dedication, determination,
and substantial effort. The harder you labor for knowledge, the longer you retain it.
However...
The individuals within the bounds of Children are, but with few exceptions,
all connected. That is, you can start with anyone chosen at random and walk up and
down the branches of the various families and eventually come to anyone else also chosen
at random -- in theory. In practice it is not at all obvious what choices need to
be made along the way, making it a very trying exercise indeed.
One of the exceptions to this connectivity are those names whose internal computer
identification (as shown in the index) begin with "HVR:1." That family was provided
by a coworker who thought maybe we could connect our lines together; thus far, we haven't been
able to. With precious
few other exceptions, the connectivity thesis is valid.
Let me illustrate by example:
Suppose we look for a connection between
Ethel Fadeley (1887-1937) and Eleazar Haun (1863-1932).
It turns out that one such connection is:
I am not claiming this is the only connection between these two, nor even that it is
the shortest, most direct path. And, in the spirit of truthfulness, I must confess I did not pick those
two names and ascertain the connection. I picked the first name randomly, ran up
and down a few branches and just wrote down where I went to generate an example. Write
down or print out the above example and see if you can traverse the path.
In the past generation or so, we have seen a terrific influx of "outsiders" to the Valley so that
there is no longer the "everyone is kin" sense of community present. This had been one of
the endearing traits of the region. I harken back to World War II
and subsequent times and am keenly aware of this loss while some of the younger
folks may not be. Not to be morbid, but there was a time when almost everyone in the obituaries section of the newspaper(s) could be found in Children. Now, only a minority of names appear within. Sad.
By the way, checking for connections between blood relatives (i.e. to see if two people
share one or more common
ancestors) is trivial. All you need do is check the Ancestors for each
and look for the same names in each list. And to determine the type of relationship, refer to
Cousins, Removes and Other Such Stuff.
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