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Tax-exempt? | Communities of Kinship Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier Drawing on Keesee family history, Billingsley reminds us that, contrary to the accepted notion of rugged individuals heeding the proverbial call of the open spaces, kindred groups accounted for most of the migration to the South's interior and boundary lands. In addition, she discusses how, for antebellum southerners, the religious affiliation of one's parents was the most powerful predictor of one's own spiritual leanings, with marriage being the strongest motivation to change them. Billingsley also looks at the connections between kinship and economic and political power, offering examples of how Keesee family members facilitated and consolidated their influence and wealth through kin ties. Piecing together a wide assortment of public and private records that pertain to the Keesee family and shed light on naming practices, residential propinquity, migration patterns, economic and political dealings, and religious interactions, Billingsley offers a model of innovation and subtle analysis for historians. This important new study makes a persuasive case that kinship, particularly in the study of the antebellum South, should be considered a discrete category of analysis complementary to, and potentially as powerful as, race, class, and gender. Carolyn Earle Billingsley earned her doctorate in southern history at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She now lives in Alexander, Arkansas, where she works as an independent historian and professional genealogist. July 2004 ISBN 0820325104 paper • $19.95 ISBN 0820325090 cloth • $49.95232 pp. • 6 x 9 in. • 4 b&w photos • 3 tables • 5 maps • 2 figures2 charts misc. illus."Blood ties, as historically invisible and intricately twisted as strands of DNA, have always been the building blocks of society. In Communities of Kinship, Billingsley maps one strand of the social genome that created the American South, demonstrating why historians will never truly understand society until they genealogically study the individual families who are the genes within the common body." —Robert C. Kenzer, author of Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881"In this fascinating work from start to finish, Billingsley presents her argument, expertly develops the theory, methodology, and evidence, and strongly supports the whole with the Keese family study. Communities of Kinship is for the scholar-historical or genealogical-who hopes, as the author does, that the book will become a 'starting point [for] an ongoing discussion of the place of kinship in historical inquiry.'" —National Genealogical Quarterly"Well written and carefully researched and organized, Communities of Kinship makes a strong case for the value of kinship studies to historical research."-Lauren Ashley Laumen, East Texas Historical Association "Her case for the extensive character of the kinship connections and patterns that helped frame the lives of the white southerners is persuasive, as is her argument that serious genealogical work can effectively reveal connections and patterns likely to remain hidden in other kinds of historical research."-Arkansas Historical Quarterly "The rigor of the research methodology is impressive. . . . She argues convincingly that genealogy offers some useful and underutilized tools for professional historians."-Lorri Glover, The Alabama Review"Makes a convincing case for genealogical methods as a tool for enriching our understanding of the past...[it] is a successful test case, a reminder that careful genealogical research lies at the heart of social history and is capable of rescuing from obscurity the lives of ordinary families."-Georgia Historical Quarterly "This book is full of insights. Billingsley's rehabilitation of genealogical methods is as passionate as it is convincing."-Florida Historical Quarterly |
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