Benson and Miranda at our kennel.                    photo: Hamilton

Mark and I are now on sabbatical from publishing The Fan Hitch quarterly journal as we undertake the digitization of the life’s work – more than sixty years worth – of our mentor and beloved friend, Benson Ginsburg. He passed away at the age of ninety-eight in August 2016. One of the founding fathers of the field of Behavior Genetics, Dr. Ginsburg spent his lifetime studying genetic, social and biochemical influences on the behavior of mice; wild, domestic and hybridized (beagle x coyote) canids; and humans.

Beagle x coyote hybrids, Artemis (L, female) and Shylock (R, male) in our kennel,
 were part of a PhD thesis about what causes genes to be expressed.
                                                                                                  photo: Hamilton

Dr. Ginsburg not only facilitated the transfer of two of his university department’s retired and socialized grey wolves (one via the Smithsonian) to our kennel, he also welcomed us into his world, his family, his academic circle. The opportunities we two mere “laypersons” in the field of behavior genetics have enjoyed and benefitted from – our informal education in his fields of expertise, a better understanding of canid behavior, the expanded orbit of knowledgeable friends and other contacts, and the direction our lives took leading us to where we are now – we attribute to Dr. Benson Ginsburg.

Our first wolf Tewa and her young playmate Diana an Alaskan Malamute pup.
                                                                                    photo: Hamilton

The aspects of this project are technical and demanding of concentration, planning and time. Some of the older material is quite frail, requiring special handling. Trying to focus simultaneously on both our role in the Ginsburg Archives Project and quarterly publication of The Fan Hitch journal would not do justice to either. At this time we have chosen to work on paying down the enormous debt of gratitude we owe to Dr. Ginsburg, his family, colleagues and former students. Dr. Ginsburg’s work, begun in the 1940s, remains timeless and valid. Our hope is that the enormous body of material we and others are working to digitally preserve will one day be accepted by a university or professional organization’s website for all the world to explore and to enjoy.

There is much work to accomplish. It is impossible to determine how long our part in this project will take to complete. In the mean time please stroll though nearly nineteen complete years of articles from The Fan Hitch journal by visiting the Index of Articles by Subject. And don't forget to check out The Fan Hitch website’s other links for enlightening information. Of course, feel free to continue to contact us with your questions and comments.

As we have done in the past, if there is any urgent news to share, we will quickly post it directly to The Fan Hitch website’s home page.