Each election cycle reminds me that our ancestors own political dealings can be a good source of information about them. Unfortunately, there is no wide scale census of political party affiliations for a genealogist to examine. While names can become clues (as a child named “Andrew Jackson” might indicate the family leans towards Jackson’s Democratic party), they are only one part of a complex area of study. An ancestor’s political affiliations might be determined only after careful genealogical and historical analysis of existing records and a contextual understanding of their world. Not everyone was involved with politics on the national or even state level and most ancestors will reveal their strongest affiliations in local party politics.
