Editor's Notes: Historical Voyeurism, or Reading Between the Lines

EDITOR'S NOTES HI TORICAL VOYEURISM, OR READING BE1WEEN THE LINE W e hope to find information about our ancestors in the documents we use, but too often we are blinded by the idea that information about our ancestors must have their names attached to it. In this issue we find several articles that allow us to envision past the lives and times more fully, documents that tell us more than the words on the page. Even the pro Jonna language of divorce petitions reveals information about individuals in particular and lifestyles in general. For example, the problem of the vanishing and purportedly deceased spouse was so prevalent that Pennsylvania passed a law to define what happened if the surviving half of the couple remarried-and the vanished spouse then returned. If you've served on the governing board of your church, you'll find yourself easily reading between the lines of the group dynamic of the Christian Church of Chester County. The fact that certain issues even required a resolution by the church indicates that someone disapproved of what someone else had done or wanted to do. The specific wording of the resolutions suggests topics that were discussed before the consensus was reached. Readers with an ancestor who belonged to a small church in early nineteenth-century Pennsylvania will be interested in the details of building construction, publicity, ladies' circles, and prayer groups. The language of the 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery reveals, between the lines, both concerns raised and compromises reached. The 1788 amendment makes it clear that there was not universal acceptance of the Act, and that many tried to circumvent the law. The subtext about the much-married Naomi Hinman isn't about marriage-it is about mortality. In the record-rich area in which she resided, we find documentation of the existence of other marriages, other spouses. This should raise a red flag of caution for researchers whose ancestors lived in other high-mortality zones in early America. In history class, we saw wars as kings and generals, battles and treaties. In genealogy, we see wars as pension applications and muster rolls. The passes issued by Pennsylvania's Revolutionary governments let us see war as a divider and disrupter of families and businesses. There is more to documents than names in the index or words on the page-if we take the time to read between the lines. Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG 194 Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Vol. 44 (2006)