Genealogy Books

Mr. Hubbell's book is a genealogical gold mine for anyone with ancestors in the area. He very briefly explores the area's history during this seventy-year period and includes a rather comprehensive compilation of its historical documents with emphases upon its early families and their individual names through censuses, maps, photos, locations of old cemeteries, persons buried in these cemetaries, etc. (These comprise the major part of the book.) The effort had to be a work of love for the author.
My early copy is a xeroxed, spiral-bound edition, but it remains my most prized genealogical document, as it was through this book that I found the graves of my great grandparents in a weed-grown, unmarked, abandoned cemetery.

As Continental forces and Virginia militia units were engaged in winning independence, American quartermasters and provisioners struggled to provide these units with all the necessities of life, from meals and guns to meat, fodder for horses, the horses themselves, firewood, and every other type of material. Much of this was requisitioned from the civilian population and certificates were issued payable in either continental or state funds, depending on the units supplied, upon presentation to court authorities. Thousands of these certificates issued to Virginians were duly entered by the courts, and they provide a fascinating insight into the period of the Revolution. These "Publick" Claims booklets contain interesting and useful information about the contributions of ordinary people to the Revolutionary War. They provide some details of people's service in the militia or as guards for prisoners of war; they indicate where some bodies of troops were at particular times; and they identify providers of horses, wagons, cattle, grain, or other supplies. Much of the information in these booklets cannot be found anywhere else, which makes the surviving records particularly valuable. Also remarkable is the fact that records survived from virtually every county in the state at that time with the exception of the newly formed Kentucky counties. This makes the collection even more valuable in covering areas which heretofore in this time period have suffered from a lack of personal data. The "Virginia Publick Claims" are published by counties. In addition to a faithful transcription by Janice Luck Abercrombie and the late Richard Slatten, a complete index is provided for each county booklet. This series is an extremely important genealogical tool for searchers in Revolutionary-era materials.

The Best-Ever Christian Baby Name Book: Thousand of Names and Their Meanings is a guide especially for Christian parents, offering thousands of names to choose from, their alternate spellings, and innate meaning. The Best-Ever Christian Baby Name Book deliberately avoids names with a non-Christian connotation (such as names connected to other pantheons or faith traditions) except in those cases when such names are also Biblical names. Thumbnail biographies of famous Christians or humanitarians for whom children can be named dot the entries, and an introductory section guides Christian parents in how to choose a child's name. "Several years ago a friend of mine mentioned that she had always dreamed of having a son named Nick... but when she married a man with the last name of Knack, she knew she had to forever abandon that dream." Highly recommended for expecting Christian parents.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.
Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of a "will to power" is central to his philosophical beliefs, and a recurring theme in his book "Beyond Good and Evil." When Nietzsche was a budding philosopher, he admired and was influenced by the writings of another philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. However, Schopenhauer, like most scientists and philosophers of his day, attributed the "will to live" as the highest motivational life force in nature. Nietzsche observed that the "will to live" was not life affirming enough and that humankind needed a higher power. Therefore, Nietzsche theorized that living beings were not just motivated by a survival instinct to live. He understood that beings had a higher need, which he called the "will to power." One can easily interpret Nietzsche's "will to power" as a method by which people strive to grow and nurture their creative energies, and interact with the world. Nietzsche thinks that "will to power" was coupled with humankind's innate nature and passion to create. Nietzsche thinks that this "will to power" was the true driving force of humankind. "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power, self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results" (Nietzsche Aphorism 13). The "will to power" causes humans to dominate and impose their will on others. Thus for Nietzsche, humankind's "will to power" meant that life and will is the exploitation of others, and it has been since the beginning of time, immemorial (Nietzsche Aphorism 258). In fact, Nietzsche believed that one could take his concept of the "will to power" one-step further, and use it to explain the motivations of whole societies, and nation states, as well as the individual (Nietzsche aphorism 257, 259).

Nietzsche tends to be very passionate and absolutist in his aphorisms. He wrote so much that one could find plenty of instances in his works where he has contradicted himself. Nietzsche's concept of "will to power" is a philosophic thought, which led to many interpretations. To assume that Nietzsche thought that the primary instincts of the human being came down to violence and little else, amounts to a gross underestimation of Nietzsche's views of humankind. However, most of his writings on the concept of a "will to power," if interpreted as being violent, have to be understood more in vain with what he saw as the constant struggle of overcoming one's individual weaknesses (Nietzsche aphorism 22, 260). Nietzsche envisioned his "will to power" more along the lines of applying one's will in self-overcoming. Nietzsche's writings about violence are usually meant as violence against giving in to the herd or slave morality. The herd, as Nietzsche names it, is the vast majority of humans who throughout history have obeyed and followed the status quo. The herd has stymied human development with their slave morality (Nietzsche aphorism 198, 199). The slave morality invented the dichotomy of good and evil. "Moral judgments and condemnations constitute the favorite revenge of the spiritually limited against those less limited" (Nietzsche aphorism 219). The herd morality causes people to sublimate their creative drive. Thus, Nietzsche is imploring the few noble humans--the few geniuses to struggle against following the herd morality. Nietzsche wants the noble people to invent their own morality and values to live their lives by, and to fulfill their own "will to power" and not indulge in an effort to attract others to their values (Nietzsche aphorism 199, 201, 260).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, history, and psychology.

This is THE definitive book on the Bidwell clan. Know your origins.

Epic poetry is Apollonian. Lyric poetry, though, is music in images. Schlegal argued that the chorus was a sort of ideal spectator. The Dionysiac resembles Hamlet.

The Dionysiac Greek desires truth, nature, simplicity. Metaphor is not rhetoric but representative image. Each being, human and divine, suffers for its individuality. Prometheus, Oedipus are masks of Dionysius before Euripides.

Music caused myth to flower. Greek tragedy died by suicide, an insoluble conflict. In Euripides tragedy perished through conflict of the Dionysian spirit with the Socratic. Socrates is the great exemplar of the theoretical man.

Where does music stand in relation to image and concept Nietzsche asks. Image and concept are heightened by appropriate music. Music lets us understand the annihilation of the individual. Tragic art arose out of music. There is a close affinity of myth to music.

These works are the bookends of Nietzsche's career in philosophy. In the latter it is asserted that we have no right to isolated thoughts, that thoughts need to grow out of values. Origins of good and bad are to be found in the paths of nobility and distance.

What does the etymology of terms for good tell us? Warrior and priestly castes have different presuppositions for valuation. When a nobleman feels resentment it does not poison him. Feelings of guilt and personal obligation commence in debtor-creditor relationships. Punishment has many utilitarian purposes. An artist is permanently separated from ordinary morality.

Black Elk Lives: Conversations With The Black Elk Family is an intimate set of interviews with the family and descendants of Nicholas Black Elk collected and edited by Hilda Niehardt and Lori Utecht. The intent of the collection is to present more of the perspectives and outlooks of the family members. Even more important, Black Elk Lives is a celebration of the strength and resilience of the human spirit, and the questioned survival of a way of life and thought that is Lakota in origin. Beginning with a transcription of a 1969 talk at Pine Ridge Boarding School by Benjamin Black Elk, the son and interpreter of Nicholas Black Elk as well as father and grandfather of other contributors, Black Elk Lives contains chapters on family memories, the changing roles of men and women, reclaiming the legacy (of Black Elk), the use and misuse of Lakota religion, fighting in Vietnam (Clifton DeSersa interview), working, Lakota legends, stories and games, grandfather's healing, and caring for grandfather (Black Elk).

Each chapter is actual interview dialogue, which allows the Black Elks to speak in their own chosen words. Because of this, and because of the relationship between the Black Elks and the interviewer(s), the reader has a sense of being told from the heart the feelings and experiences of these representatives of the Black Elk family. Sometimes the outlook is distinctly bleak and sad. Sometimes it seems hopeful. Other times, the speaker is making corrections, often to the assumptions or misunderstandings of the interpretations of "Black Elk Speaks" and other matters of Lakota vision.

Black Elk Lives is invaluable because of just that opportunity to inform the nonnative population. An example of this is at the end of the chapter titled "The Use and Misuse of Lakota Religion." Aaron DeSersa Jr. says:"It's just like my great-grandpa's book: People are walking on this road and some go off the road. As I've said, my great-grandpa's vision wasn't a spiritual vision. It was the future of our people, the Lakota people. Some people can't look at it that way - they want it to be spiritual and have a deep meaning. But what it is, when you look at it and interpret it, is what our people are going through in this life and in the future, and how they're going to be put back on that good road - bringing back the old ways and ceremonies and understanding them(p.103)."

The chapters of interviews and dialogue are enriched by several pages of black and white photos of the family members in several different decades. The cover jacket photograph of Nicholas Black Elk on Cuny Table (1931) is magnificent and unforgettable. Another helpful detail is the Black Elk family tree described on page 151. It is good to see the generations descent into the present. Perhaps there was not space for the birth dates of the present generation . It is still helpful to see the names of all the family members and to trace their lineage.

Black Elk Lives is a vibrant expression of the inheritors of the vision of "Black Elk Speaks". Now it is to unfold what will happen if people listen. Black Elk Lives will help to ensure that not only will they listen, perhaps also they will begin to hear and understand.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This is exactly what I was looking for. It has important guidelines on writing down information for my family, If you need a place to get started, this book is what you want.
Thank You for offering it

Originally published in 1978, and now in its completely updated second edition, Black Genesis: A Resource Book For African-American Genealogy is a straightforward listing of resources especially pertinent to African-American genealogical research. Divided into chapters state by state, each listing a wealth of libraries and repositories filled with more specific information for tracking down bloodlines, Black Genesis is an immediately useful and practical resource. No major genealogical reference collection can be considered complete or comprehensive without the inclusion of this new edition of Black Genesis by James M. Rose and Alice Eichholz.

An extremely comprehensive, oversized set, beautifully manufactured, and a delight to handle. Accurate, thorough, and exhaustive . . . but it covers only the descendants of George I of Great Britain. Volume 3 is all plates and index.