Social Networks: Our ancestors had them

This is a guest post by Caroline M. Pointer*

He had done it again.

Joseph Marshall WWI

My grandfather had managed to shock me again. Had it not been enough that he had three wives before my grandmother? Had it not been enough that my grandmother had been his mistress before she became his wife? Had it not been enough that he had been estranged, if not formally excommunicated, from the Catholic Church? Had it not been enough that he had successfully sued his sister? Had it not been enough that he had been estranged from his family for nearly his whole adult life? Had it not been enough that he changed our surname from Marschall to Marshall, unlike the rest of his family?

Apparently not.

The irony of this whole situation with my grandfather, a.k.a., Joseph Marshall and Big Paw Paw, has not escaped me. He had many relationships that left paper trails, but he wasn't very good at maintaining those relationships. In retrospect, Big Paw Paw had had a social network, and I have been able to uncover bits of his story through it.

Since Big Paw Paw’s story was the first I had tried to uncover six years ago, I did everything in a roundabout way with plenty of backtracking. And I wish I had had a clue about looking at ancestors’ networks. It makes sense now. I mean, I don’t live in a bubble. Do you?
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