Charles Sanders Peirce, the American mathematician and philosopher who invented pragmatism, held that a bad man cannot do science. Peirce was not saying that a good scientist cannot be a moral bounder. The scientist might neglect his aging mother. He might cheat on his income taxes. But he cannot do good science unless he is good in the special way that a scientist has to be good. He must submit his ego, his fatigue and his hunger for glory to the unforgiving, peer reviewed discipline of  truth seeking. No plagiarism. No faking of data. No unrepeatable experiments or unverifiable assertions.

After my recent elderhostel course in genealogy at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC (Asheville TRIBUNE,  6/11/98), I believe that neither can a bad man do genealogy.

Genealogy studies family history, people’s descent from their ancestors. In  Brasstown, instructor Marie Roth led her five students through a 30 hour overview. She taught all the elements which we must master when we trace our own or others’ pedigrees. Mrs Roth grew up in Black Mountain, NC and regularly visits relatives around Asheville. She also teaches crochet and tatting. She founded and runs the Family History Center of the Murphy, NC Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“LDS,” also known as the Mormon Church). 

Mrs. Roth led us into the genealogical section of the Murphy public library and to the records and resources at the Murphy LDS church. We made a field trip to the Brasstown Baptist Church, where we did tombstone rubbings and learned how to inventory a graveyard. Things a budding genealogist must know about include census data, health histories, personal recollections of relatives and their tales of family, how to use microfilms, microfiches, divorce records, land sale documents, newspapers, immigrant ship records, how to interview, problems created by adoption and how to be effective on computer and internet. 

Such tools help find the truth.  The quest for family truth, including personal truth, gives genealogy its moral dimension. Of my four grandparents, three were Catholics from the south of post-famine Ireland. Growing up, I heard tales mainly about that Irish Catholic part of me. The fourth was my paternal grandfather James B. Killough, who died of typhoid  fever in Edna, Texas in 1910, when his only son, James Douglas Killough, was only four. 

My father used to tell many tales of the Highland Killoughs.  Fortunately, over the past seventy years, a Killough Family Association has systematically assembled records and periodically published its research. The most recent book appeared in 1991, THE KILLOUGH FAMILY IN IRELAND, CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. That book and its predecessors keep me attentive to Scotland. For Killoughs (also called MacKellochs, Cullochs and Kellocks) are a sept of the Highland clan MacDonald). Oliver Cromwell sent my family into Northern Ireland.  Killoughs were then and for generations remained Covenanting Presbyterians.

My ancestors’ New World chapter opened nine generations ago. In 1718  John Killough (born 1689 in County Antrim, Ireland) along with his older brother Robert migrated with other Covenantors to Boston aboard the ship “William.” I found selected logs of the William in the Murphy, NC public library, but not for the 1718 voyage. 

Here the moral challenge to myself as genealogist begins. For my main source of Killough history, the 1991” KILLOUGH FAMILY”is not always complete in detailing its sources. Having done historical research, I gnash my teeth over imprecision with sources.  I left Brasstown resolved to find and identify better sources when I retell Killough family history to my children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces. Works in progress include writing personal memoirs and recollections of family . My mother-in-law (who with her sister has been researching their Mayflower and other lines for over 70 years) once verified in a Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) source that my ancestor six generations back, Samuel Killough, had in fact been a drummer boy with George Washington at Yorktown, as my father had often told me. Confirmation satisfies.

I plan to learn more about Mary Doak McKeen (1805-1892). She was the wife of Samuel’s son, Isaac B. Killough. Mary grew up and was married in Guilford County, NC. To aid my quest, I recently joined the Guilford County, NC Genealogical Society.

In the LDS Church records in Murphy, I verified three segments of my lineage from THE KILLOUGH FAMILY IN IRELAND, CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. But I also found one possible disconnect and one apparent contradiction.  Did Isaac B. Killough really marry Mary Doak McKeen? Or, per a Mormon source, did Isaac instead (or in addition) marry Ruth Duff? In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “Quick, Watson, the game’s afoot!”

There are many reasons to do genealogy well and none to do it badly.  Family health conditions and personal health are receiving more attention than even a couple of decades back. Genealogists of the future will have access to DNA records. Even now doctors make us  search our family tree for heart disease, cancer and other diseases to which our ancestors have predisposed us. 

Learning our ancestry makes us want to learn about the times and challenges of our ancestors. Why did some Presbyterians disapprove of slavery and move north of the Ohio River, while Killoughs stayed south and owned slaves? Why did the British border lands produce so many combative American leaders like Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun? My family history helps me understand today’s violence in Ireland. To Henry Ford history may have been bunk, but not to most Americans. If family history is also the thin edge of a wedge which pries open  the Reformation, the Renaissance, Western Christendom, the Romans and the Greeks, then hurrah for genealogy!

Finally, Latter-day Saints add a religious dimension to the search for ancestors. For their church teaches the efficacy of baptizing the dead. As LDS founder Joseph Smith once wrote, “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead.”

-000-

for Asheville TRIBUNE
-------------------------------

[NOTE: Killough genealogical research has moved steadily forward in the three years since I wrote this column. My distant cousin Zora Killough Cunningham (who visited us nearly a decade ago in Asheville) released in 1997 THE KILLOUGH/KELLOUGH FAMILY IN IRELAND, CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. An update will appear in 2001. For the ever popular biennial Killough reunions in Texas and elsewhere see http://www.killough.org/  TPK 056/25/2001]

revisited 11/21/2007 with a fresh speculation: Did my grandfather name his only son, my father, James Douglas for a fictitious hero in Sir Walter Scott's THE LADY OF THE LAKE? James Douglas was not known in my up-line previously. And Killoughs are a MacDonald sept, no kin that I know of to the almighty Douglases. TPK