I'm Guilty

Abe F. March wrote: If one is writing a history book, all the information is relevant.

Not necessarily. An overload of precise dates can bog down a narrative. Often as not, "...during the first week of October...." is sufficient.

LC wrote: I learned to stop beating myself up over errors. They eventually get fixed in future editions.

Not a good lesson learned. Errors diminish credibility. With the exception of textbooks and classics, "future editions" are rare. A second printing is not a second edition.

I have difficulty with the idea of "writing around" something. In most instances, information is readily available and research should not be a daunting proposition.

Tory Lynn wrote:

Betty, I've had the pleasure of meeting David Rosenberg. He is even nicer in person as he is on the boards. He is a great speaker as well. I met him during the WOW Wizards of Words conference last year in Scottsdale AZ.

I had the great privilege to have my second novel in the First Ark series read and reviewed by Mr David S. Rosenberg. His review is the second one posted here on the PA website:

http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopreviewlist.asp?id=15022

He is a wonderful man, and I had the great pleasure of reading his first novel "No Shortage of Evil". I'd highly recommend it to everyone here if you haven't already checked it out...

I also read David's book and found it quite good.

Carol

E. Don Harpe wrote:

You have obviously written quite a bit, and yet, unless I have missed some posts, which is very possible, we don't know what any of those things are.

Hi Don, I'm no one special and if I've given the impression that I've written extensively, sorry, because I haven't. I also try to avoid giving advice, so if I've come across as doing that, sorry about that, too.

Who am I, I'm a 40-something chick who teaches college. I've written one non-fiction reference book, it has been in print for 19 years and the sixth edition came out three months ago. I wrote a textbook that came out about a year and a half ago. I use it in my classes, plus it has been adopted at about 30 other colleges. I'm currently writing another textbook, it will be published by Pearson Prentice Hall in 2010.

That's all.

Actually, LC, that's quite a bit. Anyone who describes herself as a "40-something chick" can't be all bad, and that's good enough for me.

I was merely trying, in a bumbling, stumbling kind of way, to say that your writing talent is obvious.

W. Lane Rogers wrote:

Not a good lesson learned. Errors diminish credibility. With the exception of textbooks and classics, "future editions" are rare. A second printing is not a second edition.

I have difficulty with the idea of "writing around" something. In most instances, information is readily available and research should not be a daunting proposition.

Well, not to belabor the point, but I didn't set out to make mistakes, they just happened, lol. Research isn't daunting, but the amount of it, plus doing and coordinating all the illustrations, captions, and everything else, is.

My books have ended up eternal WIPs, anyhow. An advantage of the non-fic being in print for so long (over 63,000 copies sold) is that strangers are happy to point out my mistakes, I don't have to find them myself anymore, lol.

Hey Don, thanks for the nice words, btw, I meant to tell you that I listened to a couple of your songs from a link you posted awhile back, and thought they were GREAT!

I'm thinking about adding a disclaimer in my next book...

"25 intentional typos were included in this work. For those who find them all, I will send a coupon for a free Happy Meal."

Not only does that excuse my errors, I will be prepared for that second edition!

I find writing historical fiction much easier than writing pure nonfiction, although I am as precise with research when writing in each genre. But I feel under much more pressure when writing history without the fiction thrown in, and now am concerned about where permission is needed, although my resources are well documented.

Ann, regarding the historical fiction writing you are doing, some of the joy is putting puzzle pieces together, and when they fit, the story falls into place.

Carol

Yes, but finding the pieces may have been easier for you. Your family had a consistency to it, that kept the family stories together. Martha Ann was only eight or nine when her mother, Ailcy, died. The family moved to Texas shortly after the end of the war, and she had a succession of stepmothers, each of whom died in childbirth themselves. No one even knows the exact year or circumstances of Ailcy's death, or even where she was buried. We only know that Ailcy's husband married again in 1864. So, I have to create Ailcy's story based on the available records. I have most of those included in the poem about her in the "Poetry" section here. The histories have found as many puzzle pieces as they are going to, I think. What facts I do have indicate that Martha Ann's grandparents not longer got along, with one side having fought for the North, the other for the South. The northern family stayed in Missouri. The southereners left for Texas, apparently not feeling welcome in that area of Missouri any longer. I have made Ailcy's husband something of a villain, even though he was a minister of sorts. He was six years younger than she, and it looks like he remarried immediately, and seems to have kept all his successive wives pregnant and probably barefoot.

But I know what you mean. For years, the family historians had placed Ailcy and her siblings with a couple from Wilson County, TN during the early 1800's. Nobody was very interested in Ailcy's mother, Elizabeth. She was my primary interest in that generation of a matrilineal history. I kept trying to put the Elizabeth of Wilson County into perspective, and it just didn't work. Eventually, I realized that those genealogists had been following a "red herring," and found another family in nearby Bedford County, TN. Suddenly, as you said, it all fell into place, ages, given names, etc. I even managed to find Elizabeth's mother, Sarah. Now, if I could only learn Sarah's maiden name.....

I am grateful to Abe for his OP here. I feel better about taking so much time putting the book together.

Abe is right and this is a good discussion regarding writing.

I am researching another great-grandmother who committed suicide, all pictures and belongings were destroyed, and she was never to be spoken of again. There is a great deal of very ancient history available which is fascinating, and into an new era of study for me. I also have a great deal of information from later years from a cousin who is not only a good genealogist but an excellent writer. What I am missing is the middle part of this family history.

Yes, the time is worth it. It is not only the writing, but the thinking that goes before and during. I am working on several projects and know they all need more work, are all missing something.

Carol

Nice thoughts, Abe.

Malcolm

I know of the library, Phil. You are right. It is an excellent source. My 5th great-grandmother, "Sarah, the wife," as she appears in a couple of old Virginia court records from 1802, was probably born in or near Henry or Pittsylvania County, VA, sometime around 1780, since the 1802 reocrds are the first that indicate her husband had married. Her first known child was born in Henry County in 1803. That child was my third great-grandmother Ailcy's Aunt Alice aka "Alcy."

Ailcy's mother-in-law is thought to be a native American, too. She was born in Georgia in 1800. That branch of the family moved to Louisiana in 1821, and from there to Missouri in 1838.

One of Ailcy's great-great-grandfathers was a French Huguenot who arrived in Virginia in 1701. Another was an English shipowner, who made several trips to the "New World" before finally settling here in the late 1600's. My ancestors' connection to both of these lines was recently proved through DNA testing. The families converged in Bedford County TN around 1810, and moved together to Missouri about 1832, and lived near the Louisiana family that Ailcy married into in 1850.

Family history is fascinating, isn't it.

Ann

Betty sent me an old Bible she had found at a flea market. It contained over 30 artifacts from obits to locks of hair and poems the owner had cut out of newspapers. I figured out who the owner was and her heritage and that of her husband. But opposite to what we usually encounter, I could not find her descendants. They were all girls, and I traced a couple up through the early 1900s, but could not find their children. I did put the information on several messageboards and recently got a message from someone, but still no information on direct descendants. I know if one was doing genealogy, they would find this Bible a treasure.

And what was interesting is that Betty found the Bible in Florida, and the family was from the Rock Island, Illinois area. I even checked recent social security death records for family names as well as those people from Illinois.

Carol

This is a great thread and has me thinking. I've been doing some research on my maternal grandmother's background because it's fascinating, and my grandmother is still around so I try to pick her brain when she lets me. There are some fascinating stories that I have pieced together over the years, and I was hoping she would fill in some of the blanks. I have also uncovered some really interesting things through geneology research and was trying to fillin those gaps too but these are the skeletons that she is still protecting, so I may not get too far. She had offered to help me out so i actually sent her some written notes and asked her to fill in the blanks (I thought it would give her something to do over the winter too). She read what I sent her, loves it...and says that she'll get to it just as soon as she can...I just can't nail her down for a time frame, because she's, well, she's older than Dick, you see? Anyway, Spring's here, and I know she hasn't got started on this little research project yet, but I don't want these stories to get lost. If nothing else, this is teaching me to be very, very patient.

Family stories are sometimes pretty far out there. When I was little we were forced to a relative's home in Platte County each hot summer for my great-grandmother's birthday. She was scary to a little kid! They lived in a huge two story farm house that she and her husband had built. She had given the house and farm to one of her sons in exchange for lifetime care. (She got a great deal because she lived to be 103!) Sometime in the afternoon each family was ushered into the great lady's bedroom for an audience. I thought it was creepy and I was terrified I would do something wrong because I was always ordered not to! I only remember her saying one thing and it stuck in my confused little mind. She said it to my dad. "Now don't ever forget, honey, that WE are lace curtain Irish." I should have put that in my resume...LOL

The family history of great-grandmother Elizabeth (Fleishman) Dolan's, as written by a relative, was that she lived on a great plantation in Greenbrier County, W. Virginia. They lost everything in the war, Yankees took all of the animals and food and then the carpetbaggers took the plantation for back taxes. The irony was that her dad was returning from the war with gold to pay the taxes but was ambushed only a few miles from home. The robbers took everything except his watch which became a family relic. Dang! We were almost nobility, robbed of our heritage by that war!

My research of this "history" turned up her dad's will and the detailed execution of it. He died of old age, at home, years after the war. He had been wealthy and did own a large plantation. When he died he divided the land between his sons and had everything else sold and the money given to his wife. My great-grandmother received nothing and married a dirt-poor, mountain man with an allergy to work. No Yankees. No carpetbaggers. No ambush. No stealing of the gold that didn't exist. No noble past.

Her brothers staked her family to a move to Missouri and set them up in farming. Her husband William never did overcome his work allergy. He spent most of his time playing with my dad and his other grandchildren. He did, however, always carry a rifle. Everywhere he went. No one knows why. Probably in case someone asked him to do some work...LOL

I must chuckle here. Last night, a cousin from Georgia called me with astounding news! The mystery that has plagued more than a hundred of us is solved! Simply because one of the paternal members of the ancients went to be with his mother in Ga. and stated it in a letter that someone had. Now we know who that elusive ancestor was and who his ancestors were! We had the anser all along, but a hand written letter from long long ago put the pieces together. This letter is over 300 years old!!

Now if my other lines would simply fall into place!

Zada,

Tell us more. That is fascinating.

Carol

Carol, I like your new picture. Your new hat is stunning on you!

As far as the family history, let me say it is comprised of meny hours going through courthouse basements, and searching grave sites in a variety of states. We knew the ancestors and most of the marriages, if not maiden names, but to get the real story, there were probate reecords, deeds and wills to be gone through. This involved both my paternal grandmother's line and my paternal grandfather's line. They were from many of the same areas and migrated all over the place. (I must return to Gadsden, Alabama to do more on his line. Their library had much of the information I already possessed, and I'm sure there is a lot more there.)

Researching maternal lines can be very difficult without having marriage certificates or family bibles. We have been very fortunate in getting distant relatives to share their information and documentation. I have found old pictures to be of great interest, and have several very old ones. Mainly copies that others in the family have made copies of for me.

Old records have been very well preserved and are a joy to view. But many are in courthouse basements. The library in Raleigh, North Carolina was filled with anything you could want. We only had 2 days and 4 of us to dig, but we found many old land records. I could have spent a week or two there. The same with the Clayton library in Houston and the archives in Austin Texas.

It has taken many heads to get it to the point it is now. We are back into the 1600's and the tapestry is rich with the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, marriages, births and deaths. Old newspaper accounts have been wonderful. There were outlaws, inlaws and lawmen. Conflicting stories of events can make you dig even deeper.

My cousin was at a Daughters of the Confederacy meeeting when the news of the letter came up in conversation. It was very well preserved, and she may be able to get a copy made of it. It links two lines that we thought were separate. DNA testing proved the lines were linnked, but we need documentation for the generations.

I have been at it for at least 8 years, and others started long before I got into it.

Is that what you wanted more of, Carol?

Zada,

I am impressed!

Carol

Carol, I could never have done it alone. And along the way, I have met many cousins that are absolutely wonderful. It has truly been an adventure.


I forgot to mention that the Rome, Georgia library also has a terrific geneology section. If one were interested, a week could be spent in each individual library, and only scratch the surface. Even New Bern, North Carolina had a wealth of information.

Connecting with family is the greatest benefit of doing this research.

Carol

i just created the longest post here, then accidentally shut it down before I saved it. Bummer

I had said something about how I had talked here so much about my mom's family, but never about my dad's. this morning, I've been going through some old family files, and came across the history written by my dad's dad in 1954 that I just added to the "Family" page of my website.

I also came across a bit from the company newsletter about my dad's retirement dinner in 1979:

Quote :

"I had just gotten out
of school when my dad put me to work moving sand on the island. And I did that
so well, I got promoted to working with the old mule to move materials. That
didn't last too long, and then I was set to work scraping barnacles off some
wooden barges.


"That was a job — it was
too low to stand up and too high to sit down, and I ended up getting barnacle
juice down my back. I remember going home and telling my dad how tired I was,
and he would tell me that I'd better go back to school so I wouldn't end up
working in a shipyard. Well, I went back to school but I've been in the
shipyard anyway!"

(Dad in story-telling mode)

Dad at same age (65 - my age now) in normal mode


The school he went to was Rice Institute, now Rice University, where he earned his engineering degree
Dad at Rice in 1938

He hadn't planned on returning to the family business, but his dad convinced him to do so, so he returned to Orange in 1939.

A few years later he was working as the Assistant Chief Engineer for the yard, when he went out to pick up his morning paper, and read that his father had sold the business, without talking about it to him or his brothers. He had some stock of his own, and decided to stay on. At that retirement dinner in 1979, he was Vice-President of Engineering, Research, and Design. He had been the primary designer of one of the first jack-up drilling rigs. His name is on the patents for several that are still in use. Carol sent me a picture of a rig she and Tom saw on one of their vacations. It looks like it could well be one of his.

Dad died of leukemia in 1982. He was 68 years old.

Me again. I finally found an old photo I've been looking for, and added it to my website "Family" page, just under my grandfather's article.

Ann