Several years ago, a total newbie, I began researching my ancestry. I built a huge family tree going back to antiquity, placing some of them in the tree based solely on other online family trees. As I got deeper into the process, I learned that mistakes are common, some “historians” made up stories of family history, and more evidence is needed to verify ancestors than the word of a stranger. I now have the huge task of going through the 12,854 people on my family tree to make sure they belong there.
As I built this unwieldy tree, I found discovering the stories of the people much more interesting than having a large list of people. There are some very interesting characters in my tree, and I have even verified that I am descended from some of them.
Historic fiction has been my favorite genre since elementary school. I decided to write novels based on my ancestors, starting with one on whom I had a lot of information – my dad. That became another major learning experience. I had written books before, but only nonfiction. Learning the elements of fiction, especially a genre that takes the level of research required for the good historic fiction, took time.
I now have at least a tenuous grasp on the process, and I believe the next book will take less than the five years of the first one, but there are many, many more stories among those 12, 854 people than I will have time to write in my lifetime. In this blog, I tell some of the stories – in no particular order. If I have heard a story I can’t actually verify, I will include it as legend and perhaps someday some new source will surface to prove or disprove the story.
I hope you enjoy these vignettes in the lives of people who once lived.
