The Genealogical Sublime (Public History in Historical Perspective) - Softcover

Julia Creet (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1625344805 ISBN 13: 9781625344809

Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020

Synopsis

Since the early 2000s, genealogy has become a lucrative business, an accelerating online industry, a massive data mining project, and fodder for reality television. But the fact remains that our contemporary fascination with family history cannot be understood independently of the powerful technological tools that aid and abet in the search for traces of blood, belonging, and difference.

In The Genealogical Sublime, Julia Creet traces the histories of the largest, longest-running, most lucrative, and most rapidly growing genealogical databases to delineate a broader history of the industry. As each unique case study reveals, new database and DNA technologies enable an obsessive completeness -- the desire to gather all of the world's genealogical records in the interests of life beyond death. Archival research and firsthand interviews with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officials, key industry players (including Ancestry.com founders and Family Search executives), and professional and amateur family historians round out this timely and essential study.

About this title

About the Author

Julia Creet is professor of English at York University and director and producer of the 2016 documentary film, Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1625344805
• ISBN 13: 9781625344809
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176