18 March 2014 Ralph and Robert are strangers. They have just "met" through a DNA testing company ...

17 March 2014 Good historical researchers follow the Good Reporter Principle: For every source we use, we ask (in every conceivable way) those basic 5 questions that guide every good reporter: Who? What? When? Where? and Why should I believe it? Answering this last question means that we ...

16 March 2014

Is this a venial sin or a mortal one? Fifteen years ago, when URLs were new to citations, style manuals called for placing them in angle brackets ...

15 March 2014 How we cite a title can vary according to the circumstances. Of course, "vary" doesn't mean "Oh, just do whatever you please." There are long-established rules that cover those variances—and very good reasons why they exist ...

14 March 2014
How great would it be if every state had a database like this one? ...

13 March 2014
The role of a historian is to interpret the past. We gather evidence, analyze it, correlate it, reach conclusions, and synthesize our findings so that history becomes meaningful to others. But our interpretations cannot be any better than the evidence we gather—or our understanding of the records we use. How can EE help you?

12 March 2014
The word warrant has two legal contexts that affect our historical research: (1) a promise or guarantee; (2) an order issued by a governmental body or officer. In documents of past centuries, the word is typically used in one of the following ways ...

11 March 2014
The heirs of Sam Snodgrass are locked in a court battle for oil rights to the land he left at his death in 1929. Each line accuses the other of ...

10 March 2014
Within sound historical studies, statements about dates, events, identities, places, relationships, and similar matters are frequently prefaced by qualifiers. However, adding a cautionary word, without an explanation, is a cop out. ...

9 March 2014
In common usage, we often see slashes (virgules) used in dates—e.g., 1/5/1777 or 1 March 1747/48. Like many punctuation marks, this one is covered by rules that seem nit-picky until we learn the rationales behind them.