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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.”
January 26, 2010
Start Your Engines!
Here's how LifeStory Contributing Editor
LifeStory 108 (coming out next week) on
how he starts his day's writing.
A lot of people often ask me how I write. I
say "well" I hope. But no, they want to know
how I actually sit down and physically
settle in for my daily writing sessions. They
sometimes want to know, for example,
whether or not I wear a special holy
sweatshirt, a funny hat, lucky underwear, or
even do something crazy like maybe stand
on my desk and pound the computer keys
with my feet like a young nimble Jerry Lee
Lewis doing a vintage rendition of Shake
Rattle ‘n Roll!
Start Your Engines!
Here's how LifeStory Contributing Editor
LifeStory 108 (coming out next week) on
how he starts his day's writing.
A lot of people often ask me how I write. I
say "well" I hope. But no, they want to know
how I actually sit down and physically
settle in for my daily writing sessions. They
sometimes want to know, for example,
whether or not I wear a special holy
sweatshirt, a funny hat, lucky underwear, or
even do something crazy like maybe stand
on my desk and pound the computer keys
with my feet like a young nimble Jerry Lee
Lewis doing a vintage rendition of Shake
Rattle ‘n Roll!
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
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Watch this space for improvements.
Watch this space for improvements.
