Genealogical evidence is the information that allows us to identify an individual, an event in his or her life, or the relationship between individuals. In such a process, we often hear or use words such as evidence, proof, or documentation. Brenda Dougall Merriman takes readers through the genealogical process of research and identification, along the way examining how the genealogical community has developed standards of evidence and documentation,...

Traces the history of genealogy in the United States, from its early preoccupation with social status and lineage, to a nineteenth-century search for Anglo-Saxon roots, to a twentieth-century acceptance of diversity and the introduction of DNA technology.