WikiTree Challenge results now up on YouTube
So...
Earlier this year I was invited to be a guest on a WikiTree Challenge Week, explained here:
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
They've just posted the very nice results report they did with me at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scs5r...
Their stimulus inspired me to pull out and put together my short ebook of family history:
https://www.amazon.com/Gerould-Family...
This was compiled from the typescript I was waving around at the end of the interview, laboriously transcribed about 50 years ago from the original pocket diaries from 1864 that my mother had been entrusted with. I do not know at what point and from what original Samuel L. Gerould's memoir was transcribed, though the e-file I obtained was made from a typescript of it by my brother Jim in the early 2000s.
(Showing yet again, things lead to things. Which has been one of my mantras from very early in my writing career.)
Ta, L.
Earlier this year I was invited to be a guest on a WikiTree Challenge Week, explained here:
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
They've just posted the very nice results report they did with me at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scs5r...
Their stimulus inspired me to pull out and put together my short ebook of family history:
https://www.amazon.com/Gerould-Family...
This was compiled from the typescript I was waving around at the end of the interview, laboriously transcribed about 50 years ago from the original pocket diaries from 1864 that my mother had been entrusted with. I do not know at what point and from what original Samuel L. Gerould's memoir was transcribed, though the e-file I obtained was made from a typescript of it by my brother Jim in the early 2000s.
(Showing yet again, things lead to things. Which has been one of my mantras from very early in my writing career.)
Ta, L.
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JuaSaysHi
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Sep 27, 2022 01:07PM
Amazing! And oh so, SO cool!
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Very nice. Just got the Kindle version, thanks.
Shane wrote: "Very nice. Just got the Kindle version, thanks."Hope you enjoy it!
Or at any rate, find it historically instructive. (I did.) The diary sections are a little opaque at first, but gradually come into focus with accumulation. Not exactly a new challenge for F&SF readers.
Ta, L.
Been reading it, so far got to mid-Feb on the first diary. Would this blog entry be appropriate for comments and questions about it?
Shane wrote: "Been reading it, so far got to mid-Feb on the first diary. Would this blog entry be appropriate for comments and questions about it?"Yes, sure.
L.
I finished this on the plane back from visiting our niece's family, and just sat there a while thinking about it. One immediate takeaway is how much better our lives are with modern sanitation: the frequent bouts of indigestion, diarrhea, and other illnesses that clean water avoids. There are lots of references I didn't get; I will make a list and try to research them on my own. Also, I was struck by the frequent deaths from seemingly unknown causes, but it's natural that a minister's family would be more aware of those. (My grandfather was a Methodist minister and spent part of his life as a circuit-riding preacher.) I thank you for publishing this. It's something that few outside of academia ever see.
Yes, working through editing the material I gave it much closer attention than my cursory first read of decades ago. Sitting and letting it penetrate is a good description of its best sort of reading. Another firsthand account of flatboating during that period had the same litany of intestinal diseases, because no one yet knew to boil drinking water -- Pasteur had only just done his work in France, and word had not yet gotten around.And yeah, peace or war, ancient or modern, the death rate is always and everywhere the same: one per birth.
Ta, L.
You are lucky to have these in your family's archives. My great aunt Emma Wilson wrote a book, Under One Roof, which actually has an Amazon entry (I'm astonished), about her family (she was my grandmother's sister). My mother's side were all educated but Aunt Emma is the only one who wrote anything like an account of daily life (apparently out of boredom); my father's side was illiterate until the late 19th century, as far as I know. Even so, taking the time to keep a daily journal was often too much. We can see from Cynthia's entries that her days were often very full, leaving little time for a diary.
