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Buy the book called "standard work in the field
of writing family history," For All Time: A
Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History
Inscribed by the author to you!
of writing family history," For All Time: A
Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History
Inscribed by the author to you!
What is history? 9 am, Wed., Sep. 23, 2--9
A huge and absolutely essential part of the process of understanding our history is having access to the records of the past. For the
past, by definition, doesn’t stick around. It’s never here; it’s always gone. (Isn’t that cute?) What we have left besides the invisible and
from a practical standpoint inaccessible motes of dust in the air and sounds beyond all reach are such records as we may have kept--
written records, photographic records, and other kinds of physical records meaning, I guess, our artifacts.
We cannot understand what we know nothing of. And the person or persons who select what to make known to the future (then) are the
first responders--and therefore much of what the historian does is determined by the archivist.
Then the recipient, not being an empty vessel merely into which the concoction (or conjuration) of history is poured, gives the history a
shape and significance and sound, even, and even as they take it all in, so that history is necessarily flawed, if it is a flaw for it to be
colored by the reader/the viewer/the hearer.
So really we have three main participants in the making of history: one, the history itself; two, the archivist, who really does the lion’s
share of shaping the history; and three, the reader/viewer/auditor and their own imagination, how they reconstruct in their mind what
they are given by those of us who make and keep the past.
What can we add if we would be writers?
Well, especially since we were (past imperfect here) and still are participants in the history in question, we can write up our part. We
may not have taken pictures or taped anything, except that what about those pictures in our minds, those words and images we
remember? Isn’t that part of history too? (Quote the medievalist, what’s-his-name, about the “imaginal history.”)
We can add the little stories, the thoughts that came to us later, the commentary or the additions or whatever it may be. Let history ring
with our voices, too.
Carlyle’s theory of history was called the “great man theory of history and was very popular in his time in the 19th Century.” The idea
that one such person, somebody like Napoleon, for example, actually made history into what it was, so great was his thrust and power.
But there were problems with that view. You had to accept the truth of the idea, really, in order to prove it. You had to accept that history
was the public acts of the great, the king died and then the queen died of grief. (Or today the queen died and then the king died of
grief.) We never heard about the attendants on the king and queen, or the ones who worked for the attendants, the housepainters, the
professors in their schools, the ones who tuned the pianos that Chopin so elegantly played.
I guess I have a workingclass imagination: whenever I go to a movie and see the hero kissing the heroine, I always note the woodwork
in the room and wonder who painted it so very, very well? mmmmm
History like that teaches us that we are all one, the people next to the wall, the one who painted the wall, and even the fly on the wall.
(Who did more to shape pre-Renaissance history in Western Europe, the rats or the kings?
Thursday, January 7, 2009 From my Journal
My father would be 107 today.
This is severe cold weather! It’s five above zero this morning, the high for the day the weatherman on TV says, and what he doesn’t
say or know I do: that possibly we’re snowed in since it snowed from noon yesterday to well past midnight. I got up in the dark and
stared out at it.
And now the winds are beginning.
I’m downstairs this morning, I can’t go upstairs to my hideout, it’s so cold up there, I just can’t go up there and sit, even with the heater,
it’s so cold around me, I’m enclosed in it, I’m being held in an icy hand. Just looking at the thick frolic of frost on the cold glass
windows makes me shiver.
The truth is it’s cold all over. Everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a warm place anywhere in the world. Well, sure, somewhere there’s a
Florida, somewhere men and women are laughing and playing on the sandy beach, but here in Mudville…it’s cold. It’s even cold
downstairs here too but I have the TV on in the background, so maybe it’s the proximity of more hot coffee and the kitchen and June
and…the real possibility of walking a few steps and slipping back into bed under the warmth of the electric blanket. Going back to bed
is very tempting. Who would notice, who would care? This is a world frozen solid. Nothing moves.
Wake me when it’s time to plant the garden. I love to sweat.
Tu., January 12, 2010
It might be called “writing on faith,” i.e., writing on the “faith” that when you actually start writing, something will come. Faith, really, is a
sensible and rational understanding of something. Faith isn't just hope. I hope that it won't snow tomorrow, but I have faith that winter
will end someday. The hope may or may not be realistic, but the ending of winter is something that I have every *reason* to expect.
If we have faith in our God, then it’s because we have good reason to. We have evidence. It may not be all “logical,” whatever that may
mean, but it works for us. Faith as defined by Bertrand Russell--“faith is believing in something there is no reason to believe in”--
doesn’t add up for me. I think probably Russell was being historical in his use of the word here, pointing out that the old church fathers
or somebody decried reason as a way of getting to God. Which I suppose some moderns, maybe many, would. But my apprehension
of God is based on my ability to reason.
Descartes, wasn’t it? said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot know.” I don’t think that’s true, at least not as I
understand the meaning of the word, “reason.”
A huge and absolutely essential part of the process of understanding our history is having access to the records of the past. For the
past, by definition, doesn’t stick around. It’s never here; it’s always gone. (Isn’t that cute?) What we have left besides the invisible and
from a practical standpoint inaccessible motes of dust in the air and sounds beyond all reach are such records as we may have kept--
written records, photographic records, and other kinds of physical records meaning, I guess, our artifacts.
We cannot understand what we know nothing of. And the person or persons who select what to make known to the future (then) are the
first responders--and therefore much of what the historian does is determined by the archivist.
Then the recipient, not being an empty vessel merely into which the concoction (or conjuration) of history is poured, gives the history a
shape and significance and sound, even, and even as they take it all in, so that history is necessarily flawed, if it is a flaw for it to be
colored by the reader/the viewer/the hearer.
So really we have three main participants in the making of history: one, the history itself; two, the archivist, who really does the lion’s
share of shaping the history; and three, the reader/viewer/auditor and their own imagination, how they reconstruct in their mind what
they are given by those of us who make and keep the past.
What can we add if we would be writers?
Well, especially since we were (past imperfect here) and still are participants in the history in question, we can write up our part. We
may not have taken pictures or taped anything, except that what about those pictures in our minds, those words and images we
remember? Isn’t that part of history too? (Quote the medievalist, what’s-his-name, about the “imaginal history.”)
We can add the little stories, the thoughts that came to us later, the commentary or the additions or whatever it may be. Let history ring
with our voices, too.
Carlyle’s theory of history was called the “great man theory of history and was very popular in his time in the 19th Century.” The idea
that one such person, somebody like Napoleon, for example, actually made history into what it was, so great was his thrust and power.
But there were problems with that view. You had to accept the truth of the idea, really, in order to prove it. You had to accept that history
was the public acts of the great, the king died and then the queen died of grief. (Or today the queen died and then the king died of
grief.) We never heard about the attendants on the king and queen, or the ones who worked for the attendants, the housepainters, the
professors in their schools, the ones who tuned the pianos that Chopin so elegantly played.
I guess I have a workingclass imagination: whenever I go to a movie and see the hero kissing the heroine, I always note the woodwork
in the room and wonder who painted it so very, very well? mmmmm
History like that teaches us that we are all one, the people next to the wall, the one who painted the wall, and even the fly on the wall.
(Who did more to shape pre-Renaissance history in Western Europe, the rats or the kings?
Thursday, January 7, 2009 From my Journal
My father would be 107 today.
This is severe cold weather! It’s five above zero this morning, the high for the day the weatherman on TV says, and what he doesn’t
say or know I do: that possibly we’re snowed in since it snowed from noon yesterday to well past midnight. I got up in the dark and
stared out at it.
And now the winds are beginning.
I’m downstairs this morning, I can’t go upstairs to my hideout, it’s so cold up there, I just can’t go up there and sit, even with the heater,
it’s so cold around me, I’m enclosed in it, I’m being held in an icy hand. Just looking at the thick frolic of frost on the cold glass
windows makes me shiver.
The truth is it’s cold all over. Everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a warm place anywhere in the world. Well, sure, somewhere there’s a
Florida, somewhere men and women are laughing and playing on the sandy beach, but here in Mudville…it’s cold. It’s even cold
downstairs here too but I have the TV on in the background, so maybe it’s the proximity of more hot coffee and the kitchen and June
and…the real possibility of walking a few steps and slipping back into bed under the warmth of the electric blanket. Going back to bed
is very tempting. Who would notice, who would care? This is a world frozen solid. Nothing moves.
Wake me when it’s time to plant the garden. I love to sweat.
Tu., January 12, 2010
It might be called “writing on faith,” i.e., writing on the “faith” that when you actually start writing, something will come. Faith, really, is a
sensible and rational understanding of something. Faith isn't just hope. I hope that it won't snow tomorrow, but I have faith that winter
will end someday. The hope may or may not be realistic, but the ending of winter is something that I have every *reason* to expect.
If we have faith in our God, then it’s because we have good reason to. We have evidence. It may not be all “logical,” whatever that may
mean, but it works for us. Faith as defined by Bertrand Russell--“faith is believing in something there is no reason to believe in”--
doesn’t add up for me. I think probably Russell was being historical in his use of the word here, pointing out that the old church fathers
or somebody decried reason as a way of getting to God. Which I suppose some moderns, maybe many, would. But my apprehension
of God is based on my ability to reason.
Descartes, wasn’t it? said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot know.” I don’t think that’s true, at least not as I
understand the meaning of the word, “reason.”
Please note: Okay, I know this site's an under-construction-mess--well, let's be polite and call it a 'work in progress.' But
every day from now on I'm going to put something here of importance to the writer of personal and family history. This note in
itself is today's important writing thing, which is, above all, and no matter what, keep writing every day. Write at least a line or
two every day. Usually, as you may know, if you write a line or two you're very likely to write more, and of course that's great.
But if you just write a line or two, so be it, you can thank your lucky stars you're here and go on to the next day's work.
-- Charley Kempthorne, editor, Mon., January 25, 2010, 1100 CST
every day from now on I'm going to put something here of importance to the writer of personal and family history. This note in
itself is today's important writing thing, which is, above all, and no matter what, keep writing every day. Write at least a line or
two every day. Usually, as you may know, if you write a line or two you're very likely to write more, and of course that's great.
But if you just write a line or two, so be it, you can thank your lucky stars you're here and go on to the next day's work.
-- Charley Kempthorne, editor, Mon., January 25, 2010, 1100 CST
Today is Monday, Feb. 15, 2010
This from Wood, Gordon. Empire of Liberty, A History of the Early Republic,
1789-1815. Oxford History of the United States, 2009.
The House of Representatives [in 1789] took seriously the belief that it was
the more democratic branch of the legislature, much closer to the people than
the supposedly aristocratic Senate. It certainly tended to act in a more popular
manner. The members of the House paid little attention to ceremony and
dignities and sometimes shocked the Senate with their raucous and disorderly
behavior. At times three or four representatives would be on their feet at once,
shouting invectives, attacking individuals violently, telling private stories, and
making irrelevant speeches…
Sep. 9, 2009, Congress in Joint Session:
"You lie!” --Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina,shouted to the President who
had just said illegal immigrants would not be covered in the proposed health
care bill.
This from Wood, Gordon. Empire of Liberty, A History of the Early Republic,
1789-1815. Oxford History of the United States, 2009.
The House of Representatives [in 1789] took seriously the belief that it was
the more democratic branch of the legislature, much closer to the people than
the supposedly aristocratic Senate. It certainly tended to act in a more popular
manner. The members of the House paid little attention to ceremony and
dignities and sometimes shocked the Senate with their raucous and disorderly
behavior. At times three or four representatives would be on their feet at once,
shouting invectives, attacking individuals violently, telling private stories, and
making irrelevant speeches…
Sep. 9, 2009, Congress in Joint Session:
"You lie!” --Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina,shouted to the President who
had just said illegal immigrants would not be covered in the proposed health
care bill.
Good morning! Today is Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010
Today's narrative writing tip is: if you don't feel like writing, if you're just
sitting there staring at a blank screen and a pulsing cursor, just do it
anyway: write anyway. And if you can't think of anything to write?
Then narrate the "story" of yourself sitting there trying to think of
something to write.
I'm not kidding. Because the essential thing is that you write, even (or
maybe especially) when it seems meaningless to do so. That's because
then you'll be there to write when it doesn't seem meaningless at all,
when the exact opposite is true
Suit up and show up, isn't that what they used to say?
Today's narrative writing tip is: if you don't feel like writing, if you're just
sitting there staring at a blank screen and a pulsing cursor, just do it
anyway: write anyway. And if you can't think of anything to write?
Then narrate the "story" of yourself sitting there trying to think of
something to write.
I'm not kidding. Because the essential thing is that you write, even (or
maybe especially) when it seems meaningless to do so. That's because
then you'll be there to write when it doesn't seem meaningless at all,
when the exact opposite is true
Suit up and show up, isn't that what they used to say?
Good morning! Today is Monday, Feb. 22, 2010
The job of the historian is to somehow create an accurate and complete picture of the
past for continued interpretation and understanding. This is the archival function. But
here archiving doesn’t just mean keeping and organizing existing records. It means
creating records of stuff that was never kept as a record--and this is where your family
history, or even your own personal history, comes in. Who has kept the record of my
conversation with my father when I went off to join the Navy in 1955? Only I can make
such a record, and I may well be the only one interested in keeping it.("Don't take any
wooden nickels," Dad said.)
And in the making of it, especially if it’s narrative (which is what it should be), I am
interpreting it. Narrative needs no interpretation or comment; it simply is what it is.
What would you have the narrative historian do, tell us what he just told us?
The job of the historian is to somehow create an accurate and complete picture of the
past for continued interpretation and understanding. This is the archival function. But
here archiving doesn’t just mean keeping and organizing existing records. It means
creating records of stuff that was never kept as a record--and this is where your family
history, or even your own personal history, comes in. Who has kept the record of my
conversation with my father when I went off to join the Navy in 1955? Only I can make
such a record, and I may well be the only one interested in keeping it.("Don't take any
wooden nickels," Dad said.)
And in the making of it, especially if it’s narrative (which is what it should be), I am
interpreting it. Narrative needs no interpretation or comment; it simply is what it is.
What would you have the narrative historian do, tell us what he just told us?
| Good morning! It's March 5, 2010. Here's some breakfast food for thought: |
“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be
retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We
commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first
person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about
myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my
experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first
or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not
merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account
as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has
lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.”
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden
retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We
commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first
person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about
myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my
experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first
or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not
merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account
as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has
lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.”
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden