XI.  Conclusions

 

The conclusions below are not drawn from the information and analysis in the other sections on life and times in the 1600s and 1700s Northern Neck. Those conclusions, where I have them, are presented in the other sections along with the information and analysis that the conclusions go with.

 

The conclusions below are about the process that I have gone through, about the possible meaning and value of the work I have done, and about how others might think about the work and the resulting product.   Here are the conclusions:

 

1. The information I present in the other sections is based on the work of graduate students shown in their theses, articles by various historians, organizations, societies, and other sources that I have accessed through the Internet.

2. I could not have completed this work without the use of Ancestry.com’s on-line automatic family tree storage and navigational system, allowing easy access to the names and dates of the many 1600s and 1700s ancestors.   Also critical was the ability of the Ancestry.com system to suggest ancestor parentage, based on Ancestry.com’s ability to search a person’s name (that I would entered into Ancestry.com’s on-line family tree system) through Ancestry.com’s enormous databases of records; and then suggested parentage.  I would not have been able find many of my 1600s and 1700s Northern Neck ancestors by doing typical genealogy research;  because I simply did not have the time and access to the records needed to discover the parentage names.

3. I would not have pursued 1600s and 1700s Northern Neck (and associated, related history) without a high interest in learning more about those ancestors who lived during the 1600s and 1700s.  This I believe represents a perspective that is important – that those interested in their families (their ancestors) should broaden their scope to include the history of the times those ancestors lived in.  

4. Building on the conclusion in 3, perhaps a way of looking at my work is that I am building “family history”, “a personal history” versus, for example, a country history, a period history, or some other subject-matter history.  I am creating, hopefully in this work, a unique history, a history that relates directly to me through my ancestors living that history.  Having a created “family history”, one that you create for yourself, in a fashion that I have done in this work, seems to me to be a very worthwhile personal endeavor.  Family history is history; it is important history because it is your history; and it could be very important history, opening up new history to others.

5. I provide no references, make no attempt to provide back-up sources for what I present in this work.  I feel trying to do so was more than I needed to do; would inhibit my efforts.  In that sense, this work may not be considered to be reliable; but I disagree.  I feel confident that the work is very defendable, that my judgement is sound, and, for the most part, can easily be supported through historical analysis.