Narrating the Past, Enhancing the Present: The Associations Among Genealogical Communication, Family Communication Patterns, and Family Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Using the theories of communicated narrative sense-making and family communication patterns as a basis, this study examined (a) the characteristics of family genealogists, (b) dimensions of genealogical communication, and (c) the extent to which such communication predicts both immediate and extended family satisfaction. Data were collected from 423 participants (recruited in classrooms and online) who completed an online survey. Results revealed four genealogical communication behaviors: (a) frequent engagement, (b) coherent perspectives (i.e., regarding family history), (c) personal research, and (d) dark side. Family communication patterns predicted these genealogical communication behaviors, which in turn predicted family satisfaction, with genealogical communication dimensions serving as significant mediators. Among the identified dimensions of genealogical communication, coherent perspectives served as a particularly consistent predictor and mediator regarding extended and immediate family satisfaction.

Acknowledgment

This article contains work prepared by Mandy Hendry for her honor’s thesis under the direction of Andrew Ledbetter.

Notes

¹ One reviewer asked us to justify our decision to measure the ISM behaviors via retrospective surveys. When developing the ISM coding scheme, Koenig Kellas and Trees (2006) emphasized narrative sense-making as a joint family behavior that reveals co-construction of meaning. Observational research can elaborate how such construction occurs in the moment as family members place their stories in a mutually-authored narrative structure. We value such work greatly and we recognize that observational research offers insight into joint storytelling that retrospective surveys cannot provide (such as insight into “the dynamism of turn-taking”; Thompson & Schrodt, 2015, p. 423). But all methodologies have strengths and weaknesses, and observational research is no exception. Like Thompson and Schrodt, our study sought to “incorporate [the ISM behaviors] into larger, theoretical models of family interaction that include cognitive constructs (e.g., schemas)” (p. 413). Purely observational research cannot assess cognition which, by its nature, is unobservable by a watching researcher. Likewise, observational research provides much insight into specific stories told in the researcher’s lab, but is impractical for assessing storytelling patterns across multiple interactions in naturally-occurring contexts. Retrospective surveys are well-suited for that task. Thus, as did Thompson and Schrodt, we decided retrospective surveys suited the aims of this particular study. Of course, retrospective surveys possess other weaknesses (e.g., lack of contextual information), and we refer the reader to other resources for discussion of them (e.g., Baxter & Babbie, 2004, p. 199). We do not offer a survey approach as a replacement for observational research, and indeed we adamantly reject any such call for one method to supplant the other; rather, we concur with Thompson and Schrodt that both approaches should symbiotically enhance each other (perhaps occasionally in the same study) as researchers seek to understand family narratives.