City of Remembering: A History of Genealogy in New Orleans

by Susan Tucker

City of Remembering represents a rich testament to the persistence of a passionate form of public history. In exploring one particular community of family historians in New Orleans, Susan Tucker reveals how genealogists elevate a sort of subterranean foundation of the city--sepia photographs of the Vieux Carré, sturdy pages of birth registrations from St. Louis Cathedral, small scraps of the earliest French Superior Council records, elegant and weighty leaves of papers used by notaries, and ledgers from the judicial deliberations of the Illustrious Spanish Cabildo. They also explore coded letters left by mistake, accounts carried over oceans, and gentle prods of dying children to be counted and thus to be remembered. Most of all, the family historians speak of continual beginnings, both in the genesis of their own research processes, but also of American dreams that value the worth of every individual life.The author, an archivist who has worked for over thirty years asking questions about how records figure in the lives of individuals and cultures, also presents a national picture of genealogy's origins, uses, changing forms, and purposes. Tucker examines both the past and the present and draws from oral history interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and archival research. Illustrations come from individuals, archives, and libraries in New Orleans; Richmond; Washington, DC; and Salt Lake City, as well as Massachusetts and Wisconsin, demonstrating the contrasts between regions and how those practitioners approach their work in each setting. Ultimately, Tucker shows that genealogy is more than simply tracing lineage--the pursuit becomes a fascinating window into people, neighborhoods, and the daily life of those individuals who came before us.

244 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2016

Reviews

[Nicole Wedemeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written by Susan Tucker, now retired archivist at Newcomb College, which is now part of Tulane University. She has a strong and compelling writing style, however I wish she had written a more systematic history of her subject. She has interspersed here accounts of historically significant events and record groups that did shape genealogy in the city such as records generated by the Roman Catholic church. Her analysis of the city's racial ambiguity and its effect on pursuing genealogy is very shrewd, and I was very happy to learn about the two women who systematically translated the city's colonial records in the "black boxes" from French and Spanish into English. She supplies fascinating images of original documents from the city's history. But she also interweaves long sections on genealogy in other areas of the country, particularly about the LDS church, which do not add much to the topic at hand. Also, she has long sections summarizing interviews with contemporary family historians which seem fairly random. Why these particular people? Where is the coverage of others more significant to the history of genealogy in the city, such as Charles Maduell, Alice Daly Forsyth, and Damon Veach? How about the history of Polyanthos Press? Perhaps Ms. Tucker could give us a second volume to cover these gaps?