Ms. Mignon, I believe that, just like you, most folks who have done research for any considerable number of years have more material than they can, should or want to write about.  That being so, you must determine the objective for THIS book, not a different book sometime in the future.

I have found in teaching writing to adults that if a student will force himself/herself to write in 2 sentences what he/she intends as the message of the PRESENT book/effort, then he/she will be off and running.

So, what is it that you want your descendants to know about; what to tell them??  That will be the theme for the present effort.  Do you want them to realize that your folks were players in the great panorama of American history? Of the history of some other nation also?  Do you want to write about their stations in life and their travails?  Want to write about their pioneer spirit and willingness to move west despite what to us were tedious, if not impossible, hardships? Want to speak to the everyday lives of each passing generation?  How about writing as to their work, play and education? What about their religious affiliations and practices and the interplay of those aspects of life with their work-a-day world?  What about their education and how they achieved that and whether or not it really was necessary that they knew more than how to barely write?  What about their transportation and travels? On and on.... 

The point is that you can not write about every aspect of their lives; you have not enough life left even to do that about your OWN life. So, whether it be one of those ideas or some other, and whether or not you write as to a couple of those topics, you must have a target - a message.

Just as my preacher friend can't preach the whole Bible every Sunday, you can't write about your whole family in one book.

Finally, I would suggest that if you are unable to state what it is that you intend as the message to your descendants, then you sure can't write about it.  So, therein is your very first task.

Of my books, one was a 700 page family history.  Before I ever began I decided that my message would be that, with rare exception, we were a family of poor to middling hard working Americans who were exceedingly proud and served in all wars.  So it was that I wrote.  My message could have been VERY different, and had it been so I would have written about very different matters.  Once having made that decision I set out to do just that.  Oh yeh, when I got all done I chose a title, and because I had picked a message to convey the title worked and was/is "Now In Our Fourth Century; Some American Families".  You must choose your direction before you can begin doing anything by way of writing about it.   

Paul

  


--- Original Message ----- 
  From: [log in to unmask] 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 2:58 PM
  Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] My Major Opus



  My original goal was to discover my ancestors back to the ocean, but was 
  fortunate to go past the 1600's and back into the 600's in a couple of 
  lines.  Since I'm doing this for my grandchildren, I have lots of lines. 
  And I know more about my lines than my husband's or son-in-law's.

  Now I have an enormous amount of data, 33,000 pages not counting pictures or 
  maps, in my computer genealogical  program, but no story.  I know a lot of 
  stories that I picked up just by doing the research, plus what I've picked 
  up from the cousins I've met on line, plus what I know because of my study 
  of history and literature.  All my known ancestors are documented.

  My question to any of you who've figured this out:  How does one divide ones 
  ancestry into segments in order to just stack it up or make it accessible to 
  ones descedents?  Does one attempt to do ones American ancestors?  (I'm 
  afraid that would be a volume of 22,000 pages at least. Then take a strand 
  of immigrants and follow wherever that goes for Vol. II?  Nothing I come up 
  with seems to make much sense.  Help!

  Mignon Nicholson



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