Digital Genealogy as Second-Wave Digital Humanities

In the first major engagement with Aberdeenshires rural society since Carters The Poor Mans Country of 1979, Riddells study of Northeast Scotland encourages readers to consider the vast potential held by Digital Genealogy for second-wave Digital Humanities. Often overlooked in contemporary historical scholarship, this study carves out a place for Digital Genealogy in academia. Riddell constructs a new lens to examine rural society in the nineteenth century, through which he extends and challenges Carters analysis. In recovering a breadth of people and their social networks through prosopographical data, the book reveals the agency of individuals who left minimal records. Riddell not only puts forward a fresh perspective on the social structures of Scotlands north-eastern society but informs a discussion on the nature of Britishness both within concepts of a developed western civilisation and beyond them. This book will interest a broad readership; Scottish history enthusiasts, pursuers of Digital Genealogy and, scholars and students of the Digital Humanities will all find value in this study.