Thesis
Who counts as an ancestor? technological advancement, documentary evidence, and changing genealogical standards in American lineage societies, 1970 - 2020
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2026
- Thesis identifier
- T17984
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 202060505
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Since their nineteenth-century founding, American hereditary organizations have embodied what this thesis terms the paradox of democratic exclusion: the tension between institutions that celebrate patriotic heritage and democratic values while restricting membership through bloodline-based documentation requirements. Scholars, including Morgan, Weil, and Teachout, have examined how these organizations reinforced racial hierarchies and shaped nationalist identity, yet existing scholarship concentrates overwhelmingly on the period before 1970 and has not positioned hereditary organizations as one bounded subculture within a diverse genealogical landscape that includes African American, Jewish, Mormon, Indigenous, ethnic diaspora, and professional genealogical communities. This thesis addresses a historiographical gap by posing five interconnected research questions that examine the period from 1970 to 2020. These questions investigate how generational transitions, economic resources, cultural movements around race and identity, genealogy-focused media, and the emergence of genetic genealogy collectively reshaped individual engagement with family history and institutional responses from lineage societies. The research employs a mixed-methods design combining survey data from 1,164 participants, interviews with 37 genealogical practitioners and organization members, and comparative case studies of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) and the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD), drawing on organizational proceedings, archival records, published histories, and press coverage. The study extends preliminary findings from a 2018 Postgraduate Diploma dissertation that identified significant lag times in the propagation of genealogical corrections and inconsistent reviewer standards within a single hereditary organization. The findings reveal that hereditary organizations function as a specific, bounded subculture within the broader genealogical ecosystem, operating through multiple overlapping mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, including documentary privilege, economic barriers, and a persistent gap between national inclusion policies and local chapter practices. Member-level experiences of discrimination (14.0%) exceed chapter-level discrimination (8.1%), indicating that formal policy changes have not uniformly transformed organizational culture at the interpersonal level. At the same time, the evidence demonstrates genuine contemporary efforts toward inclusion that resist a simple characterization of these institutions as unchanged vestiges of nineteenth-century exclusion. The paradox of democratic exclusion persists, but its contemporary manifestations reflect institutional evolution rather than stasis. This thesis contributes to genealogical historiography by distinguishing between structural limitations inherent to bloodline-based membership and addressable barriers that organizations can work to mitigate, offering a framework that challenges both uncritical celebration and categorical condemnation. The findings carry broader implications for understanding how voluntary associations balance tradition and adaptation, how gatekeeping practices operate within organizations that claim democratic purposes, and how one influential genealogical subculture navigated a period of profound social and technological change in American society.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Young, John
- Ellis, Mark
- Resource Type
- DOI
Las relaciones
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PDF of Thesis T17984 | 2026-06-16 | Público | Descargar |