Abstract
Family history has become a significant contributor to public and social histories exploring and (re)discovering the micro narratives of the past. Due to the growing democratisation of digital access to documents and the proliferation of family history media platforms, family history is now challenging traditional custodianship of the past. Family history research has moved beyond the realms of archives, libraries and community-based history societies to occupy an important space in the public domain. This paper reports on some of the findings of a recent study into the historical thinking and research practices of Australian family historians. Using a case study methodology, it examines the proposition that researching family history has major impacts on historical understanding and consciousness using the analytic frameworks of Jorn Rüsen’s Disciplinary Matrix and his Typology of Historical Consciousness. This research not only proposes these major impacts but argues that some family historians are shifting the historical landscape through the dissemination of their research for public consumption beyond traditional family history audiences.
Highlights
History research is rapidly changing, and influencing, the historical landscape
Revolutionised by technological advances, family history research has moved beyond the realms of archives, libraries and community-based history societies to occupy an important space in the public domain
Using a case study methodology, we examine the proposition that some family historians are mirroring the work of academic historians and developing advanced historical consciousness by considering their disciplinary practices and understandings through an analytic alignment with Jorn Rüsen’s Disciplinary Matrix (Rüsen 1993) and his Typology of Historical Consciousness (Rüsen 1996)
Summary
History research is rapidly changing, and influencing, the historical landscape. While family historians are often self-taught, many are able to draw on historical research methodologies, and are skilled and flexible in locating, corroborating, and contextualising a vast array of sources in the compilation of their familial narratives (Kramer 2011; Evans 2021; Shaw 2020). Such narratives shift between the familial and the broader historical sphere, as the past is reformed and retold, and present a diverse range of alternative historical perspectives
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