A Country School Teacher and Microhistory

Microhistory involves the study of ever smaller pieces of information, some from private and others from public sources, that together form a ‘textual environment’ that nuances the subject under study. It was refuted by one of its main proponents when current research negated his discoveries ¹ but more recently, scholars have found this methodology fruitful.²

While it is particularly useful in the study of crime and criminals for whom much diverse data is kept, microhistory is also useful in the study of local and family history where people collect, analyse, share and distribute their work, the whole making sense of the minutiae! These small pieces of data, when aggregated, analysed and reported on, may provide greater understanding of earlier times, its customs and habits, and general lifestyles of those not necessarily destined to write about themselves for posterity.

How is the technique demonstrated in a family history biography?