I grew up on an Iowa farm. We had a small dairy herd, which required a lot of attention. And we grew corn and soybeans. Preparing the fields for those crops provided a lesson that I remember at times most wouldn't think were relevant at all - probably several lessons. But one in particular applies to general life and specifically to genealogy.
Lesson - When you are tilling the field, and the field is getting muddier, don't skip ahead.
I learned this when I was discing a low field in the spring. I'd pull the disc back and forth across the field, each round a bit closer to the drainage ditch. The ground was very level and didn't have any obvious low spots, although one could reasonably guess that the field would be lower and wetter when approaching the ditch. But it wasn't obvious to me as a 15-year-old kid. When the tires of the tractor started to slip and spin and ball up with mud in the increasingly wetter peat ground, I thought that it would be nice to get a little farther before sunset. It was actually a fun challenge, trying to get that discing done in those conditions. But I knew that I was lucky to have completed the last round without getting stuck. I convinced myself, though, that this was just a single, low, wet spot, that I could skip over. So I took a guess as to where the field would be drier, and started down the middle of the untilled part of the field. I figured that if I got in trouble I'd just raise the disc and head home. But what I hadn't counted on was how fast I would get in trouble. The front wheels started to sink and ball up with mud, the back wheels started to slip and spin and dig deep as the tractor struggled to pull the heavy disc through the wet soil. Before I could stop the spinning and raise the disc out of the ground, I was stuck.
Getting stuck wasn't unusual. Getting stuck in the middle of a wet field was. Here was the tractor, sunk in mud, with no dry soil around. We brought the other tractor out to the field to pull out the stuck one, but without a known dry spot to work from, we ran the risk of two tractors stuck in the middle of a wet field. I hadn't thought of that.
The moral of this story is: Work from the known to the unknown. Start with what you know and stay close to it or else you could end up in deep. In genealogical terms, the dry ground is what you know, what is proven. Skipping the proof on a few generations, or ignoring obvious evidence to the contrary, so that you can claim to be a descendant of the Mayflower, is like tilling the wet ground. There might be some good genealogy there, but it isn't necessarily yours.
Sometimes genealogists get stuck. Sometimes they have to venture out into the unknown. This is a good thing if it is in an effort to uncover new information to extend their tree. Always try to tie back to the known. Understand the evidence and how good it links new information back to the known.
Another application to genealogy is in understanding ancestor migrations. Our ancestors really didn't venture into the middle of the unknown very often. Sure, there were a few people who were adventurers, explorers, hunters, trappers, traders, etc., but most of our ancestors weren't that adventurous. They probably had families to keep safe, and weren't about to move to some unknown parts without support of an extended family. Moving to unsettled territory was like discing the middle of a wet field. You could get into trouble without any available relief. So when tracing an ancestor, assume that he/she had relatives or friends with them. Finding them will give you more clues as to the origin of your ancestor. And if you don't find those relatives, then you've learned that your ancestor was quite the adventurer.
And back to the original lesson in the wet field... fortunately we got the tractor unstuck without too much trouble. Sometimes, it isn't as much being adventurous as it is not considering the consequences.
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