When many people think about genealogical research, they are likely to think of people conducting a methodical search through various types of records in search of information about their ancestors. Genealogical research does involve a lot of organization and planning, and most of the time the tried and true methods of research are used repeatedly to lead the researcher to the records that they seek. Sometimes, though, things happen during the course of genealogical research that seem to defy explanation.
For example, during your search for one ancestor, you find another ancestor that you previously did not know existed. Or, out of nowhere, you get a hunch that you should go and look in some random place for an ancestor’s records. When you follow that hunch, you end up breaking through a brick wall that you had been trying to break using traditional research methods for years. Are these “coincidences” that happen to genealogists as they search for their ancestors just that, coincidences?
It is possible that there is more to these seemingly random occurrences than mere dumb luck. Two very interesting genealogy books explore the topic of “Psychic Genealogy”. The books, “Psychic Roots: Serendipity and Intuition in Genealogy” and “More Psychic Roots, Further Adventures in Serendipity and Intuition in Genealogy”, are not written by a psychic. They are written by renowned genealogist Henry Z. Jones. In his books, Jones shares stories of instances where he received unexpected “assistance” in his genealogical research. When he was writing his books, he invited other genealogists to tell him their stories about similar occurrences, and they did. The books contain accounts by quite a few professional genealogists of “assistance” and “discoveries” that have happened in the course of their research. The sheer number of stories that are shared goes a long way towards lending much credibility to Jones’ theory that our ancestors want us to find them and will sometimes “help” us to do that in seemingly unexplainable ways.
The possibility that there is a psychic dimension to genealogy does make sense. Not only are some of the ways in which we locate information about our ancestors difficult to explain without allowing for that possibility, the deep feeling of connectedness to our ancestors that we experience as a part of genealogical research can not accurately be explained as a simple result of having gained information about them. There seems to be something more to it, and Henry Z. Jones appears to have experienced it and documented it in his books.