Many of the more snooty historians - you know the type - look down their noses at Family History. They view it as parochial stuff, fit only for amateurs.
How wrong and muddled headed they are!
While family history is usually biased stuff (who wants to trumpet the deeds of, say, Mad Uncle Otto, the Highgate Strangler of 1820?), it involves detailed examination of sources.
Family history also demands a nuanced understanding of records and archive research - sadly lacking with many historians who, instead, like to centre their efforts on dull number-crunching exercises.
If handled with care, family history can be as good as any other slice of historical research and its about time many academics reconsider their aloof stance.
