What’s Next

My goal in this blog section is to explore our stories beyond the limits of officially recorded, person-centered data. I use my reconstruction of my family’s journey through the Nazi occupation of Budapest as an example of a personal narrative within history, and I use Szombathely as an example of a community narrative within history.

At this point, I plan to have four categories (see Note). The content of all categories is currently about 50% completed.

1. How to place your ancestors in history - this content is a series of posts regarding chronologies (what / when / where), acting systems (who / what / when / where), and pattern systems (where / why - culture and traditions).
Category: Education

2. To synchronize the person-focus of genealogy with a more extensive place-focus from history. I suggest that the history of a place is a history of its people.
Category: GEDCOM

3. To explore the story of a group of women’s journeys spanning nearly two turbulent centuries of industrialization, migration from a small town to the capital, two world wars, the Holocaust, and another migration from Europe to Canada. The story is told through four generations of women: my great-grandmother Rozália Günsberger, my grandmother Regina Günsberger Ébenspanger, my mother Margit Ébenspanger Balázs, my aunt Lily Ébenspanger, and me.
Category: Book

4. About systems — The foundation for much of the above is rooted in General Systems Theory and Cybernetics (GST/C) as they apply to human social systems. This has been my focus — learning, teaching, and practicing — for the past 50 years. Elements of GST/C are integral to all three sections mentioned earlier.
Category: GST/C

The above material will lead to the following outcomes:

1. A number of educational tools — selections from the categories would provide a variety of tools.

2. A third-party GEDCOM app (if such a thing is possible) would provide for the expansion of the “place” identifier in genealogy programs into integrated place-based historical documentation.

3. A book about the story of womens’ journey — I am most hesitant about this outcome, considering all the time involved from writing to publication. Maybe, if I write it bit by bit as blog posts, I would be able to tell each person’s story within its historical context, as well as explore the dynamics of my family as a system; i.e., as communications, transactions, and organizations among the members (sub-systems) of the family.