Day One: subject

Several years ago, a co-worker encouraged me to write an interactive book of local history for children visiting our area of Ottawa County, Michigan.  I have a background in Education, focused on History and Art...what a great idea!  That should be easy to do...silly me. 

I thought about the idea and plotted a map.  I began to think about the interesting stops and historical sites along that route.  My imagination then shifted to the American Civil War, a time period of great interest to me. My family lived near this mapped-out route...what were they doing at that time?  I knew that they were not serving in the War but as recent immigrants from Western Europe, what were they doing to support (or to not support) the war effort?  Did any of their neighbours go off to the battle fronts?  Now, I needed to know who their neighbours were. 

Obtaining a roster of Civil War veterans would be a fairly easy thing to do...or so I thought!  I found one list in one library and found a different list in a different library.   The State of Michigan Archives in Lansing would surely have the difinative listing but they, again, had a different list.   My obssesive-compulsive nature took hold and I began to create the one list .   Ha!  The years and the pages have piled high and still I have not published that roster.  Please remind me to get that finished!  It is in the final editing process but stored in a dusty box, in a spare room.

Today, I have chosen to begin the end...or at least, the next phase.  I read that it is a good idea to use a blog as a tool for composing my family history book; writing about a specific person or topic each time.  Visitors to my blog could add comments or submit their own sourced data.  This idea of breaking down the process into smaller, more managable chucks sounded very appealing to me!    And here I go.....