Category Archives: Genealogy

family, Genealogy

Will I Ever See It Again?

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Genealogy charts like this for my wife’s ancestry: will I ever see them again?

There have been times in my life when I got a foreboding that I was doing something for the last time.

The first time it happened was when I flew out of Boston in 1990. We were back in the USA after Iraq invaded Kuwait, living back in Asheboro NC, waiting for the situation to clear. I took temporary employment with Metcalf & Eddy in a Boston suburb, and flew up once a month for a three-week stay in their guest house. I flew back to NC in November and, as we looped around the city after takeoff from Logan airport, I remember thinking, will I ever see Boston again?

The was probably foolish thinking. I was only 38 years old. My dad and brother still lived in Rhode Island. I should have realized I would have many more times to be in Boston. But that was the feeling I had.

The next time was leaving Kuwait in July 1991, out of the severely damaged airport. That was an accurate foreboding, as I’ve never gone back there.

I start working on this notebook today.

It happened in 2010 when I was in Rhode Island for my 40-year high school reunion. My brother was hospitalized. He looked awful. A new health problem had recently developed, compounding three other major problems. I remember thinking as I left the hospital that I thought he had less than 5 years to live. In fact, he didn’t make two years, and my premonition was correct.

Now that I’m a lot older, I get those forebodings more frequently. Every time we make a trip to a home town or old haunt, I can’t help but think, “Will I ever see this place, or these people, again?”

But I generally can put those thoughts out of my mind. Is this the last car I’ll ever own? Is this my last big vacation? Is this my last long-distance drive? Yes, I set those thoughts aside and concentrate on what I have.

13 notebooks emptied, ready to be brought up to the staging area for donations.

I had just such a foreboding yesterday. Not about people or places but about a thing. Or actually a bunch of things: my genealogy research papers. I think I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, at least in the Progress and Goals posts. I had a lot a lot of genealogy papers. I made it a practice to write everything down as I researched. I came up with filing systems and reorganized. Then, as the 3-ring binders seemed to reproduce themselves like fruit flies (but taking up much more space), I carved out a shelf in my closet for them. Six feet of glorious space to put notebook after notebook.

Except the shelf filled and I had to lay some horizontally on top of the others. Then, my interests began to change and I spent much more time on writing than on genealogy. So many of my notes were incomplete. Even as research became easier as more and more records were placed on the internet, many for no-cost searching, I did less and less.

Every now and then I’d hear from a relative, the old obsession would rear up and I’d research in a frenzy for a week or two then…back to writing, with another twenty or thirty papers stuffed into an already over-stuffed notebook.

Now, as we are in the process of disaccumulating in advance of a future downsizing, as I looked around for what I could get rid of next, I spied the shelf in the closet and realized that row of notebooks were something I couldn’t keep.

But what to get rid of, what to keep? What to save, what to trash? How to get rid of the bulk of those papers without destroying my research, just in case someone in the future cared to know what I had learned about the family?

I’ll try to make this short. I first went through the notebooks and pulled out any sheet with a name on it that had no further information. To recycling. Next I took a hard look at some family lines that I had a little research on but which I never did a whole lot of research on. Out they went. This, if I remember correctly, got rid of three notebooks after consolidation.

That left around 25 notebooks—still way too much. I knew I had to digitize these papers and save them to the computer. But how to do it, and how to save them so that they would be findable in the unlikelihood they would ever be needed again, either by me or by a descendant?

I had only recently discovered that my printer was also a scanner, and that it had options such as scan to PDF, jpg, or to text. I had already been using it to scan printout of letters and e-mails. I could just shift a little and use it for genealogy papers.

That’s what I’ve been doing for a lot of 2023. I made it a goal to scan and trash 10 sheets a day from the notebooks. That would be over seven reems of paper in a year. It took me a while to get going. I figured out a way to save everything digitally so that I could find everything again. About five more notebooks into the process, I realized my filing system was a bit cumbersome and was slowing down the work. It took me a week or two of experimentation before I figured out a better way.

With that better way, and with old Betsey (the name I just gave to my scanner) cranking away, I discovered I could easily scan and trash 20 sheets a day, taking relatively little time. Now I was up to close to 15 reems a years. That would make a real dent on that closet shelf.

Yesterday was a catching up day. I scanned 57 sheets and filed the electronic files. That emptied one more binder. I set it on the floor under my worktable with the others, all waiting to be carried out of The Dungeon and to the garage staging area for things to be donated. Right now it’s 13 notebooks. I’ve already donated a few earlier in the year, and I think it’s 18 that have been cleaned out and declared surplus.

Ah, but I was talking about forebodings. Yesterday, as I scanned and filed all those papers—many showing incomplete research, I got the sense that I might never see them again. Will the time arise that will allow me to expand the research? And will it come to a point where I no longer care?

So that’s where I’m at today. Did I save my “darlings”, or kill them, as Hemingway famously advised writers to do? Time will tell.

book reviews, family, Genealogy, History

Book Review: Letters From Muskoka

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The book is available in modern reprints. My copy was a free e-book of the original, out-of-copyright edition.

Some years back, after twenty years of searching, I finally “found” my maternal grandfather. I had a last name and diminutive first name, but no location. A few hints that my grandmother gave, along with DNA triangulation at 23andMe, and in August 2017 I finally confirmed Herbert Stanley “Bert” Foreman as the man, and his birthplace as Port Carling, Muskoka, Ontario, Canada.

The genealogy research went fast, as did finding cousins. The library at Port Carling was incredibly helpful with making copies of book pages for me. With the location being totally knew to me (now mainly a vacation area north of Toronto), I began to look for and acquire books about the area. The ones I got were available on line through Google Books as they were out of copyright. I downloaded four books, and the first one I read was Letters From Muskoka by “an Emigrant Lady”.

I read this several years ago, probably back in 2018, but, being somewhat less familiar with Google Books than I am now, I didn’t save it to my library there. Also, I find that I’m not as prompt at reviewing books I read as e-books, and hence I never reviewed it. This week, wanting to catch up on book reviews, I went looking for “that Muskoka book I read a few years ago” and didn’t find it. Fortunately, through a simple search I found it. In order to write a review of it, I had to give it a bit of a re-read. Mainly, I scrolled ahead to this haunting passage I remembered from the end of the main narrative:

I went into the Bush of Muskoka strong and healthy, full of life and energy, and fully as enthusiastic as the youngest of our party. I left it with hopes completely crushed, and with health so hopelessly shattered from hard work, unceasing anxiety and trouble of all kinds, that I am now a helpless invalid, entirely confined by the doctor’s orders to my bed and sofa, with not the remotest chance of ever leaving them for a more active life during the remainder of my days on earth.

What a sad commentary on her years there. She, a serviceman’s widow for fifteen years, and her adult children were Brits who were living in France when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. When the war ended in 1870, changes in the country made life there less attractive for these British expats. One daughter and family had emigrated to Muskoka, and most of the rest decided to follow.

When the book was first published in 1878 in England, the author was listed as “An Emigrant Lady”. Later editions identified her as Harriet Barbara (Mrs. Charles) Gerard King. She was a widow with four children, at least two adults. At the end of the war, they decided to emigrate to Canada to take up free land being offered in Muskoka. Harriet was 61 at this time.

They arrived in Muskoka, after a major ocean storm in transit, after train delays, after finding themselves without money, in fall of 1871. The hardships began almost immediately, and did not abate for the next four years. Here are other salient quotes from the book.

It was anguish to see your sisters and sister-in-law, so tenderly and delicately brought up, working harder by far than any of our servants in England or France.

We were rich in nothing but delusive hopes and expectations, doomed, like the glass basked…to be shattered and broken to pieces.

A portrait of Harriet, I suspect after she left Muskoka in 1876, more likely shortly before her death in 1885.

Normally I don’t have much sympathy for or interest in those who are, or think they are, part of the aristocracy. They have their good things in life and don’t need my sympathy. But it’s hard to read this and not have a little sympathy for the emigrant lady. In the last day or two, as I read on in the book, I learned that she was a writer and tried to bring income in by writing and submitting articles. At this, she was mostly unsuccessful.

The letters take up the bulk of the book, with a few ancillary sections. I’m not sure that I read beyond the letters. Mrs. King described in great detail the hardships in getting a farm cut out of the rocky woods. All family members saw their health deteriorate due to the hard work and the meagerness of the provisions.

The book did what I wanted it to do: help me to understand the area my long-lost grandfather came from. As I wrote this review, I can see I need to finish the last few short sections of the book. I’ll download it to my phone and begin reading it in the off moments. Then, when I’m sure I finished it, I have three other books about old Muskoka to read. So I’d better get on it.

Unless you have a connection to Muskoka, or you really, really like pioneer stories, there’s no point in reading this. For me, it was a great book. The detail and the quality of the writing make this a 5-star book—for me. For most people, it’s maybe a 3-star book. But, in the beauty of e-books, I’ll keep it in my library for a while.

Genealogy, miscellaneous

The Living or the Dead

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My wife and I had an interesting conversation Saturday night. We were talking about someone we knew in the past, from our church in Kansas City. I wasn’t sure who she meant at first, and I mentioned another couple from the same era and same church. Except I couldn’t remember the wife’s name of the second couple. We talked about it and together were able to remember both couples’ names.

The couple I first brought up was somewhat older than us. When he retired from the railroad, they moved from Kansas City to somewhere in southern Missouri. around Springfield. We had their contact info at one time but have lost it. I wondered, though, since they were at least 10 years older than us, if they were still alive. Was there a way to find out?

I searched for obituaries for them, then searched finagrave.com, a site where I’ve had great success finding dead people there, in my research for genealogy and for the church Centennial book. I looked in those places and…nothing. The couple didn’t show up in any searches. That may mean they are still alive and well and living in southern Missouri. Or it could mean they simply didn’t show up in searches. I then tried searching for them among the living and couldn’t find them there either.

Being unconclusive, Lynda said something about why I searched for them at findagrave, a site she hadn’t heard of before. I replied, “I’ve had more success finding the dead than the living.”

That was a catchy way of saying, perhaps, what my preferences are when searching for people. The dead don’t argue with you. They don’t talk back or insult you. They don’t take political sides or belittle someone you like. They also don’t ignore you when you find them.

Obviously, expectations are different when searching for the living. If you do find someone you’re looking for, it’s likely you try to contact them and, if successful, you hope for an answer. Alas, that answer often is not forthcoming. But, when you search for the dead, if you find them you learn something about them. If they left many footprints, they speak to you through those footprints. It’s not much of a conversation, however.

Maybe that’s why I enjoy looking for the dead so much. You learn a lot without engaging in conversation. The fewer conversations in any given day usually makes it a better day for me. Maybe that’s why I’ve enjoyed genealogy so much over the years. It’s coaxing dead people to talk to you, but without actual conversation—if that makes sense.

This isn’t much of a post, but it’s what’s in my head right now. Perhaps I’ll do better on Friday.

family, Genealogy, miscellaneous

Progress on My Genealogy Project

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The closet shelf now has enough free space for some of my inventory for my books for sale.

I’ve written before about various special projects I’ve undertaken in the last two years of so. The sale of my 1900 encyclopedia set. The donation of the Stars and Stripes. The transfer of my grandfather’s trunk to a cousin. A collection of letters between a friend and me. The church Centennial book. A special project of some sort always seems to be in the mix of normal work.

Some of those special projects relate to disaccumulation in anticipation of a future downsizing. No date is set, but we know it’s coming. A couple of years ago I looked at the shelf of genealogy notebooks on a shelf in my closet and knew I had to do something about them.

I seriously doubt that my family members will be interested in it. Never say never, of course. I wasn’t interested in my genealogy until I was 46. So children or grandchildren might still show some interest. But as of now, none. When I’m gone, what’s going to happen to them? The trash can, I imagine. I really don’t want to leave them to my heirs to have to clean up, and I doubt I would have room for them in a smaller place.

These are about half the notebooks that I’ve been able to declare surplus.

I thought of donating them to some research library. But there are two problems with that. First, since I have been researching all family lines, both mine and my wife’s, and since we grew up in very different places and circumstances, the files would have to be split in two or more places.

But the really big reason why I can’t simply donate them is that they are atrociously unfinished. I started many sheets on many ancestors and never finished them. My documentation of facts I’ve accumulated ranges from excessive to non-existent. I would have to put a lot of work into bringing my files to a much higher level of completion than they are now before I could even think about donating them.

So I went through the notebooks, one by one, to see what I could cull from each. Page by page, I made a keep-discard decision. Some were easy but many were not. I got rid of enough pages to eliminate maybe a notebook or two, maybe even three.

Finally, early this year, I decided what I needed to do was digitize my files and throw most of the papers away. That, at first, proved to be a difficult process. How should I file them, and where? Do I file by family name first and generation second, or generation first and family second? I had already put in place a system for filing genealogy papers, which included a way of numbering ancestors.

But I found the system I started using wasn’t working. The system I needed had to be “retrievable”—that is, if I ever get back to active genealogy research I need to be able to find on the computer the files I digitized. That took some thinking and trials, but I finally got it. I would number each person first by their Ahnentafel number. I won’t explain that. It’s easily findable if you’re interested. Then I would include their generation number. My method for numbering generations is to designate my children to be Generation 100, and count backwards and forwards from there. I’m generation 99, my parents are generation 98, etc.

I decided to save everything to Microsoft OneDrive. If that ever goes away, or if they have a data failure, I could lose everything. That’s a risk I’m willing to take so as to reduce the amount of paper I have.

I began this project in earnest sometime earlier this year. Working notebook by notebook, page by page, I look at each page to see, with a more critical eye than I did before, if it’s a sheet that I want to keep, or if it’s so unfinished or preliminary or far in antiquity that it’s better just to discard it. My goal is to discard 10 sheets a day, either by scanning and discard or by immediate discard.

Ten sheets a day doesn’t sound like much, but over a year that would be 3,650 sheets if I did this every day. That’s over seven reams of paper in a year. That will put a serious dent in that shelf of notebooks in the closet. And while 10 sheets is the goal, my unofficial goal is 20 sheets. that would be approaching 15 reams of paper.

It’s actually kind of burdensome. Making the keep-discard decision, doing the scanning, figuring out the right place to save the scanned file and the right name to give it. After ten pages, I’m somewhat brain weary. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, since “getting things done” normally energizes me. I do feel energized when I work on the project, but it also wearies me.

I’d say I’m averaging 15 pages a day, discarded directly or after scanning and e-filing. That may not be fast enough to do what I want to do, but it’s the best I can do unless I stop all other things that make life interesting.

I’ll check back in and report more about this project in another month. Maybe I’ll have reduced my paper files by another couple of notebooks.

American Colonial History, Genealogy, History, research, Stars and Stripes, Writing

Research As A Motivator

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A period of intense research is what led to this book. What will come of this new time of research?

Somewhere, in the back pages of this blog, I’ve said that I love research. I find that it motivates me. But research, I have also found, has a dark side—at least for me it does—in that it can all too easily become all consuming.

Two research opportunities came up recently, and I am trying very hard to resist the urge to dive in fully.

One has to do with genealogy. This month, one of my few book sales is of my genealogy book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich. That’s the second of these books sold since I published it in July 2020. Then, a day or so after that sale, I was browsing through my Google Books library, looking for a new download, and saw a copy of a two-years volume of The Essex Antiquarian, a genealogy and history magazine. The volume I downloaded and started reading years ago was from 1898. Of course I had to open it.

But rather than read on, I decided to search the book for “Cheney”, my wife’s maiden name. The family was in Essex County, Massachusetts for a while, some in Ipswich, including Stephen and Elizabeth Cross. I found several hits for Cheney, four of which were for John Cheney of Newbury, the immigrant ancestor of the family.

I’ve done a lot of research on John Cheney, and possibly he and his wife Martha will be the subjects of my next genealogy book. That book, however, is so far down the line that I don’t have dates for writing it. But, I had this opportunity: four items related to him published in a 1898 magazine were at my fingertips on my screen. I pulled up my John Cheney research document, and learned that two of those hits were new information. I dutifully made the new entries and did comprehensive source documentation. Beautiful. A pleasant 30 minutes spent.

That wasn’t good enough. I searched for other editions of that magazine, and found several more, available for full viewing. I did the Cheney search over several volumes, and found additional information about John Cheney that was new. Repeated the entries and documentation. A pleasant 2 hours spent.

The next day I repeated and expanded this, looking for information, not only for Cheney, but for other family names, including Cross.  I also found a longer article about a Newbury man that John Cheney supported in a controversy with the government. Rather than take time to read that (six pages), I made a note of where to find it again. Two more hours spent.

Within a year, these will be going to the University of Rhode Island library. While it will be sad to see them go, it will also be a joy knowing they will be well cared for and properly preserved and available for study.

The other research opportunity came with the many copies of the Stars and Stripes newspaper that I have. As noted in previous posts, these were newspapers that Dad worked on in Africa and Europe during WW2, copies of which he sent home to his parents, to be stored in an old steamer trunk to this day. As I reported earlier, I’m donating them to the University of Rhode Island. I decided to inventory them first, and began that process on Labor Day.

With every Bill Mauldin cartoon I see, I wonder if Dad modeled for that one.

Tuesday, I continued. My inventory method consists of recording the day, date, and edition—also whether the copy has any damage or not. By the end of my dedicated time on Tuesday, I had a total of 70 listed. Only 700 to go. I’m purposely not taking time to look at the newspapers. I will make a couple of exceptions to that as I get further into this.

But, on Tuesday, I saw a headline, “U.S. Woman Writer Held by Russia as Spy”. That sounded interesting, and I read the article. The writer was Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970). She was an American who became a socialist, then found sympathy with the Soviet Union and Communist China. Much of her writing was promoting the economic systems in those two countries. Why the Russians kicked her out is a mystery, but it seems some think it was her cozy relationship with China that was the problem.

Much of that I learned from the article about her at Wikipedia, not in the newspaper.

Anna Strong is a new person to me. I’ve never heard of her before. Thirty minutes of reading gave me the gist of what her views were, views very different from mine. A few quotes of hers made me think of things that need to be said about the capitalist and communist systems. I could easily write something about that, given a little more research.

When I first got Dad’s Stars and Stripes, in 1997, I had dreams of doing war research in them, thinking about the fog of war. How much of what the newspaper reported would prove to be true or untrue? How much does journalism get wrong, requiring history to set the record straight? Alas, after 25 years, the newspapers remained untouched. My research project null and void. I suppose I could pick it up again, but I can see that would require years of research and then some writing. No, I just can’t dedicate that time to that project. So off the papers go to URI. Perhaps students, faculty, or outside researchers will someday use them to good purposes.

More research? No! In the last three days I’ve spent over five hours on research and almost none on writing. That can’t be. I’ve got to find a way to pull away from it and concentrate on the tasks at hand. I have three books in the pipeline, started and unfinished. I need to choose one and get it done.

Bible study, Carlyle, Christianity, Church History Novels, critique group, Documenting America, Genealogy

Casting About

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The Centennial book is done. I have my copies in hand. Full distribution starts on Sunday May 22.

Ack! It’s almost 11 a.m. and I’m just now getting to writing my blog post for today. Something must be wrong with me.

Yes, something is wrong with me. I’ve been too busy. It began last Thursday, when a Zoom meeting about our upcoming church Centennial celebration was still going strong after 2 1/2 hours, and I hit a wall. I couldn’t go on. I abruptly ended the meeting, took a break, and a few hours later got back to the task we had been working on—now alone. Yes, I still work better alone than with someone else.

Not the final cover, but some thoughts I had on a draft. The artist is working on it.

Friday and Saturday are blurs to me now. I know some heavy yardwork and a daily walk were involved. I had a number of e-mails about the Centennial, also about There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Saturday evening was taken up with study to teach Life Group on Sunday morning. Sunday was the usual church, Life group, fast-food takeout. Then we went to the high school graduation reception for our neighbors’ daughter. Through a comedy of errors (which included my not understanding the invitation), that took us a while to even get there. Back home, tiredness set in and I didn’t get a lot done during the afternoon. In the evening I went back to the Centennial work I have been tasked with, and got a little more done.  I also did some in-depth critiquing of a piece send by a member of our critique group. This morning, the first thing I did was finish that critique and e-mail it to her.

Back on TNSTATT, we must finalize the book cover, create the publication files (e-book and print book), decide whether it will be on Amazon only or go “wide” to other publishers. I think it was on Friday that I got most of the final formatting done. Today I re-read a couple of the later chapters and made a few edits. I declared it done around 8:15 a,m. and began the final formatting. This includes such things as adding in a listing of my other books which, for some reason, is never up-to-date. I spent time getting it up-to-date, and creating a system for keeping it up-to-date henceforth.

I have another hour and a half of work on the print book, then an hour or so on the e-book. Then I will be ready to work on something else. What will it be?

I ought to get back to the second of two Bible studies I was writing, as described in this post. I had pulled off the second while waiting on feedback on the first. But last night I learned that the man I sent it to for review never got the e-mail. I re-sent it last night, confirmed he got it, and so now I wait. I may get back to that. The Scribblers & Scribes meet this Thursday evening, and I’d like to have something to share. But what? I’m not sure they will want to review and critique pages of a Bible study.

Or, I may start on something completely new. I don’t want to go into too much detail. Tentatively titled Tales Of A Vagabond, it would be the start of an autobiography. I actually started it when I realized I needed to write my blog post.

Whatever I ultimately do with Tales Of A Vagabond, I know that finishing the two Bible studies will be my next main writing tasks. But after that, what? I’m kind of itching to do some work on a genealogy book about one of Lynda’s ancestors. My two partly-complete and temporarily-abandoned Thomas Carlyle books are starting to look attractive again.  There’s always the next Documenting America book, for which I have completed the research. If TNSTATT takes off, I may hop right on Book 2 in that series.  I just don’t know.

That’s not really the full list. I will be taking time soon to pray about this and see if I get some divine direction. The problem is, God has never given me such specific guidance. He usually leaves it up to me, and I have learned to pray that he would direct my footsteps as I make the best decisions I can. I suspect this will be one of those times.

 

Bible study, Christianity, Genealogy, technology woes, Writing

Light and Momentary Troubles, Part 2

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Dateline: 24 March 2022

Not too long ago, I posted about the second of three Bible verses that I try to start each day with. This one, 2 Corinthians 4:17, talks about our troubles on this earth being light and momentary, and will result in an eternal glory that far surpasses the troubles. My focus of that post was that I wasn’t experiencing the glory because I wasn’t using the troubles as a spur to personal growth.

This photo doesn’t really show how my workspace was torn apart from moving stuff to get to devices and cables. Will wait a little to everything back in place. Maybe I’ll even organize it a little.

Wednesday was one of those days, when troubles seemed somewhat more than light. The power company was working in our neighborhood and had alerted us that they would be turning off our power for a couple of hours in the morning, and that they would come by and tell us before they did. The day started out normally. I was at my computer by 7:30 a.m., doing writing and stock trading tasks. It was about 10:00 a.m. before the power company came by and gave us a 10-minute warning.  I closed out of all programs, keeping only a couple of Word documents open, closed the lid on my laptop, and left The Dungeon.

Sure enough, the power soon went off. I took the occasion to make my weekly grocery run to Wal-Mart. Normally a Tuesday task, a long meeting then had caused me to delay a day. I went and did my shopping, for a change finding everything on my list. At the self-checkout, all worked well.

The man at the self-checkout station next to me had some unusual items in his cart: a dozen cans of salt and that many gallon bottles of vinegar. That seemed strange, and I did something I never do: I started a conversation with him, asking him about the oddity of his purchases. Understand: I never do that. If at all possible I go through the store and consider it a good time if I don’t have to talk with anyone.

Although, earlier in this trip, I did talk briefly with a woman shopper in the pharmacy section. A rock and roll song was coming over the loudspeakers and I was humming it. This woman and her adult daughter came in my direction and the woman was singing it. She caught my eye and stopped, embarrassed. Then I started signing it and so she started again. Three seconds later we had passed each other, on with our shopping.

Back to the man and his cart of salt and vinegar. I assumed he was buying for a restaurant, but he said no, it was for his concoction of killing weeds in his rock yard. He told me his formula. Since I have the same problem and have considered hiring a lawn service to spray deadly chemicals on it, I was interested. I learned something from this conversation, this impromptu, hard for me to start but easy to continue conversation.

Back to light and momentary troubles. When I got home, the power was still off. The power company had said two hours, and we weren’t there yet. So I went to the sunroom and read. The temperature was 40° out and the sunroom was getting cold with the space heater not working. I was about done with my daily reading quota in this particular book when the power came on, just shy of three hours since it had gone off. The power company had said it might take as long as that if they ran into any problems.

All was good. The trouble of no power was indeed light and momentary, and I thought I had redeemed the time well. A brief lunch, and downstairs to The Dungeon to resume my activities, only to learn…no internet. No problem. I rebooted the modem; still no internet. I rebooted the router; still no internet. I waited then repeated those two steps. Still no internet. I finally found a number for our internet provider. They did a remote reset of the modem; still no internet. I got on a text chat with a rep of their company. He did various things. I tried to explain the situation. Two hours of texting; still no internet.

I took note of the steady light showing on the modem and the all-lights-flashing status of the router, assumed a router failure, and texted a friend who is an IT guy in his job and arranged for an evening call. I wondered if the router experienced a power failure when it came back on. I also considered that the internet provider had sent an e-mail a week before, saying they had increased speeds and I would have to reboot the modem to take advantage of that. I hadn’t done it yet, but the power shutdown was actually a forced reboot. I now have 866 mbps speed—but no internet. Could it be that this old router was incompatible with the higher speed?

This trouble was turning out to be worse than light and not all that momentary. I found other things to do, mainly going through an old genealogy research notebook and getting rid of a bunch of stuff I no longer need. I read the instructions for the air fryer we’ve had for three years but never used and planned to cook some veggies in it. Supper came and went, and I had the call with my friend. We talked through the internet problem. He agreed with me that it sounded as if the router had gone bad. Based on our set-up, he talked me through a work-around, and poof! we had internet.

From there the conversation rolled into other areas to fill the hour. Technology, internet, CATV vs streaming, cost increases, even a little into politics. We ended when he was expecting another call to come in. It was a good hour.

So how would I describe these technology troubles. Light? Momentary? In hindsight I would guess so, though it didn’t seem like it at the time. But since the time was redeemed, and redeemed well, I would have to say they were indeed light and momentary, and that God used them toward the goal of eternal glory.

C.S. Lewis, Christianity, family, Genealogy, The Teachings, travel, Writing

Hunkering Down

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[Note to self: Don’t hit the browser back button when typing a post if you haven’t hit “save draft”. Maybe the second time will be a charm.]

This is looking up the street from our house on Thursday 2/11. It is sanded (actually gritted). I believe I could get up it if I tried.

I’m looking out The Dungeon windows to a light snowfall. It’s just condensation due to the cold, 14°F. We were supposed to be in Texas this weekend, watching the grandkids while their parents were at a church event. Wednesday last was our departure day. But we woke up to a winter glaze on the roads, a freakish ice storm overnight. It had been predicted then removed from the forecast. After a quick survey of the situation, I postponed the trip a day.

If not, perhaps I could get down the hill then loop around the circle and go up the next street which, last time I checked, was free of ice.

I spent time chopping and clearing ice, spreading rock salt and sand. I was able to get the already-loaded van up to the end of the driveway. Once the City truck came by spreading grit on the road, I probably could have made it up the hill. But reports on conditions elsewhere indicated the trip would be difficult. Thursday morning was not much different. Radar showed light, frozen precipitation along our route. I delayed the trip from morning to afternoon. By noon it was clear things were no better. Reports of accidents along our route said it all. I cancelled the trip.

So were are unexpectedly home. The forecast now calls for 6-10″ of snow Sunday-Monday, with temperatures like we have now or lower. After a trip to Wal-Mart today (hopefully) for fresh items, we will hunker down. I made a large pot of soup yesterday. We have enough frozen, canned, and boxed food to get by a long time should the W-M run not be possible. I plan to write in the church anniversary book. I plan to begin the editing process in The Teachings. I will read C.S. Lewis and other things. On Sunday I will teach Life Group from home. And I will walk outside a little but get my main exercise on the elliptical. I might even get a little genealogy research done.

I realize that the last paragraph is all about me. “I plan…I will…” Obviously I will do that only by the grace of God and the strength and abilities He has given me and continues to give me.

Oh, in the last half-hour we learned that the church event have been postponed due to…weather.

America, Christianity, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

2020 Writing Recap

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The 5th story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca – Unconventional CIA Agent series. Published in January 2020, I’ve sold one copy.

Ah, 2021 is starting out good, with January 1 falling on Friday, my regular blog post day. I always start a new year here by summarizing the year just ended and making some goals for the year just starting. I’ll do that today with a recap of 2020. On Monday I’ll put some writing goals for 2021, assuming, that is, that I formulate some goals between now and then into a publishable state.

Retired from my day job (for the 2nd year), cooped up due to the corona virus pandemic, you’d think I got a lot of writing done, right? You’d be wrong. I’ve said all this before on the blog, but let me go through it again.

In January I published “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. That was written in 2019 and passed through my critique group. It all came to January and I published it then. So far I’ve had one sale. Yippee.

Also in January, I continued work in the next novel in my church history novels series. Begun in late 2019 and tentatively titled The Teachings, it falls chronologically between Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Preserve The Revelation. The action takes place during the first Jewish war of 66 to 70 A.D. I got a few chapters in, running them by the critique group, when I bogged down on making my story fit into the historical events. I spent a lot of time reading in source materials, adding a little text, setting it aside, and going back to the sources again. By mid-March I had about 21,000, or between 20 and 25 percent of the intended length. Feeling frustrated with it, I decided to stop my major work on it.

Stephen Cross was quite a character. Frequently in court, involved with a pirate, taking part in two military excursions, he left a lot of footprints that I’ve been able to follow.

Instead, I pulled out some genealogy work I had begun some time ago. This was the lives of Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney. Elizabeth is a gr-gr-whatever-aunt of Lynda’s. I began studying them two or three years prior and realized I had enough material on them to make a short book. I organized the material back then and wrote the beginnings of a book. I picked up that work again and saw that yes, I could make a book out of their lives, but I really needed to do more research. I worked on that the second half of March, making good progress.

Then Lynda went into the hospital on April 3. I couldn’t go in to see her, of course, so to keep myself busy, instead of going back to The Teachings, I focused on Stephen and Elizabeth. By the time Lynda got out on April 21 I had most of the research done and was back writing the book. My labor on it continued after Lynda came home. It all came together around the end of May, I edited and formatted in June, and published it in July. Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Newbury has—wait for it—one sale so far. That’s fine. This isn’t intended to be a best seller. Hopefully some day a few Cross and Cheney researchers will find it.

From there I moved to decluttering/dis-accumulation work at our house. I dug into boxes of papers left behind by my mother-in-law. That caused me to also look at our own boxes of papers and begin culling. In the process I found our Kuwait years letters. I collated them, indexed them, and then decided to transcribe them. This took up some of July, all of August, and some of September. Someday I will add photos and make it a book for the family. For now, it will sit in the cloud.

During this time, I occasionally picked up The Teachings and did a little work on it, either research or writing. I added 500 words here and there. But I still couldn’t focus on it.

I updated my first Documenting America book for conditions in 2020: correcting typos, correcting formatting, adding new text for 2020.

In September, I think, I decided to re-publish my first history book, Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents. I published it first in 2011 and decided it could use some updating for conditions in America in 2020. I think it was September to early October that I: re-read it; corrected a few typos; and added text to each chapter for what’s going on now. I also had to improve the formatting because, in 2011, I didn’t know much about print book formatting and made some errors. I completed this work in mid-October and re-published it.

Meanwhile, I had been dissatisfied with some formatting and illustration quality in the Cross-Cheney book. I tackled that in October as well, substituting some figures, improving the pixel quality of others, and re-published it. I still wish they were better than they are but at least they are better than they were.

Writing related, but not new writing, was taking part in two week-long on-line seminars about using Amazon advertising to boost book sales, once in July and once in October. I saw an increase in sales as a result, though the ads really are not paying out. I’m still within the budget I set, so I’ll keep the ads running. I’ll take the challenge again this month, then see where I go with it.

Finally, in the second half of December, I was ready to return to serious work on The Teachings. Over the last few days of the month I added over 5,000 words, bringing my total to just short of 33,500. I have much of the rest of the book planned, and should be able to make good progress, so long as other things don’t get in the way.

Here’s where my Church History Novels series stands. Working on that “gray” one.

Things such as a new short story, or deciding to transcribe more letters, or let decluttering overtake me again.

Was it a productive year, writing-wise? Perhaps. I wish I had more to show for it. May 2021 be better.

America, American Colonial History, Genealogy, History, Politics

Self-Determination: A Defining American Characteristic

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My first characteristic of what makes the United States of America different than most other nations is the concept of self-determination. In other words, we chose our own form of government and our own leaders, and have maintained that for over 230 years. Actually, the choosing of our government goes back much further than that.

The residents of Waterville Vermont wrestled with choosing leaders and setting the tax rate in the mandatory annual town meeting. How interesting it was to read those records.

From the moment that Europeans came to these shores in the early 1600s, selection of leaders through voting has been a part of our nature. The form of government was at first based on what the colonists knew back home, or what was imposed on them by the terms of the charter by which the colony was established. However, slowly, the form of government changed and settled into a pattern.

First it was pure democracy at the local level, with a fledgling republic at the colony level. By the time of the revolution, when the colonies considered themselves states, republican form of government was well-established. At the local level even, a mini-republic had mostly replaced democracy. Some vestiges of democracy remained, but for the most part the form of government was a republic.

Of course, a republic requires active participation of its citizens in terms of voting. At regular intervals, from as short as six months to as long as two years, the people chose their leaders. In doing so peacefully, the people were saying, “We are satisfied with this form of government. All we are doing now is choosing those who will lead us, either returning those already in leadership or voting new ones in.” Election after election, for more than a century before we were a nation, this process took place from New Hampshire to Georgia. Those eligible to vote chose new leaders and kept their form of government.

The colonies did well governing themselves, until the King of England tried to impose new government on them. Resistance to that became the seeds of the American Revolution.

Self-determination. We will govern ourselves. How different this was than in the Europe they had left! England had a monarch, a king or queen, who ruled. In the 17th Century the parliamentary system was flexing its muscles and growing in importance. England went through three revolutions (one bloody, two peaceful) and one counter-revolution. All other European nations had much the same. The monarchy was a coercive power. The people didn’t choose it so much as the king ruled by “divine right”. France, in a bloody revolution that would eventually lead to a worse dictatorship than the kings ever were, would throw off that monarchy thirteen years after the American Colonies declared their independence. Other nations would eventually follow suit. But it was the bloody American Revolution that set much of that in motion.

As I researched my first genealogy book, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West, I had occasion to look into town records of Waterville Vermont, where Seth was born and raised until he was 13. It was interesting to see the notices of the town meeting on the last Saturday in March (right in the middle of maple sugar harvest no less) and having all voters required to attend. I read how they set the tax rate: “Voted to establish the rate at $X” or “Voted a rate of $Y to construct a fence around the cemetery.” These people were governing themselves at the local level, deciding big issues as a democracy but electing representatives to lead the municipal republic the rest of the year. I “watched” as new towns were formed, Waterville carved out of Bakersfield because the Waterville residents couldn’t cross the snow-covered mountain in March to attend the town meeting. Self-government in action, the form of government chosen by the people and maintained year by year, decade by decade, century by century.

As I researched my second genealogy book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich, I saw the same thing from a much earlier period, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the years 1647 to 1710. I actually went back earlier than that, as I was simultaneously researching an earlier ancestor in the Cheney family, the subject of a future book. I saw the same thing with the town, and more so at the county and state level. One rabbit-hole I went down with my research that took place during Stephen’s and Elizabeth’s lives was the change in colonial charters forced upon the colonies by the king of England. This did not go over well. In fact, the seeds of the American Revolution were sown right here, as people, who had chosen and maintained a form of government they liked—self-determination—had a form of government and leaders forced on them—a coercive power—who served at the whim of and benefit of the monarch, not the people. Ipswich was a hot spot about this and some consider it to be the cradle of American independence.

Now, in 21st Century America, we have a hard time conceiving what the world was like during our colonial days. Oh, we know from studying our history what the colonies were like, and may have a vague understanding of England, from whence most of those settlers came. But I think we need more study of just how different the government was in our world. And to what extent the people had, not just the right, but the obligation to maintain that government through votes and taxes. We had our faults back then, and took far too long to address those faults. Compromises would eventually be forged that would keep us as one nation rather than several regional federations, compromises that later would almost tear us apart.

Yes, I believe self-determination is a defining characteristic of the United States of America. Other nations now have it. Yet many other nations only dream of it. It defines the USA. How long can we keep it?