By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student

If you have read my blog posts here in the past you may remember me talking about how I love studying the social history aspect of genealogy. For me it really breathes life into the people I am researching. It is a way for me to connect to them. To feel their plight. Know what they lived through. Read about what they saw. Be jealous at the prices they paid!

Which is why when I saw the new course Research: Social History by Barbara J. Starmans I signed up for it. While I think I know how to do social history research I am not confident enough to say I know everything about it.  By taking this course I am hoping to fill in some holes in my knowledge and learn new insights into this field of study.

According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary social history is defined as “history that concentrates upon the social, economic, and cultural institutions of a people.”  This definition refers to a group of people, but it very well could be the study of one person. Often a case study is called the social history of a person. I know how much we genealogists love a good case study!

I looked through the syllabus and a few items popped out at me. In particular I am curious to read what our instructor has to say about:

• Historic newspapers in other countries
• Ethnicities and prejudices
• The entire module on medicine and health
• Inventions and communication

Over the next few weeks I am going to, once again, tell you what I learned and enjoyed about the different modules in the course.  See you online!