The REALLY USEFUL Family History Show – Fall 2022

 It’s back! The REALLY USEFUL Family History Show is scheduled for November 10-12, 2022. Get details at www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/

I have another presentation set for this event, this one about the Industrious Revolution…and its effects on families.

If you are wondering what that is all about, it was the period from the mid-17^th to the mid-18^th centuries, leading up to the more well-known Industrial Revolution which encompassed a change from an economy focused on agriculture and handcraft production to one dominated by powered machinery and centralized, mass production industries.

In a book titled The Industrious Revolution, published in 2008, author Jan de Vries took the view that “[i]n a specific historical period in a specific geographical zone, a new form of household economic behavior became increasingly influential, increasing simultaneously the supply of market-oriented production and the demand for a broad but not indiscriminate range of consumer goods.”

The consumption-driven family household, then, would be considered as a unique economic unit that contributed to goods-purchasing behaviors in society. The system was primarily evident in northwestern Europe (England, the Low countries and parts of France and Germany) and the North American colonies.

The presentation will look at what defines the Industrious Revolution, its timing with respect to the Little Ice Age and the following Industrial Revolution.

There are a host of other great talks and some useful workshops, too. Come and have a listen.

The Great Deluge

As part of my talk about Stormy Weather, I mention one of the earliest tempests to be recorded, that being the Great Deluge. This is the story of Noah and the presumed flood brought by God as punishment for man’s sins and one of the earliest records of mass migration of people caused by natural events

Myths have fed the imaginations of humans for thousands of years even though most of these tales are just unverified stories people have handed down through the ages. But a few may have roots in real natural events of the past. Among the most famous, perhaps, is the story of Noah and the Great Flood.

Similar versions of the story have been found in many parts of the world and recorded by people of many societies. There may be a reason for that.

The event was first noted in Genesis, chapter 7, verses 11-12:

. . . the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. . . And the flood was forty days upon the earth. . .

Such a flood did occur around 7,600 years ago in the region of Euxine Lake, the predecessor of the Black Sea. The flood history is documented in the 1998 book Noah’s Flood, by earth scientists, William Ryan and Walter Pitman.

The lake had existed for millennia since the end of last ice Age having been filled by the outflow of water from the melting northern ice cap. For many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before the event people had populated its shorelines and the fertile valleys along its margins, before civilizations prospered in Mesopotamia.

The region was flooded by water pouring in through the Bosporus Strait at Istanbul, which had been opened into the Mediterranean Sea. Scientists have estimated that during the flood the water level rose about six inches per day. Along the flatter areas of the shoreline, the edge of the lake would have advanced about a quarter of a mile per day. Over 60,000 square miles were swallowed in less than a year. The result was the ultimate formation of the Black Sea.

The inhabitants were forced away from their homes and scattered across the Middle East, Eastern Asia and Europe. Refugees from Euxine Lake took with them the story of the Great Flood. Some of them went south to the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers where new civilizations were being established: the Ubaid period about 5500 BCE (shortly after the flood); and the Sumer period around 4500 BCE.

The final breaking of the barrier on the eastern edge of the Sea of Marmora may have been the result of surging water and waves from major storms – so parts of the myth prevail in accounts of rain and flooding. The story of the Deluge has been passed down over generations in several cultures and religions, especially those whose history is linked to the Black Sea region.

One of the first modern publications about the Great Flood comes from the translation of 2^nd millennium Mesopotamian clay tablets. George Smith, a British Archaeologist and Assyeriologist, published an English version in 1876, as The Chaldean Account of Genesis. It can be downloaded from Archive.org.

Genealogists who use DNA in their ancestral searches may see some parallels in the dating of branches that originated or passed through the Black Sea region around the time of the Great Flood. Who knows – perhaps some of them were related to Noah!

Stormy Weather

 People around the world have been unkindly treated to several major tempests recently, the latest attacking the western Pacific (Nanmadol), the Caribbean and eastern Canada (Hurricane Fiona) and the southeast US (Hurricane Ian). All have resulted in significant damage, death and evacuation of tens of thousands.

2022 Tropical Cyclone Summary Map

Storms of this magnitude are annual events, with some years worse than others in terms of their numbers, level of destruction and costs. But they are not unique to recent times. People and communities have been tested by such pieces of Mother Nature’s arsenal for hundreds of thousands of years. We can find records of major storms in documents going back millennia, to the story of Noah and the Great Flood.

I am giving a presentation titled, Stormy Weather…events that changed the fortunes of our ancestors on Saturday, October 8^th for the Virtual Genealogical Association (11:00 am eastern time). You must be a member of the VGA to listen, but the cost (just US$20) of membership is very reasonable considering the number of talks (24 in 2022) offered by the society every year. I recommend joining. Go to their website to find out more about the benefits.

In the talk, I again emphasize the point that natural phenomena affecting people and communities occur everywhere and have done so throughout history. Major storms have been one element of nature but in most parts of the world had enormous impact on lives and livelihoods due to their potential for destruction.

Present day storms are not increasing in frequency or intensity, although we may think that is the case by looking at the news coverage they are given, the numbers of people impacted, or the costs associated with damage. What is true is that as populated areas have grown and infrastructure has expanded, the level of destruction has risen.

Not all major storms are tropical cyclones, of course. We have seen carnage from storms that attacked communities in the central regions of every continent as well as along their margins, among them tornadoes, supercell thunderstorms, atmospheric rivers, derechos, blizzards and hailstorms. In my talk, I comment on a few historical events that may interest genealogists as they, or storms like them, could well have been experienced by their ancestors resulting in injury, death or, at least, economic hardship.

For example, one storm many people may not be familiar with was the St. Mary Magdalene Flood that occurred in July 1342. It was one of the greatest European floods in a millennium, the consequence of a massive rainstorm that swept across the German states. The rain fell in torrents for eight days in an area of over 12,000 square miles. All rivers overflowed their banks floodwaters destroying buildings and farmland in their paths. Over 10,000 people lost their lives, mainly from drowning during flash floods.

Come and listen to the talk, or if you cannot make it that day, join the VGA and listen at your leisure as the presentation will be available to members online for the next six months.