(Hank Jones' Rules for Conducting Genealogy Research are continued from Note Nr. 1630 .)
Hank Jones' 8th Rule. Follow Your Intuition as Well as Your Intellect in Genealogical Searches.
This is perhaps the favorite rule of Hank Jones.
Hank loves to talk about this rule which has drawn a tremendous response from the listeners. So many readers have responded that he has put out books with their stories. It seems that everyone has an eerie story to tell as though a supernatural hand were guiding them in their research. One case in point:
John Alcock was looking for a particular Rector. Lunch was late so he pulled one of the courthouse books out for a quick look. The book opens at a page of its own choosing and there before John's eyes is the direction to the Rector in question. With this information, it was finally possible to enumerate the sons of Harman (Hans Jacob) Rector.
As someone becomes an expert in a field, little clues mean a lot. A researcher may not always be aware that he/she is even thinking of the procedures and steps which would lead to a tentative conclusion. Jones encourages one to follow through on the ideas/hunches. Perhaps one cannot formulate the conclusion so that it stands on solid logic, but one can use the idea and search for more information.
I was aware that George Scheible, early settler in the Robinson River Valley, had land in the middle of the Blankenbaker, Thomas, and Fleshman patents. I know that George Scheible came from Neuenbuerg, the home of the three families above. Imagine my shock when I stood at the farm Plankenbichl in Gresten-Land, Austria, and looked down into the valley about one half mile away. I could see the Scheiblau farm. I have no proof now, but I do have a very solid hunch that I was looking at the ancestral home of the Germanna Scheibles. There are other families about which I am suspicious for having a similar history.
Jones quotes Carl Jung, "We inherit the wisdom of the experience of our ancestors without ourselves having personal experience. All knowledge and wisdom are contained in our minds, and when we discover something 'new', we actually are only discovering something that existed in ourselves all along!"
To close with a quotation from Jones, "I cannot tell you how many times following a 'hunch' has led to all kinds of amazing discoveries! The gift of this 'sixth sense' has been given to all of us and can be nurtured and developed if only we learn to trust our intuition."
(And so ends Hank Jones' “Rules Of Conducting Genealogical Research”, which began on
Page 65, Note Nr. 1624
)
(29 Mar 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.