Category Archives: Genealogy

Genealogy, Writing

Research while Searching

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I’m searching for a topic to write on right now. Well, I’m sort of searching. I have six or seven things I know I’m going to write. Hopefully, someday in the future (the nearer the better), I’ll be able to carve out meaningful time to write. At present I can only carve out a few quarter hours at a time. That’s not enough to make the effort worthwhile, so I don’t carve out that time and write.

So instead, what I’m doing is researching. That may sound strange, especially when I say that I let the time I spend researching drag out to hours at a time. How can I justify the time to research when I can’t justify the time to write? My only answer to that is: All time spent researching will eventually show up in writing, somehow, somewhere, sometime in the future.

In 2015 and a little in 2016, my research project has been Thomas Carlyle, leading to two different works of his. I’ve discussed that on this blog before. However, that is perhaps useless research, as I’m not certain I’ll ever actually get those two works written. Both of them are started, and both are well along. However, they will have limited appeal, and I don’t know that they will add to any scholarship on Carlyle. Anyhow, I’ve set that aside for now, all except for occasional reading in his letters (I did a little of that last night).

About two weeks ago I decided to get on with research on another project. My wife’s immigrant ancestor in her paternal line is John Cheney. He came to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, residing for a few months in Roxbury before removing to Newbury. A history of the Cheney family in the USA was written in 1897 by Charles Henry Pope. As is typical of genealogies written about that time, it focuses on the men, all those who carried the Cheney name forward. The daughters and granddaughters are given very short treatment.

My goal with this book is to document John Cheney’s life in a more expansive way than Pope could in 1897, given the limit of the resources available to him, and to list all (or as many as I can identify) of his descendants for three generations. Much has been learned over the years, especially in the Internet era. More is coming available every year as more and more documents are scanned and made available for viewing on the Internet, sometimes for a fee, but often for free. I won’t be able to identify all the descendants for those generations. John Cheney had 12 children, 10 who lived to adulthood, 9 of whom had offspring. They produced the third generations, and had a total of 65 children (at current count; trying to verify three more). Of those, it appears around 50 married. If they produced an average of 6.5 children, as their parents did, that would be 325 names in the fourth generation, the third generation of John Cheney’s descendants. That’s a lot of people, even in the Internet era.

So, I’m doing this research, trying to verify what Pope has in his book (which includes no sources for specific data), and trying to add information on the daughters and their offspring. I’m reasonably complete on John Cheney’s children, and can see an end coming for his grandchildren. I have only nine left with no information other than a name and who their parents are, plus the three that people. While I’ve been writing this blog post I’ve been going back to this research, and have found reliable publications that goes a long way to documenting the children of one of John Cheney’s daughters. I had their names from Pope’s book, but not a lot of data. I still don’t have as much documented data as I’d like, but with this new source I have a lot more. Yea!

I think I’ll end this. Time to button up this new find, write the name of the source, save the URL, and put this info in a place where I can find it later, on my Nook and on my computer at work. Progress as promised. I love research.

family, Genealogy, Writing

Seth Boynton Cheney – Mystery Man of the West

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This announces that my latest book, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West, is now available for sale at Amazon and CreateSpace.  This is a family history, not a book for the general market. It traces descendants through Seth, who was descended from John Cheney of Newbury, Massachusetts, through his son Peter. I’m posting this to be complete in announcing my books.

Here’s the link to the book at Amazon.

I just realized I don’t have the cover here as a jpeg, so I can’t post it. Maybe I can grab one from Amazon….ok, got the front cover, I think.

SBC book front cover

Genealogy, Writing

The Sunday Report – June 14, 2015

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Well, I did a little better job keeping up with posts to the blog over the last two weeks; not perfect, but better. I thought for today I’d write a fairly simple report on what’s going on in my life, as it relates to my writing life.

We are, at present, playing host to our three grandchildren, ages 7, 4, and 2.  Consequently I’ll be working short days for the time while they are here, to keep my wife from going batty and to lessen the work she’ll have to do, which is always hard on her back. This will also mean I’ll have less time available to go to The Dungeon and get my work done. The kids came on Thursday, and will be here at least through next Sunday, June 21.

Fortunately, I just wrapped up my writing project. My family history book, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West, was completed on Thursday. All but for one photo, that is, which I added on Friday. Yesterday I uploaded it to CreateSpace. All but the cover, which I tried to create beginning Friday evening and was unable to do. A friend at work is going to help me with it, and I suspect it will be ready by Tuesday. That will allow me to order a proof book.

The proof book is critical in this case, because I had planned to do the book in color, but that would drive the cost up to a minimum of $36. In black & white it can go for $12, or maybe a little less. $36 is too much, so I’ll have it printed in b&w. That will mean I’ll have to look at the proof and decide if I need to do anything with some of the color photos/illustrations. I may have to do without some, or swap some out.

Fortunately I have time for that. While I wanted to have the book completed and out by June 15, the Cheney family reunion isn’t till July 31-August 2. I’m sure the book will be done long before then.

Between now and then, the only other writing work I intend to do is make sure all my books are properly listed on Goodreads. I think five of them aren’t listed at all, and one has the wrong cover showing. Adding books is easy, so I can have those all added in one evening. However, changing a cover requires an action by a Goodreads staffer. I made a request six months or a year ago to have the cover changed, but never heard back from anyone. I’ll try it again. If I don’t hear back, I can just delete it then add it back with the new cover. At least I think I can.

Some greater use of Shelfari, an Amazon thing, might be in the cards, to see if it improves visibility of my books. Researching advertising services might be another thing I’ll spend a little time on.

So writing continues, though every day I’m seeing less and less reason to go on with it.

Documenting America, flood studies, Genealogy, goals, The Candy Store Generation

2012 Writing Plan: Non-Fiction Books

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In addition to the non-fiction articles I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve also thought of and plan to work on some non-fiction book projects during 2012. One for sure, and three probable, are what I’m thinking of. I suppose, if I could become really, really productive, I might be able to write a fourth one as well. For all of these, I plan on self-publish.

  1. The Candy Store Generation is my first project, already started, but not very much done. This will be a political book. The Candy Store Generation is the Baby Boomers, and I’m convinced they (we) are ruining America. We are now in charge of business and industry, are the majority of teachers in the schools and universities, are in charge of the Congress, States, and local governments. And the USA is in decline. Could it be that the Boomers are at fault? I think so, and this book will show it. Status: I have written only about 4000 or so words on the way to 40,000 words. I have some research to do on the makeup of Congress, which I have started but am only 10 percent done with. Since this is an election year, I’d like to have this done and available by about May, but that is perhaps too ambitious.
  2. I have done much research into my wife’s paternal immigrant ancestor, John Cheney of Newbury, Massachusetts. He came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. I have an eleven page document of facts and figures that I would like to flesh out into about a 40-50 page biography. I have in my hands three or four histories of Newbury, which I can use to fill in something about his times. I also can take the bare facts and turn them into narrative. In fact, I started this at one time, and should be able to find it on a computer some where. Why do this? John Cheney has many descendants, many of whom are studying their genealogy. I encounter them on message boards all the time. Much misinformation has been posted on-line about John Cheney, and it would be nice to correct it. Also genealogy books sell for a good premium compared to books as a whole. A 50 page e-book would sell for at least $4.00, in print for $10.00. The cover wouldn’t be important. I have no schedule for this, as I’d like to see how other projects, already scheduled, go first.
  3. I have a number of articles written about floodplain engineering that would form the basis of a decent book. But the key thing I would put in this book is Federal floodplain regulations, and format and annotate them in a way to make them more useful than as they are published by the Feds and commented on by FEMA. I think it would be a 60-80 page book. I don’t know what I’ll do with this. It seems like a good idea, and would sell for a good price relative to its length. I just don’t know if I would have the time for this, or if the good price will offset the relatively small audience for this subject.
  4. A fourth work that has come to mind is a second book in the Documenting America series. I’ve already done some of the research for this. I would probably make it more time-limited, probably to the Civil War years: before, during, and after. I’ve already gathered some material for this, and may have written part of a chapter. You might wonder why I would write a second Documenting America book when the first has sold a grand total of 27 copies in eight months. I would answer: because I can and want to. It is a way for me to study history and get paid for it. How sweet is that! If I do this, it would most likely be at the expense of some other project.

Well, those are my plans, or a combination of plans and hopes/dreams. We’ll see how many of these non-fiction book projects actually come to pass.

family, Genealogy

A Bounty of Photographs

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The last three days has brought me just that—a bounty of photographs. Old ones, family ones.

On Monday we received a package in the mail from Lynda’s cousin Robyn. She had been in touch with Lynda via Facebook and e-mail, saying she had some Cheney family photos passed down from her mom. Given that I function as the main family historian, she thought we should have it. Also included were some papers: a souvenir marriage certificate for their common grandparents, a deed, and some other things.

One of the photos is a view of the Cheney ranch, south of Fowler, Kansas. It shows men on horseback or on foot, women on horseback, and four children, probably boys, atop a shed; twelve people in all. You can see a number of outbuildings, including a large barn, a stone shed that is still standing, buildings that show in other photos, and I think the homestead house in the background. In the foreground are cattle in a barbwire corral.

I already have a copy of this, but it is only a photocopy of it. And, either on the original or on the first photocopy, someone wrote what each thing was and drew arrows all over the photo! Not smart. This one is clean, the top right of the photo being damaged, but it shows only sky and could probably be restored. Other photos include siblings, uncles, scenes. At least one other photo is one I’ve never seen before, and I’ve never had a real one of the ranch scene.

On Tuesday I received a phone call from my nephew, Chris. He was contacted by a man in England. That man had photos of our family (though I don’t think he’s related) that were in the possession of my grandfather’s oldest sibling, Mabel Todd. The photos sent so far are of the two brothers who came to America, and one wife (not my grandmother, though that’s supposedly coming. Actually, the one I’m calling a wife of the brother of my grandfather is not identified, but it’s by the same photographer who shot the brother, so it makes sense. I don’t know if more photos are coming or not, but I think so.

It’s amazing what’s out there for your family history is you only look. This contact from England was out of the blue. Chris wasn’t even researching Todd genealogy at the time, when up pops the e-mail: Hey, I’m in England, I’ve got pictures of your family; want them? That’s called a random act of genealogical kindness.

Now, when I issue the next edition of Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West, I’ll have a decent quality photo to include of the ranch scene, not that old one that was barely viewable. And if I ever write a book about the Todds, I’ll have a bit more to go on.

Now, someday, I hope to organize everything. I had an antique dresser that’s close to full of photos. Some are ones we took back in our constant picture taking days; some are accumulated Todd-Vick-Sexton family. In a couple of binds I have Cheney-Stephens family photos, also needed organization and better preservation. Oh how I need to get to all of that and not leave it to my children when I reach room temperature.

Christmas, Genealogy, Writing

Holiday Withdrawals

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That’s one good thing about the holidays: They give you a chance to withdraw from life, if only for a brief time, and forget the normal things and think of and do different things.

This Christmas we left home on the 23rd and drove to Meade, Kansas. A little more than 7 hour drive, north to Joplin then across southern Kansas to the beginning of the high plains. The route is beautiful, through quaint little towns like Baxter Springs (on old Route 66), Chepota, Wellington, Medicine Lodge, and Coldwater. The landforms are varied, with the vegetation gradually thinning the farther west you get, along with the houses, and grain elevators becoming the dominant man made feature, other than the asphalt our tires hum on. Ranch land and farmland alternate. The winter wheat looks good this year. We saw lots of evidence of harvested cotton, which is a crop changes from years past.

Once in Meade, our Internet service was rather short lived, due to a computer failure of the wireless Internet service we used. So even brief checks of Facebook and e-mail became impossible. I had to delay my blog post, wasn’t able to track my page views and income on Suite101 (which, as it turned out, didn’t matter due to massive computer failures there that left the writers unable to access statistics for several days and which still isn’t fully rectified). So I just partook in family activities. Ate too much. Played lots of Rummycube. Attended church services. Talked with relatives. Drove past places of my wife’s childhood. Visited the museum. Ate even more. Talked even more. Alas, saw no football this last weekend, since neither the cousin or her mom had a sports package with their Direct TV.

Through all of this, I didn’t think too much about writing, except when Lynda’s brother kept asking me about the next version of my biography of their great-grandfather. We toured his ranch on Monday, first time I’ve been there in 35 years. We visited with the woman who now owns the spread, and she wanted to buy a copy of the book, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West. Actually, she wants two (one delivered, and one to be printed). This is my first “book”, self-published on company copiers with relatively simple graphics, plastic comb binding, and lots of genealogy tables and information. But it was nice to have someone express some interest in the book. I’ve given away about 20 copies to relatives, maybe even 30 copies, and before this the only ones to express any interest in it are Lynda’s brother, one cousin in California, one cousin in England, and the local museum curator. Everyone else I’ve given it to has said absolutely nothing. Not one word of feedback.

Of course, that’s what I’ve come to expect from relatives and my writing. Almost no one is interested. One of Lynda’s cousins asks, every time I see her, if I’m still writing poetry, but never asks to see any. It seems to be more of a courtesy thing than real interest. And no relative, knowing I write novels, has ever expressed an interest in reading them. That is, until this trip. Two in-laws of that same cousin said they’d like to read Doctor Luke’s Assistant. So I’ll print and send them the latest version, and see what happens.

Well, I don’t want to exaggerate. My cousin Sue read Doctor Luke’s Assistant serially as I was writing it. She is a writer too (and a regular reader of this blog, I believe), and she expressed interest. Although, I’ve never bought a copy of her book and read it. So maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on relatives.

But it was nice to leave the pressure of office, writing, stock market, and all things regular for a few days. Here I am now, in Oklahoma City at my daughter and son-in-law’s house, where computer access is easy, checking Suite 101 and e-mail and firing off blog posts. I’m still ignoring most of my normal life, though a little football would be nice. We’ll head home more likely Saturday. Thus we’ll be on our normal Sunday schedule. I’ll be back to writing. I’ll be able to watch all the football I can stand.

But I’ll think fondly of our week away from the routine, and hope for something similar next year.

Engineering, freelance writing, Genealogy, Suite 101

So Much To Learn

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Today I have two major tasks at work: prepare for Planning Commission meeting tonight, and prepare for the brown bag class I’ll teach tomorrow noon. The P.C. meeting is easy to prep for: ten copies of two figures and about three pages of text. The figures need some hand coloring, but that’s a throwback to childhood and not at all unpleasant.

The brown bag is tougher to prep for, because I want to include a PowerPoint presentation with it. This is my second PowerPoint to prepare. The last one was all text. For this one, I want to include photos and drawings. This increases the degree of difficulty (from about 1.0 to about 3.5, I’d say). Plus, the last one I did was back in March, and I’ve pretty well forgotten all I learned then. So it’s a learning day. When I get frustrated with building the slide show, I just pull out one of the figures to color. I have till 6:00 PM to complete them.

Then there’s the whole question of learning photographs for the Internet. I spent some time at Flickr, following a link to their Creative Commons, which is the area that’s supposed to have the copyright-free photos. I had a little time with this, then Internet Explorer locked up. So I exited and went back to Flickr, this time the home page. And on that page I could not find a link to the Creative Commons. Am I missing something? I’ll get back to that after this post.

I love learning, but this is almost too much today. PowerPoint alone would be fine, or maybe the photo study would be fine, but the two together are somewhat overwhelming.

On the other hand, the pleasant evening I wrote about yesterday came to be almost exactly as I hoped. The genealogy meeting was good. I actually knew the speaker, and met a few new people. Any time you are in a library, even if it’s just the meeting room, is a good time. At home I filed and wrote and read and talked on the phone for a long time with my son. I balanced the checkbook, which in two prior sittings had refused to be balanced. I didn’t get to my financial record spreadsheets, or paying a couple of bills, but I have tonight for that. Another pleasant evening coming.

Engineering, flood studies, Genealogy, Harmony of the gospels

A Pleasant Evening Awaits

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It’s 4:32 PM by the clock on my computer at the office. I returned here a little while ago from Centerton, where I presented my flood study to the mayor and department heads. This was for the purpose of presenting the summary of findings and recommendations, and to help them understand what their options are concerning future conditions in the drainage basin. Tomorrow evening I present it to the Planning Commission (for information purposes only).

I’d like to say that’s the end of the project, but, alas, it’s only the end of the study phase. I now need to pull together a submission to FEMA. This consists of reworking my report to include only those things FEMA will look at, filling out about 15 pages of FEMA forms, having one more exhibit drawn–the actual changes to the flood map, and getting the City’s approval of those. At some point this will involve a public hearing and newspaper ads. The actual flood map revision, which will be the end of the project, is likely 6 to 8 months away.

But, a burden is lifted. I look forward to a pleasant evening tonight. My wife is away (no, that’s not what will make it a pleasant evening), having gone this morning to Oklahoma City with her mother to spend a week with daughter, son-in-law, and grandson Ephraim. I’m going to take advantage of the time, however, and attend the regular monthly meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Genealogical Society at the Bentonville library. I’ve never been to this group. I look forward to the fellowship.

Then, what to do at the house? A quick supper of leftovers won’t take much time. I’ll probably read in Robertson’s harmony of the gospels, then go work on my own. I made some good progress on this yesterday, and would like to finish the appendix I worked on. That would feel pretty good, if I could finish that. The progress I made yesterday would have been greater except, having taken so long away from it, it was difficult to shift my mind from magazine articles (on-line and off-line)and Bible studies to that work. Tonight should be better, with me having not worked on other writing since then, except for this blog.

After that, probably about 11:00 PM, I’ll exit the Dungeon for the upper realm and read something lighter, say in an old issue of Writers Digest that I picked up at a thrift store. That will put me in the mood for bed, and I should get six hours of blissful sleep, dreaming about the Bible, genealogy, and writing, with a little successful engineering mixed in. What could be more pleasant to dream about?

freelance writing, Genealogy

The Proofs

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We left on our road trip last Wednesday morning, leaving no time for a morning check of e-mail. It was not until we arrived in Chicago on Friday that I checked e-mail and found the proofs of my article for Internet Genealogy.

For those who don’t write, I’ll explain. With freelance writing you generally don’t write the article until you have an assignment. First, after researching a magazine to see if the idea you want to write about seems to work for that mag, you write a query letter and submit it to the mag. If the idea and any specifics you give them seem to fit their themes and publishing schedule, they give you the assignment. For bigger mags this will result in a contract with certain performance requirements from the author. For smaller mags there may not be a contract, only a virtual “handshake”. Then you write and submit the article. At this point you have no guarantee that the article will be accepted and used. The mag may have given out more assignments than they can actually publish, knowing some freelancers might miss a deadline. Or they may wind up not liking your writing. So, although you have an assignment, that is not a guarantee of publication.

I submitted the article on May 26, I think it was, almost a week ahead of schedule. And I began a patient wait for the e-mail that said, “Yes, we think your writing is acceptable; and yes, we have the space, so your article is accepted and will be in our xxxx issue.” As a first time freelancer, this was a difficult thing. I fear that my article won’t measure up. So from May 26 to early June 5 I heard nothing.

Finally the morning of June 5 I opened my e-mail, and there was one received June 3rd from the the copy editor of Internet Genealogy, not saying my article was accepted, but rather conveying the proofs of the article–that is, the article as it will be laid out in the magazine. In other words, it was accepted, and will indeed be in the next issue of the magazine. Sweet!

I don’t know when payment will be coming, but I almost don’t care. The article was accepted.

Last night I began putting ideas for more articles on paper, planning to query the same magazine and other genealogy magazines with additional ideas. That will be my noon hour tasks today, to continue that process. Maybe I can get one in by tomorrow.

This freelance thing is fun.

Engineering, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, flood studies, Genealogy, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, reading

4:20 PM, Friday Afternoon

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This has been a full and busy day.

Work wise, I completed the base work on the Little Osage Creek Flood Study. That is, I:

– entered new rainfall data into the hydrology model for the 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year rainfall events, and re-ran the run-off calculations. Since I hadn’t run the 500-year before, I had to make adjustments in the overflow structures of eleven detention ponds. By noon, I had a successful run-off model.
– entered the new run-off values into the hydraulics model and re-ran the flood calculations. This was successful at about 3:50 PM. That doesn’t mean I’m quite done with this. I still need to run two phases of ditch improvements and one major future condition, but the hard work is done. Oh, and I still need to write the report, fill out the FEMA forms, and submit it. But with the work today, I consider the hard part done.

I also helped a man in the office with construction site problems.

Personal work wise, I:

– Proofread my article for Internet Genealogy; found a few changes to make; typed the changes; printed the article; proof-read it (in one uninterrupted sitting); found a few more changes to make; typed them; proof-read it and saw it was where I wanted it to be; and e-mailed it to the editor. The article still is not quite finished, because…
– I once again called the professor I wanted to interview for the article, and once again had to leave a message. I’ve found a work-around in case I can’t get a hold of him.
– Mailed my mother-in-law’s income taxes. “So late?” you ask. Yes. She doesn’t owe anything, they don’t owe her anything, she probably doesn’t even need to file at her income level, so yes, quite late, but it’s done for this year.
– Walked a mile on the noon hour.

I approach the end of a day of great accomplishment that made the whole week worthwhile, and somewhat made up for my inefficiencies of the last two weeks, and the two weeks before vacation. I have only 22 pages to go on my reading book, which I will finish tonight and write my review over the weekend. Next in the reading pile is Team Of Rivals, which I am looking forward to. I’m fairly close to finishing the edits on the John Cheney file that I’ve been plodding through a little each night for the last week and a half. I’ll surely have them done by Sunday afternoon, after which I’ll print and file it, file accumulated genealogy papers and clean up my mess in the Dungeon. Hopefully I’ll put genealogy behind me for a while and figure out what to write next. Probably it will be one or two appendixes on the Harmony of the Gospels. Possibly it will be a chapter or two of In Front of 50000 Screaming People. I’ll also consider working on queries for other articles, or fleshing out proposals for the Bible studies I’ve been working on recently.

Too many choices; too little time.