When I was in school, I was always being hounded by my Math teachers to show my work. It didn’t matter whether or not the answer I had arrived at was correct, because they were always hounding me to show them how I arrived at that answer in the first place.
Numbers are easy to trace backwards to the beginning because there is a set logic that they will follow. 3 will always follow 2 by 1, and if you add 10 and 10, obviously you will get 20. There isn’t anything too complex about that.
But what about tracing a path backwards that follows no logic? How can you show your work when doing that?
Wikipedia defines Abstract thinking (or abstraction) as:
…the process or result of generalization by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose…
You’re not getting into the finer details, but your getting at the basics of the idea that you are trying to convey by reducing everything to its simplest definition.
For those of who want a general idea, abstract thinking is the way to go. And for our purposes here, this is exactly the path we are going to choose.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be able to determine that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But can a straight line always be drawn from the end result to the ignition source?
Familybmd.com lists steps that you can take to begin tracing your family history, which are:
» Record what you know
» Check out your photographs
» Check certificates
» Ask family members
» Join your local Family History Society
» Begin search
We can use this basic set of first steps, and change them to any given situation. Let’s say we want to trace back the steps from any finished product to its basic beginning. We would:
» Record what we know about the product
» Read any information we can find about the product in question
» Find any documents that there may be on the product
» Ask people who have used the product
» Search the internet for any available information that we may not have
» Start a formalized search with any and all information we have come up with
This is just a generalized model of a list that we would use, because each item we would be tracing back would be different. Generally speaking:
» Objects can be traced back to an idea or an event.
» Events can be traced back to a person, group of people, or thought.
» Thoughts can be traced back to a certain time-line, person, or circumstance.
» Circumstances can be traced back to a certain time-line, person, or people.
» People can be traced back to certain time-lines, or in most cases, other people.
If I were to trace my steps back from Point Z to Point A, I would go about it in such a way that would lead me to the steps that I took that got me to Point Z in the first place.
Question: How did I get to my car. Answer: I walked from my room, to the hall-way, to the living room, to the garage, to the car.
In these simplest of exercises, I am ruling out things like motive and need. I’m simply going though the basic steps of how I actually got to my car. The reasoning behind why I was at my car in the first place can be traced for any later purposes we may need, but for now, we are simply looking at the basic facts.
Tracing motives for the events in question can be very complex or quite simple. Why was at my car? I had to go to the store to buy some milk. Why did I have to do this? Because the milk I already have is expired. Why is it expired? Because perishables only have a certain amount of shelf life before they are no longer any good. Why does this happen? Because time ages everything, and the “thing” in question becomes un-edible in the state that it goes to once it has expired. Why does this happen? Because the structure of the item in question breaks down, bacteria begins to form, and for the most part, people don’t enjoy drinking spoiled or expired milk.
And we could go on and on for a very long time following that train of thought. But for our simplest of answers, we already know the motive behind being at the car in the first place.
Because the milk had expired, and I wanted to get some new milk.
You don’t necessarily have to know all of the facts to know the facts that matter.