Publication Date
January 1989
Abstract
Since Roots helped Americans discover an interest in genealogy, archival work has changed in many ways. · One of these is the definition of what constitutes basic archival research. When most archival patrons were scholars, archivists tended to assume that they would ask the traditional historical questions: Why did the North win the Civil War?, for example, or Was General Longstreet a good strategist? Genealogists began to ask simpler, more -fundamental questions--not Why did the North win the Civil War, but Did my great-grandfather fight in the Civil War? And they did so by the busload, forcing archivists to rewire reference operations.