Return from the Dead

I've sorrowfully neglected blogging for the last few months. In that time I've done a few book signings, one of which was very successful, stayed with my brother in the hospital after he was diagnosed with lung cancer and started on a new novel dealing with my ancestors' immigration from Poland.
I am finding it a real slog as it's a subject I know nothing about. But I'm trying to look at it as a challenge rather than getting discouraged. I've found the research fascinating. However, what I've read tends to limit itself to major events and people in the history of Poland and accounts of immigrants once they've arrived in the US, and not what the lives of peasants in 19th century Poland were like. Well, it's going to tax my imagination. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
People who have read my most recent published novel, "The Id Paradox" have been extremely complimentary, one person calling me a "master".
I see the one I'm working on now as the first novel of a trilogy, tracing the family (as fiction) through the latter part of the 19th century to the mid-late 20th.
I'm finding talking about it heartening. Perhaps keeping up my blog is the thing to do.