Inconvenient Facts

As genealogists, we strive to gather any and all information we can that might have a bearing on the research question at hand. Sometimes that information includes conflicting data that must then be resolved. And sometimes that information includes evidence that, frankly, we’d rather not see or be aware of. While it may be tempting to overlook and omit that evidence, genealogists (at our best) do not do that. We analyze it as objectively as we can and incorporate it into the larger picture that is developing in front of us.

I was put in mind of this core competency when I came across a fact I wasn’t really prepared to discover. Earlier this month, NGS posted “A Message for Change from NGS” on its Facebook page. In comments to that post, one commenter included an image of a newspaper article from 1960.

Genealogical Group Gets Racial Issue

by Rasa Gustaitus, Staff Reporter

Is a Negro to join the searchers for the Nation’s family trees? The National Genealogical Society is in a tizzy.

Last March, a staff member of the National Archives who has helped many genealogists locate ancestors in musty old census and pension records, applied for membership in the Society. He is a Negro.

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