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Archiver > YORKSGEN > 2005-08 > 1123532430


From: "Roy Stockdill" <>
Subject: Re: [YKS] Yorkshire humour
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 20:20:30 +0000
In-Reply-To: <00c901c59c50$3d64a550$676a2a50@BASE1>


> From: "Suzanne" <>

> Yorkshire humour derived from hundreds of years of hard toil on unforgiving
> land, the saying "You've got t'laugh or you'd cry", is so true of Yorkshire
> people and anyone who really is interested in their Yorkshire ancestors
> would be grateful of being allowed this insight in to the way they lived,
> loved and laughed.>

Very well put, Suzanne! Anyone who doesn't realise that understanding
the dry and slightly cynical Yorkshire sense of humour is very much
part and parcel of understanding the lives of their ancestors is
missing out on a good deal of what is vital about family history.

As I point out in my Newbies' Guide, genealogy and family history are
two quite separate and distinctive things.

GENEALOGY in its strictest sense is the study of blood lines of
descent from a particular ancestor or ancestors, with no attempt to
examine or reconstruct the lives of those concerned. This is
the fundamental building block, the foundations, leading on to.....

FAMILY HISTORY which covers a far wider spectrum and entails what
might be called "putting flesh on the bones. Family history covers
not just genealogical descents but the relating of your ancestors and
their lives to the social and economic history of the times in which
they lived. Thus, anything at all which impinged on the lives of your
ancestors can be said to be legitimate family history. This includes
how they lived, the kind of houses they lived in, the clothes they
wore, the food they ate, the jobs they did, how they brought up their
children, where they went to church, the shops they shopped at, what
kind of things they bought, the hours they worked, how they spent
their leisure time, etc, etc, etc - and a million other things which
all help to build up a practice and realistic picture of your
ancestors' lives.

If humour is not a major part of the above definition, then I do not
know what is. It is only by understanding the very nature of our
ancestors, by getting under their skin, as it were, that we can hope
to throw any glimmer of light onto their lives and, thus, glean a
little understanding of what makes us the people we are.

Roy Stockdill
Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org
Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:- www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

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