Is Name Research an Art or a Service?

[Nancy Bradford-Reid]

>Last night, my lord Archibald and I were working on heraldic commentary,
>as he is Nautilus Pursuivant for Elfsea, and the question came up within
>the context of commenting.
>
>When one researches names, naming practices, etc., and then uses that to
>help other gentles with perfecting their persona names, why is it that
>the helping of the other gentles is sometimes rewarded (maybe even years
>later...) with some sort of Kingdom Award, but the actual researching,
>the digging through massive piles of information, of dictionaries, of
>annals and church registers, and so on, isn't ever even brought up for a
>Sable Thistle in Research?
>
-snip-

Actually, there is a Laurel in this Kingdom who was elevated to that rank
for research in another Kingdom, there is another one who was elevated for
scholarship.  Perhaps it depends upon whose eye you catch and also how your
work is documented.  Just doing the research might not be enough, but if
you produce papers, articles, *Compleat Anachronist*s, etc. then you or
they might be recognized.  At this point I refuse to get into the
philosophical discussion of whether it's an art or a service, because it
would probably cause a major flame-out, but I will say that I believe that
if a person is researching names for submission only that it is a service
and should be recognized as such, just as good newsletters are a service.
These were not period arts, they are services to our Society.

>Emher ni Maille, Elfsea

Catherine

Nan Bradford-Reid        |HL Catherine Harwell, CIM, AST
The Department of English|Barony of Bryn Gwlad, Kingdom of Ansteorra
The University of Texas  |~Simplicitas sum Venustas~
512-471-4991             |Argent, on a fret vert, a rose gules,

n.b-reid at mail.utexas.edu |barbed and seeded or.