Systems lineage documentation

Summary

A documentary practice for making intellectual and practitioner histories inspectable without turning every contact into a genealogy.

Implications for practice

Systems fields are unusually vulnerable to compressed origin stories. Public trails of events, citations, courses and collaborations permit stronger and weaker lineage claims to be separated.

Key distinctions

• contact versus influence
• citation versus adoption
• shared institution versus shared theory
• primary archive versus independent history

Historical development

• history of ideas
• archival practice
• systems-community documentation

Ideas it depends on

• source criticism
• provenance

Further developments

• better lineage maps
• contestable historical claims

Connections to practice

• research
• curation
• teaching

Common confusions

• A dense network of documented associations is not itself a school.

Further checks

• Add more archival and oral-history sources from outside current well-documented networks.

Recorded connections

Check the wording, direction, scope, sources, and status of a connection before relying on it.

• Systems lineage documentation is supported by Coevolving Innovations

  Status: accepted · Relation: supported by

  Limited to the named sources. Documentary connection, conceptual influence, teaching use and effectiveness are distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.15 public sources

  • David Ing — Coevolving Innovations publications (checked)

• David Ing uses Systems lineage documentation

  Status: accepted · Relation: uses

  Limited to the named sources. Documentary connection, conceptual influence, teaching use and effectiveness are distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.15 public sources

  • David Ing — Coevolving Innovations publications (checked)
  • Knowing Better via Systems Thinking (checked)

• Systems lineage documentation is supported by Systems Thinkers

  Status: accepted · Relation: supported by

  Limited to the named sources. Documentary connection, conceptual influence, teaching use and effectiveness are distinct claims.

  Locator: Release 0.15 public sources

  • Systems Thinkers — Springer record (checked)

• Systems lineage documentation provides typed documentary methods for Lineage recovery

  Status: accepted · Relation: develops

  This is an atlas practice connection, not a claim that one named author originated lineage recovery.

  Locator: Public systems-lineage and editorial sources

  • On boundaries and disciplines: constructing a set of key systems thinkers (checked)
  • The Necessary Tangle running feedback: canon, closure and patriarchy (checked)

Sources and passage locators

• David Ing — Coevolving Innovations publications (checked)
• Knowing Better via Systems Thinking (checked)
• David Ing — ISSS presidential address (checked)
• Systems Thinkers — Springer record (checked)
• On boundaries and disciplines: constructing a set of key systems thinkers (checked)
• The Necessary Tangle running feedback: canon, closure and patriarchy (checked)

Cite this entry

Taylor, B. P. (2026). Systems lineage documentation. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/practice_systems_lineage_documentation/

Include the release and review status when you quote or reuse this account.