How I Found  My Stories

Family Stories …and How I Found Mine has a dual narrative.  Each set of stories is followed by a section telling how I found and tracked these stories.  It is a case study approach.  How I found my stories will hopefully convey to the reader ideas about tools and methods that might work for them.  Here are a few of the topics I discuss with examples.

Some of the Topics I Discuss

  •  All Roads Lead to Home

  •  Finding and downloading antique books

 

 

  • “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” Standard

 

  • Civil War Stories

  • Unified Narrative

  • File Media and Formats

  • Family Traditions

  • The “Landscape View”

  • Female Ancestry

  • Google Maps and Wikipedia

Selected Excerpts

 

 “…So much of my quest of these families took place right in my own study.  Soon after I began researching Samuel Gorton, for example, I discovered a reference to a book he wrote in 1646 while… in London appearing before the Parliamentary Commission for Plantations in America… Was it possible, I wondered, that a copy of Samuel Gorton’s book might still be around and accessible?  I started googling… and was surprised when I found a facsimile available to order at a reasonable price… Unknown to many, the rapidly evolving technology of book printing over the past couple decades has revolutionized the publishing world… It is now possible to access a library of long out of print volumes right from our home computers…  As I googled and read, I also found a number of references to digitalized copies of books that were available free on the internet and relevant to my ancestral stories…”  [pp 131-133]

 

 

 “…When I started tracking the Lent boys’ adventures during the Civil War, I knew that this was a war documented like no other before it…  Each battle’s details were also recorded after the war in huge compilations of records that have benefited historians ever afterwards.  Since Americans fought on both sides, the archives tell of both friend and foe.

    I saw this firsthand one day when I traveled to the Library of Virginia in Richmond… I soon discovered stacks of the published volumes of dispatches, letters, and after-action reports, such as the report of Lt. Col. Francis Drake, April 25, 1864, in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.  In the index I found John W.’s name.  There were detailed descriptions of the battles where the three Lent men fought. 

     I learned that if you want a firsthand account of a battle an ancestor fought, this is a place to look…”  [p 274]

 “…I found that taking a landscape view of those around our ancestors introduced shades and nuance…  Casting a broad enough net to capture those with whom they interacted can be rewarding.  For example, when I scoured the internet for information about the Kansas 5th Cavalry, I found a collection of letters and diaries written by men of the regiment…  There was nothing in it from any of the three Lent boys, but the stories their saddle-mates recounted were often their stories, too.  I searched internet used bookstores for the book, and in a matter of days had a copy in front of me.  Many fascinating new tales and details emerged…” [p 275]