For the past few months I've been following a blog after seeing it highlighted by Dick Eastman in his invaluable newsletter. The blog follows its author's investigations into the apparently suspicious death of a Wisconsin socialite, the author's great-grand-aunt. My interest was piqued by the introduction to the story: the discovery of old photo albums and the desire to learn more about the people in the pictures, not to mention their architectural gem of a house. It was rewarding to see generous researchers and local residents offering their time and skills to help the author, who has admitted that she is not a genealogist, and the posts began to develop from the initial recitation of sketchy details to more specific statements made after the author interpreted new evidence such as death certificates, photos and newspaper articles.
What I began to find unfortunate was the increasing focus on only one explanation: murder most foul, committed by an evil husband so evilly evil that surely it is only a matter of time before he is discovered to have tied another wife to a railroad track and cackled evilly whilst twirling his evil moustache. He was aided and abetted by a corrupt local physician whose (unsourced) deathbed confession was the catalyst for all this effort, which has now led to an exhumation and the author's defiant statement that the remains will be coming home with her rather than be re-buried next to the husband-murderer. All this without any conclusive proof of murder, of the husband's evil nature, or indeed of what actually happened as the story seems to change from day to day. The official story is that she died in bed of diphtheria but rumours said it was a gunshot; the author has also suspected arsenic poisoning and the victim having been pushed down the stairs, striking her head on the bannister (this expiration is described on the author's Facebook page only, the evidence being a dust orb highlighted in a digital photograph of the top of the stairs, which, naturally, is really the deceased's ghost pointing out exactly where and how she died. If that conclusion were meant to be tongue-in-cheek, a smiley at the end would help...).
Grumpyology's valid rebuttals were met with complaints from regular followers of the blog and from its author. It's understandable that the author took umbrage at the accusations of allowing emotion to cloud her judgement, which is pretty much exactly what I'm saying here, but that doesn't disprove any of Grumpyology's points. Using exactly the same evidence from which the blog author has drawn the conclusion of murder, Grumpyology provides plausible alternatives for each claim, and a few which are equally outlandish: an excellent demonstration of how different interpretations of the same evidence can support wildly different outcomes.
The heroine in all of this is a complete cipher. There's as little evidence for her personality as there is to show that her husband was a scheming murderer. Descriptions of her as gentle, full of promise and potential, and suffering the posthumous indignity of her husband prying her rings off her "delicate little fingers" (as evidenced by the fact that little phalanges but no jewellery were found during the exhumation, so it must have been removed forcefully by her murdering spouse), are drawn from photographs of her wearing nice clothing and a handful of newspaper articles talking about how she established a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and visited friends in other towns.
I grew tired of the increasing sense of hysteria and indignation about righting a presumed wrong and offence being taken at any suggestion that there could be other explanations, and stopped following. If the medical examiner's investigation of the remains actually does support a diagnosis of diphtheria, I wonder how the author will respond, having invested so much emotion into a tale of murder and conspiracy.
Emotional involvement in research is perfectly normal: would anyone do it if not genuinely interested in the findings? It is the driving force behind Who Do You Think You Are? as an emotional journey for the subject is what brings in the viewers. I admit that, although I love watching the unveiling of the research and the discovery (for me) of new research avenues, I have grown equally tired of the subject leaping to a conclusion based on an emotional reaction as I have from reading the blog ("One of my 32 great-great-great-grandparents was in the Navy and I have a boat! Now I understand why I bought it: not because I have a lakefront property but because I'm part of a proud naval tradition!").
It is when objectivity becomes impaired that emotional involvement becomes a liability. Any kind of research involves a hypothesis and then carefully testing for evidence to support or disprove it. Genealogical research cannot be done in a laboratory under controlled conditions where experiments can be repeated over and over to verify the findings, therefore the researcher needs not only to evaluate the existing evidence but to consider its source, the accuracy of the source and whether or not the source had any inherent bias. The researcher needs to identify gaps in the evidence record and determine what information exists to help fill those gaps, or how sound a conclusion will be if those gaps cannot be filled.
The American Board for the Certification of Genealogists (BCG) has developed a Genealogical Proof Standard against which applications are measured before certification as a genealogist would be awarded. The UK-based Society of Genealogists (SOG) has the equivalent Standards and Good Practice in Genealogy, summed up thus:
Evidence only becomes proof through a reasoned and logical analysis and argument capable of convincing others that the conclusion is valid.
Applying the BCG and SOG criteria to the conclusions being drawn in the blog amply demonstrates that there is not a reasoned and logical argument being used to convince others. There is an emotional and passionate argument being made, and I appreciate that the author is fascinated by the story and wants to publish a book about it, but dismissing any evidence which doesn't fit a pre-determined conclusion is just not good research.
And yes, I'm having an emotional reaction to that.
No comments:
Post a Comment