Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself - Hardcover

Akenson, Donald Harman; Akenson, Don

2.25

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780773532953: Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0773532951 ISBN 13: 9780773532953

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007

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Using supporting evidence that runs from the Solomon Islands and classical China to ancient Ireland, Akenson argues that there are four basic genealogical forms. Highly significant on its own, this insight also provides the information needed to assess the Latter-day Saints' efforts to provide a single narrative of how humanity keeps track of itself. Appendices cover topics of vital interest to historians, genealogists, and ethnographers, such as the use and limits of genetic data in genealogy, the reality of false-paternity as a widespread phenomenon in genealogical lines, and the vexing issues of incest and cousin-marriage. A unique study of a neglected topic, Some Family illuminates the stories that cultures tell themselves through their family trees.

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About the Author:

Donald Harman Akenson is Douglas Professor of Canadian and Colonial History at Queen's University.

Review:

"Some Family fills a genuine lacuna. No one before Akenson has done an independent evaluation of Latter-day Saints' genealogical work. And no matter what one thinks of his approach to the LDS, it will be difficult to find an introduction to genealogical arcana as accessible and engaging to read as this." Gerald R. McDermott, Roanoke College "A very solid piece of work ... in the spirit of Northrop Frye's The Great Code. The author displays a mastery of the available materials on both Mormon history and the study of genealogy." Irving Hexham, University of Calgary

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