Genealogists as a ‘Community of Records

Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History1 presents the concept of a "community of records" as it applies to native Virgin Islanders. A "community of records" refers both to how records are (re-)created or reused within a community as well as its contextualization of records (through memory and narrative construction). This paper examines whether this intellectual construct and lens can be applied to other social groups and their relationships to records. Specifically, this article explores the connections between genealogists and records—how genealogists reuse, combine, interpret, and disseminate records to create a coherent narrative of their families' lives that gives added meaning to their own lives.