I’m on my third jigsaw puzzle of the pandemic and I am finding more and more comparisons with genealogy. First, I literally could not do the puzzles without the picture on the box. But we almost always try to put together the puzzle of our ancestors with no clear idea of the family size or shape. But I can use a workaround like the straight edges (provided by census records) and watch the family grow from the wedding to the twilight of a couple’s life.
Carol Darrow
With a jigsaw, I work to group similar colors or patterns together. In genealogy, I try to put similar pieces together. If the family lives in Iowa and I discover that the children live in neighboring counties, I believe I have found a pattern. I am more likely to set a piece aside if one of the children suddenly gets married in California. Perhaps it’s a case of same name, wrong person!
And the pieces have to fit. I struggled with one puzzle where the pieces are very much the same but some didn’t actually fit where I placed them. There was a lady once who worked jigsaws by using nail scissors to trim the pieces into shape. But that ultimately leaves you with extra pieces that don’t fit at all!
Genealogy is a puzzle. We have to find all the pieces, even those that have fallen under the couch. We have to frame up the family in the time and place where they lived. Then we have to put the family groups together properly – fathers and mothers who are of an age to have the children listed with them; people with birth and death dates that make them logical members of that family; and those children who marry and start their own families. Some puzzles are more challenging than others, but we all get better with practice.
~ Carol Cooke Darrow is a professional genealogist who will teach Beginning Genealogy online on July 11, 10 am – noon. Go to cogensoc.us to register for this free ZOOM class.