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Inputs: Primary Sources
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Critical Thinking Skills In an
uncontrolled manner, "new" primary sources become public knowledge
every day, for example archival newspaper accounts. Some so-called primary
sources could even be border-line "fake news" (politically-motivated
pieces for example). In your random
web-surfing -- all public knowledge -- you are bound to find some of these
accounts that use dated language and skewed perspectives. It is the job of
educators to guide you in using your critical
thinking skills to carefully evaluate such accounts.
Educators will guide you to use your creative thinking skills to imagine
and compose alternative perspectives that may (or may not) be judged as
potentially more truthful.
Memory... Oral History... Legend Practically any written bit of history actually began as a bit of “oral history”. Someone remembered something and then someone heard about that particular recollection and wrote it down. A written record of a birth in the parish register was a memory of an actual event – an oral history record of that birth, now written down. A written death record in the parish register was also originally another bit of oral history. These sources of information are called “primary sources” – as close to the absolute truth as you can get -- often eyewitness accounts**. Other sources such as so-and-so’s last will and testament also depend on someone’s memory of who and what was important to them in life – who should get what from his or her estate... and then someone wrote it down. So you could argue that a written “last will and testament” is also partly oral history. Some farmer’s diary or journal is also a memory -- a primary source record -- of what happened that particular day – oral history now in a written format. Maybe the term “oral history” should be replaced by “memory history”. However...
much of the hand-script written
three and more centuries ago by the notary or parish clerk is very
reader-unfriendly today. Even expert interpreters today sometimes mis-transcribe
a surname: for example, “McCowan” is sometimes transcribed as “McColbane”.
At the library the reader just has to trust that the interpreter / transcriber
was familiar with local variations in hand-script away back. The whole business
of potential mis-interpretation / mis-transcription of names and words in an old
document can spread some doubt over the validity of an otherwise “primary”
source. In
the early 1980s, I phoned a Cumnock expat living in Guelph, Ontario – Mrs.
Weir. She was organizing a Cumnock expats reunion, which piqued my curiosity,
having returned from a trip there. She was not a McCowan descendant. But she
knew that some McCowans of old were carriers or carters who delivered goods
around the county. This is not written in any of the published Cumnock
histories. She may have heard a story about William McCowan, an Old Cumnock
carrier in the early nineteenth century, perhaps a story about William’s
newsworthy legal spat with the hat dealer in the 1820s. Or maybe she was a
genealogical researcher who took down notes of historical events outside her own
family. My point is, Mrs. Weir could have written this down in a book and it
would really be no less reliable than whatever Rev. John Warrick wrote about the
1790s in his 1899 classic “History of
Old Cumnock”. For the most part, local histories – even those written a
century ago such as by Rev. Warrick -- are “secondary sources”. They are
considered less reliable – of likely somewhat lesser “truthfulness” --
than primary sources such as birth records, diaries, letters, testaments and
recorded court proceedings. If
a person’s clear memories of recent events are the ultimate in historical
truthfulness, where do so-called “legends” fit into the truthfulness
spectrum? Are all legends complete hogwash – every single one? Perhaps. Or
maybe a particular true fact around a real event simply got stretched a
little... and then a little more over time as storytellers and oral history
gatherers had fun with it... In
Scotland’s clan histories there are several legends about how some bold fellow
saved the king from certain death... so the king then granted him a barony of
land and other privileges of clan chieftainship. By way of example... someone
saved King Robert the Bruce from a vicious bull – and he was granted the lands
of Philiphaugh and founded the Turnbull clan. And the first chief of the Baird
clan was given his territories after saving King William the Lion from the tusks
of a wild boar... Continued
in The Hog-Score in the Great Rink of Time: Ramblings on Curling
-- With John Rae McCowan ** Beware -- So-called "eyewitness accounts" of a particular event sometimes conflict with each each other. Which of the contradictory accounts is closer to the truth? And. what in fact is the truth?
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