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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
Initial Development of the Project
I carried out field research in Gonja during the summer of 1969 and in 1972/73. The richness of both oral and archival information became something of a liability when I started writing up my research because of the practical difficulties involved in storing such a large quantity of information in a retrievable form. Drawing upon my work with Wilks, I created cross-indexed files to all articles and books, unpublished articles, archival material, and field interviews. At the same time, all of the above materials were coded so that they could be retrieved quickly on the basis of filed call numbers. Information derived from these materials was then carded and on each card the source of the information was identified by code number. This coding and carding enabled me to gain quick access to my sources of information, but I remained unable to handle rapidly the discrete pieces of information found in these sources. This problem was solved through computerized handling of information. In the following paper I shall present an account of the development of that capability and evaluate its effectiveness and potential in historical research.
1. The research in 1969 was supported by a grant from H.E.W. to Northwestern University and the University of Ghana, and that in 1972/73 by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program. I wish to thank Ivor Wilks, Visho Sharma, Barbara Havira, and my wife Ann for reading drafts of this article, an earlier version of which was presented to the Ghana Symposium, “Recent Research in the History of Ghana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” at SOAS, 15 April 1983.
2. See Haight, , “Bole and Gonja. Contributions to the History of Northern Ghana,” (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1981).Google Scholar Part I “Bole and the Crisis of 1917;” Part II “Bole and Gonja: The Eighteenth-Century Background;” Part III “Bole Genealogies and Pedigrees: An Exercise in Computerized Manipulation of Information;” Part IV “Bole and Gonja Interviews.”
3. Consistencies and inconsistencies in information can be more clearly shown when using the computer as described below. Thus one can more reasonably infer a greater or lesser probability of the accuracy of a given hypothesis or the truthfulness of a particular statement.
4. See Haight, , “Bole and Gonja,” II, Key to Codes and Rec/Types, 389–92.Google Scholar
5. Ibid., II, Charts III.1 and III.2.
6. Ibid., II, Charts III.1.A, III.1.B, and III.1.C respectively.
7. Ibid., II, Charts III.2.A, III.2.B, and III.2.C. respectively.
8. Sorts based upon codes in column 4 have not yet been written, though they are forthcoming.
9. Haight, , “Bole and Gonja,” II, Charts III.2.D, III.2.E, and III.2.F respectively.Google Scholar
10. Ibid., II, Charts III.3 (GNLPRC51) and III.4 (GNL053).
11. These were abstracted from the more complete set of charts found in ibid., II, Charts III.3 (genealogies) and III.4 (pedigrees).
12. A working definition of “pedigree” is: an individual's ancestry portrayed in a particular line. We have chosen to recreate pedigrees for each Individual, first through their father and then through their mother. For the purposes of this paper, we are using the word “genealogy” to represent the known descendants of an individual in all lines. The difference between a pedigree (ascending generations) and a genealogy (descending generations) is thus readily seen.
13. National Archives of Ghana, Accra, ADM/56/1/201.
14. Haight, , “Bole and Gonja,” II, 513.Google Scholar
15. Jones, D.H., “Jakpa and the Foundations of Gonja,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 6 (1962), 2.Google Scholar
16. Haight, , “Bole and Gonja,” II, Charts III.3.A and III.3.BGoogle Scholar (genealogies) and III.4.B and III.4.I (pedigrees).
17. At Bole there has been a leader of the Friday prayer who has no formal title, though he is sometimes referred to as the “Jamani” imam. Also Haight, , “Bole and Gonja,” II, Charts III.3. C - III.3.GGoogle Scholar (genealogies), and III.4.A, III.4.C, III.4. D, and III.4.H (pedigrees).
18. Ibid., II, III.4.El - III.4.E6.