Refining My Research
“Research” for me is second nature.
Any time I become curious about something, I get a taste for it, and then the fascination and hyper focus builds to the point I’ll deep dive into my new subject matter for 4 hours straight and forget to eat lunch. Sometimes, it can keep me up to 2 am — when I really should be sleeping.
Frankly, it’s so deeply ingrained in who I am as a person, I often fail to remember it’s a skill many lack or have to practice and learn because it doesn’t come naturally. However, I’ve always been quite the inquisitive individual, curious sometimes to a fault, and investigative. When I want to know something, I will find out. It’s inevitable.
The same goes for people (and likely why secretive or sneaky people are a total turn off).
Speaking of people, my research has been slipping back into heritage, history, culture, and more specifically (lately) folklore and mythologies. Not the mythologies that have been beaten to a bloody pulp by pop culture or mainstream platforms like Greek and Roman or Egyptian. No, I’m more interested in Gaelic folklore (Irish & Scottish, Welsh, too), as well as a bit of Scandinavian (although “Vikings” are also becoming a bit of a buzzword/trope). I’m also dabbling in proto-Scandinavian (ancient Germanic), Eastern European (like Slavic folklores), the Near East (like Arabic folklore, Anatolian & Sumerian mythologies), and reaching back into the high school fascination with the Far East (mostly Korea & Japan).
However, I don’t just dive into the liminal like mythologies and folklores, but take the time to tap into the archaeology and ancient histories, as well as some of the modern culture and a bit of the language. I tend to sample a bit of everything and let my personal taste and my intuition guide how deep I go into each subject matter.
Which brings me to how I tend to refine and structure my research or cultural inquiries — and at some point in the near future I may write a post about my writing workflow, too.
I often start with the spark or the spawning point, the origins of the curiosity. Let’s use my heritage research as an example.
This actually started when I was quite young and the Internet or home computers were still relatively new. Whoop, aging myself, I know. Elder millennial status revealed. Anywho — much of the spark came from my grandmother’s influence, and her habit of sharing what she knew of family histories and stories from her childhood. One of the more interesting stories featured the village healer (literal “laying of the hands” kind of healer that was kept hush-hush and treated like a minor Saint by the locals) in the tiny French-Canadian factory village along the Blackstone river that sprouted up around the Industrial Revolution days. Or stories her father, Theodore, had passed down from his childhood or older family members. My grandfather would occasionally chime in with his own stories and insights.
It was thanks to my maternal grandparents that I had any concept of history, culture or heritage at all — the rest of the family doesn’t seem to give a flying fart in space.
But I did.
And I still do.
This was what sparked my initial quests into my mostly Irish heritage through the Gaels, the Gauls and even ventures into Celtic territories. This tended to happen in cycles, and still does even now, nearly two decades later and a full undergraduate degree under my belt.
So, it all started with oral history. And then graduated to books, historic fiction novels, movies and documentaries. This pretty much encompasses a large part of my research material and sources today. Although, now I know how to source, read, and interpret both primary sources and critically read secondary sources. I suppose I can thank undergraduate training in the humanities and social sciences for that skill refinement.
This oral history to early material sources are what later sources were mapped over, such as my Ancestry DNA results. Sure, those results shift occasionally as the sample sizes grow and diversify, and technologies inevitably evolve. However, they confirmed my mostly Irish heritage (autosomal DNA) with the additions of other Gaelic nations like Scottish and Welsh, as well as some French (this I was aware of), English, Germanic/Danish, with 1% Basque and Portuguese. That last part was informative and interesting — no one in the family in living memory knew were that came from — but likely my grand father’s side, including the Danish and possibly Germanic links with the blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Beyond the “entry level drug” things like Ancestry and 23&me can be, the more interesting stuff comes when I go for the more advanced DNA testing like mDNA (mitochondrial) or yDNA (Y-chromosome).
Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from the mother, and carried through family lines by biological females mostly. Y-chromosomal DNA is likewise passed from father to son or biological males. Since I am a non-intersex, biological female, I don’t carry Y-chromosomal DNA and therefore would have to ask a male relative on the paternal side to participate in that test so we could have access to that information. I can only track my mDNA through my own test, or that of a direct female relative. In this case, my mother or grandmother would be best. Of course, new insights on migrational and settlement patterns (and matings habits) come through this, going back potentially thousands of years — in a way that autosomal DNA cannot. Autosomal DNA can only go back so far into the past, and after a certain point things get… murky.
For me, my mDNA added Spain, northern Italy, Cyprus, Turkey, and the Levant to my deeper maternal ancestry. Frankly, I wasn’t terribly surprised, giving the proclivity toward deep eyes, dark hair with medium texture, tall nose bridges, and neutral beigey complexions on my maternal side. Perhaps, that is where the side quests into the eastern Mediterranean histories and cultures came from — buried genetic memory.
Now, armed with oral history and backed up by layers of DNA results, I have my headings.
I can map out the basics, explore the wheres and whens, and even go beyond genealogy. By that I mean, not just focus narrowly on my own lineage, but expand into other time periods and nearby places or cultures, or move through time and learn about what it may have been like before and after my ancestors may have dwelled there. After all, my ancestors did not exist in a vacuum.
Here’s a breakdown of everything I use:
Oral traditions and family stories.
Autosomal & mDNA (or yDNA when I can) results.
Academic research published on certain time periods, history surveys & regional studies on platforms like academia.edu or JSTOR.
Textbooks published by academics in the field like The Ancient Celts, second edition by Barry Cunliffe (a celebrated Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a leading authority on Atlantic Celts plus Atlantic maritime networks; mobile communities on the Steppe; ancient DNA and language). 1
I occasionally read survey-style books crafted more for the general public like Weavers, Scribes, and Kings by Amanda H. Podany or The Horse, The Wheel, and Language by David W. Anthony.
I also tend to watch documentaries made by professionals and experts in the field as well on platforms like Wondrium, now called Great Courses plus.
I follow and watch documentary YouTube channels like HistoryTime run by Pete Kelly (public educator from the UK with history degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level). 2
As an aside, I wouldn’t say it’s “research” per se, but I also like to watch historical or period dramas and movies or read historical fiction from regional cultures and specific time periods as well. While not really research, and more for pleasure, it still builds out more information (input) and a way to learn more — through another person’s research or lens of interpretation.
My more academic or professional-style research follows a similar vein, but often leans more on written sources and documentation, and less on oral traditions or visual media. That’s not to say those sources don’t play a factor, but less emphasis is placed on them. I tend to take a more quantitive approach using archaeological material culture and historical sources, over anthropological ones for various reasons. At least, when I’m going for more concrete knowledge on a subject matter.
Join the conversation: Do you do research? Is it for personal knowledge, academic study, or field vocation? How do you conduct your research?
footnote:
1 taken from the professor profile posted tot he School of Archaeology on the University of Oxford website
2 taken from the HistoryTime YouTube channel description