About the term Overrepresented

From The Overrepresented Family

I've come to call my musings on my family history story about the Overrepresented Family because I'm extremely aware that in contrast to many people who must search hard for records of their families or historical communities in any sort of source, my family is not like that. In historical practice of the 1960s-1990s, it was common to refer to certain groups -- women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, workers -- as underrepresented in the historical record. Before historians spent considerable time digging through archives, rethinking what kind of sources were important, it was the case that these groups rarely appeared in textbooks, dissertation topics, or newspaper articles. In the United States, newspapers often served particular communities and libraries often only saved and preserved the ones representing the elite of society. For family historians who came from such background, looking for their family histories is still very difficult. Searching for the records of immigrants, African Americans, poor people is very difficult. When I worked as an archivist at the California State Archives , I'd encourage all genealogists to check the index to prisoners in California State Prisons, because if a relative had been to prison there were great records including photographs and in some cases court records.

But in my family, I don't have to use such sources in the same way. Particularly on my father's side which will be the focus of most musings, his parents came from families that were prominent in various societies and positions. A bibliography I've been keeping on references to my family in published sources, mostly found digitized on the internet, now has over 300 references. My paternal great grandfathers were both prominent Washingtonians in the 1910s-1960s: George Rockwell Putnam served as the first civilian Commissioner of United States Lighthouses from 1910 to 1935?. The other, Alvin Barton (A. B. and Vin) Barber served in various roles for the American Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Committee of 100. My paternal great grandmothers were equally engaged. Marta Aresvik Putnam is the only immigrant in the group, she came from Norway at age 4. She was regularly mentioned in the society columns of Washington and was a woman suffragist and a dedicated club woman. Likewise, my great grandmother Lucy Lombardi Barber was a suffragist and a club woman. She is the only one of the four that I met since she lived to 96. She was also a historian who wrote the Nursery History of the United States in 1916 when she had three children. It is not the best history book ever, but it is fun to flip through and a 1920 version called the Young People's History of the United States is available thanks to the Internet Archive digitizing book project.

Indeed a lot of the research I have collected so far has been greatly assisted by both the Internet Archive and Google Book's projects. I've found organizing my research to be greatly helped by Zotero, a free open source citation tracker that works with Firefox. I have an open list of my citations available here:
Family Bibliography

That's enough for now. Like all blogs this will evolve and I'm not sure where now. But feel free to comment or ask questions.