Does the Doctrine of Uniformitarianism Apply to Genealogy?

World geologic provinces Oceanic crust   0–20 Ma   20–65 Ma   >65 Ma Geologic provinces   Shield   Platform   Orogen   Basin   Large igneous province   Extended crust  USGS - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/crust/maps.php

Uniformitarianism, in geology, the doctrine suggesting that Earth's geologic processes acted in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity in the past as they do in the present and that such uniformity is sufficient to account for all geologic change. See https://www.britannica.com/science/uniformitarianism

Unfortunately, I think that many genealogists or family historians believe firmly in the principle of Uniformitarianism as it applies to their ancestral lines. It may seem obvious, but people are not rocks. As a matter of fact, the doctrine of Uniformitarianism is no longer as firmly entrenched in the geological community as it once was. Geologists now accept the fact that many of the earth's changes occurred suddenly and catastrophically. Families are also subject to sudden and catastrophic changes and just as with geological changes, the changes in families may not be obviously recorded.

I was recently helping one of my fellow missionaries at the BYU Family History Library with a problem identifying one of her remote ancestors. This person just seemed to appear suddenly in a marriage record from the early 1800s in Ohio. After a rather extensive search, it appeared that this person had no antecedents. The ancestor had an uncommon name and so it was not a matter of separating her from many people of the same name. The ancestor's name was recorded in marriage records as well as in local histories. She was supposedly born in New York state, but there is no record of a family with that name at the time she was born.

In reality, the situation is not unusual. People do change their names. Children are born out of wedlock and both parents may never be identified. Children are left at churches and other organizations without identification. In early years, children were adopted often without any record of their original parents. The list of these types of occurrences could go on and on. We really have no reason to believe that every person is an identifiable set of parents.

If you look at the map above, it appears rather obvious that the European and African continents both conveniently fit into the map of North and South America. But for many years, the idea of continental drift was actively opposed by the geological community. Likewise today, many genealogists insist on searching for the "missing ancestor" even when it appears that there is no record substantiating the next generation. In some cases, the researcher is so desperate to extend the family line they began adding people simply because they have the same surname.

We even have a name for this situation we call them brick walls. Now, my experience is that most brick walls can be breached by a concerted research effort. However, all family lines eventually end. Perhaps, we should modernize our genealogical thinking to accept the fact that even the historical records we do find may not be absolutely correct. Finding the next person in the ancestral line is certainly a challenge. Of course, there are methodologies available today that can overcome traditional end of line situations. But, eventually, we do reach a point where we need to lay the problem aside for a while and come back to with a fresh perspective. We may also need to accept the unexpected.