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Archiver > TMG > 2000-04 > 0956250427


From: "Mills" <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: married names
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 12:07:07 -0500
References: <d2.2714414.262db4aa@aol.com> <000701bfa994$b1f2da40$1068fed1@neils> <006101bfaa20$4a8a0d60$e8d88ad1@casper> <001b01bfaa77$0899f1c0$e1251d3f@1pka7> <006901bfaa8c$d0747660$dbadcdcf@casper>


> My information came from a doctoral dissertion done by Kay Reinartz for a
> PhD in women's studies. Since it was a dissertion I assumed she had done
her
> research before making said statements.

That's a common assumption, Cheryl! But, as in genealogy, just because a
history student does research doesn't mean s/he has the experience to
understand and evaluate what's found -- and it doesn't mean that his/her
professor knew anything about the subject either. As an example, a while
back a history professor of *considerable* note (from elsewhere) called me
in a state of panic. He wasn't a genealogist and had never done research in
local-history sources, much less vital records. A doctoral student working
under him had decided that he would quantify illegitimacy in a particular
part of Alabama by (1) using the 1910 census to identify couples with
children under age 10, (2) going to the courthouse and reading marriage
records for that 10-year period to identify dates of marriage for census
couples; and (3) going to Montgomery to the State Bureau of Vital Records
and looking up births for children of each of those couples. He saved this
aspect of his dissertation for the spring holidays, showed up at the state
office with a "here I am, lead me to the records," and was shocked to
discover that he could not walk in, sit down, and help himself to every
record on file. Hence, his professor's phone call to me.

A Ph.D. dissertation *is* a *student* learning project--and it's often a
learning process for the professor. Many academics encourage their students
to investigate areas they, themselves, are not experienced with, so they can
"learn" about those areas from their students' research. (And some widely
touted books by those professors draw heavily from that student work --
Albion's Seed being a case at point.) Moreover, dissertations are usually
researched and written under a difficult time crunch. And in many schools,
the Women's Studies department is an "interdisciplinary" department, whose
faculties represent many fields; a Ph.D. dissertation that delves into
history may be directed by someone whose own Ph.D. is not in history at all.

For the few dissertations that eventually get published -- either as a book
or in a series of articles -- the author usually has to do extensive
additional research, reevaluation, and revision based on critiques from peer
reviewers used by the various presses to which the manuscripts are submitted
before they are finally accepted somewhere. When we consult an unpublished
dissertation, we don't have the benefit of this corrective process. But even
after a dissertation or other manuscript has been heavily vetted and
revised, stupid statements can still go into print. (An Ivy League professor
once wrote a book about the Mississippi Delta, a book published by a major
press, in which he made much of how a field worker's job meant "plowing from
sunup to sundown, on one's *knees*, until one's *knees* were bloody and
raw." Being a Mississippi Delta farm girl by birth, I tend to think that
historian never even saw a plow <g>.)

As genealogists, we constantly caution each other about trusting any one
source, about checking the level and the reputation of the publications we
use -- as well as the people who write individual articles or books that
"sound good." Yet, when the word "Ph.D." is attached to a source, most
genealogists are entirely too trusting.

Sorry, folks! I didn't mean to write a dissertation about dissertations <g>.

Elizabeth Shown Mills


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