A GENEALOGY TRIAD

The topic for the next CoG(this will be the 43rd) is this:

Select one piece of hardware (besides your computer), one
piece of software (besides your internet browser), and one
web site/blog (besides your own) that are indispensable to
you.


Well, I ask you: is that fodder for a genealogy triad or what?


Three tools for tracing my family: good hardware, good
software, and a good website for research.

good hardware: My sister Cheryl and my brother in law
Peter gave me a HP OfficeJet 5610 All in One Printer/
Scanner/Copier/Fax Machine for Christmas two years ago
and it’s made everything so much easier.


I’ve never owned a scanner before this one and I’ve been
able to start preserving the old family photos(although I am
still woefully behind in that.) It also helped me in doing the
transcriptions of Aunt Dot’s handwritten memoirs. I scanned
the pages, then used what I’ve come to call the “Seaver
Method” (a post by Randy over at Genea-Musings showed
me how to do this) which is a split screen: the image on the
top of the screen and MS Word on the bottom. I read the
pages from the image and typed it into Word. I recently have
found a short memoir by my granduncle Clarence about
his experiences at Aziscohos Dam and plan to use the same
process to post them here.

good software: No contest in this one. It’s Personal Ancestry
File 5. My friend Diana was the person who told me there was
this genealogy software program that I could download for
free from the LDS. I did so and entered all the research Aunt
Dot had sent us years before and I’m still using it today as
my primary genealogy database. While I still don’t have all
the ins and outs of how to format some of the reports, for the
most part it’s easy to use and has the extra benefit of the
ability to click a name and run a search on the FamilySearch
Internet site for it. I’m building family trees on some of the
newer online genealogy sites now but the PAF is my old
reliable.

and a good website for research: Given my software answer
it’s an easy guess that my website would be the FamilySearch
site and it is! Again, it’s a free website with loads of information,
although not all of it is accurate so further research is wise. I
found my grandfather Floyd E.(arl) West listed five times on
the Pedigree Resource Files as Floyd J. West, for example. I
think of FamilySearch as providing me with hints and clues
that I need to verify. Even so I often recommend PAF and
FamilySearch to customers at the bookstore whenever our
conversation turns to genealogy. They are an easy and
inexpensive way for someone to try out tracing their family
history.

And that’s my genealogy triad!

"THREE IS THE NUMBER THOU SHALT COUNT..."

Perhaps it was Terry Thornton’s recent geneablog poetry
challenge that caused it but the topic of the next CoG put me
in mind of an ancient Irish form of poem or proverb called the
triad. Triads were as the name suggests, a list of three things
that somehow were connected. Historians theorize they were
used by the Irish as teaching tools to pass on knowledge or to
serve as memory keys to specific lessons or discussions on
various topics.

For example:

“The rocks to which lawful behavior is tied: A monastery,
a chieftain, the family.”

There in one line are listed the three anchors of civilization

Here’s another. I can imagine some druid or monk working
with a student trying to learn how to deliver a speech and
then listing how he needs to improve:

“Three hateful things in speech-stiffness, obscurity, a bad
delivery.”

There were triads that instructed how to dress and behave:

“Three excellences of dress-elegance, comfort, lastingness.”

“Three Steadinesses of good womanhood-keeping a steady
tongue, a steady chastity and a steady housewifery.”

Triads had pieces of advice and wisdom for everyone,
including the nobility:

“Three things best for a chief-justice, peace and an army.”

“Three worst things for a chief-sloth, treachery, evil
counsel.”

Many of these triads have been translated into a poetic form.
Alfred Perceval Graves translated several of the ones I’ve
cited thusly:

“Three powers advantaging a Chieftain most
Are Peace and Justice and an armed host.
Three worse of snares upon a Chieftain’s way:
Sloth, treachery and evil counsel they!”


“Three excellencies of our dress are these:
Elegance, durability and ease.”

Triads were not exclusive to the Irish. They were common
among the other Celts of Britain and Wales and I first
discovered them because of my interest in the legends of
King Arthur, since many of the British triads deal with him
and his followers. The authenticity of some of those is in
question since they make mention of “Lancelot of the Lake”
(although in a Welsh version of the name) and Lancelot
was a later edition from the medieval romances.

But I can see how useful triads must have been for teaching.
They were short, pithy, and easy to recall. And they could
easily be adapted for modern life:

“Three things needed to start the day: clean clothes, clean
teeth and a hot shower.”

"Three things to be bought when I go to the grocery: ground
beef and onions and breath mints for after!”

And I have put the CoG topic into a triad, but you’ll have to
wait until I post my response to see it.

How about you, readers? Can you put something in your life into
a triad?

I found the triads I used in this article here at this website:
http://web.ncf.ca/bj333/HomePage.triads.html

Alfred Perceval Graves' verse translations can be found in
Robert Blaisdell's "Irish Verse:An Anthology" at
Google Book.