Ryan Littrell

I like to read books about other people’s search for their ancestors which is probably why I picked up "Reunion: A Search for Ancestors". The author is from the US but some of my ancestors seem to come from the same general area of Scotland as his did. He was on the track of McDonalds in the Highlands and Western Isles. I was able to picture where he was, as I’ve gone to many of the same places, like the Clan Donald Centre on Skye. He was also able to trace his ancestry back to Glencoe and, while I’ve not done that, I remember my visit to Glencoe very well.

He chose an interesting way of narrating his story, alternating chapters about his genealogical search with chapters about the history of the different lines of the McDonald clan and the genocide that altered the people of Glencoe forever.… (mehr)

Ryan Littrell wanted to learn more about his McDonald ancestors so he began searching. This book documents that search. Interwoven among the chapters detailing the search is a thread about the history of his Scottish ancestors. I had some issues with the book. In the first half of the book, the author was using very few records before trying to make a jump back to another state or county. In fact, he even started trying to use Y-DNA before he really knew enough about his own ancestors for it to be all that useful. I suppose in some ways his research was like that of most beginning genealogists, but I was more interested in the records he used and the story they told than how he went about his search. A little before the halfway point in the book, he began using genealogists in other parts of the country to help him in his search. It really wasn't until after the halfway point in the book that I felt that he finally had the hang of genealogical research and was using critical thinking and performing that reasonably exhaustive search for records. He also hired additional genealogists to help in his search. I can only surmise that his search was reasonably exhaustive. He did at least begin to soundly reason arguments and deal with conflicting evidence; however, the book lacks proper genealogical documentation. There are only a handful of footnotes in the book. There is a bibliography at the end of the book, but most of the materials on it are historical books that helped fill in background, particularly on the Scottish portion of the book. While I appreciate Littrell's efforts to tell his ancestors' story, this book just didn't do that for me. The interweaving of the two stories did not work as well in non-fiction as it does as a device in fiction. I want to see the citations to the records. I want a properly documented genealogical narrative that is well-written. I cringed several times when sentences were incomplete or not well-constructed. While this book was not one for me, it may be one that some genealogical researchers will find interesting.… (mehr)