Friday, February 9, 2024

Publishing family books

 I really hadn't thought beyond publishing the Siderfin Book in terms of writing family histories. I published the Siderfin Book as broadly as I was able because it was an update and I wanted it to be freely downloadable for any one interested in the Siderfin family. But my books on Blake and Pencombe are of a more personal nature and probably I will not distribute them quite so broadly as I attempted to do with the Siderfin book. I would say that James Sanders meant for the book to be updated just reading his opening pages. He did not feel able to write a genealogy book but wanted to record what he knew from family lore and what he found. It was great that he did do so and I was in a moment of time when my mind benefited from that intensive work on revising and updating the Siderfin book. 

But now I am into Blake and Pencombe and enjoying it very much. It brings back memories of my grandparents and parents and siblings after years away from my birth home. Edward''s chosen lifestyle meant a lot of traveling here and there on this continent as he searched out his family lines so that my time back in my hometown was pretty limited although I do not expect that I would ever live there again. London is incredibly different from the city I grew up in. I lived right at the edge of the city as a young child and watched it grow and assimilate the many small villages around it through the years until we moved here when I was thirty years of age and our oldest daughter was just under a year in age. For her it was a difficult move as she was leaving behind her beloved grandparents and her aunts and uncles. She did yearn for them as a small child adjusting to the change in her surroundings. Fortunately our furniture and massive book collection had come with us which made it seem more like home but it was not and it did take a while for her to adjust to her change in surroundings and people contact. Visits to Grandparents were replaced by visits to the Museum every week and she loved that. In a way the museum replaced the grandparents, aunts and uncles as she quickly memorized all the floors and selected the spot to begin each week. 

I do not actually see myself making the Blake and Pencombe books overly available but will contemplate that over the next two years. If I make it  a limited production then I can bring lines up further into the 1900s. I tend to think in terms of the 100 year cut off that we have here in Canada to protect people's privacy. I could also contemplate using the cutoff book for more public distribution and having a more detailed genealogy into the 1900s purely for family use. I will consider that idea. I have no idea how many people would want a copy of this book and I do limit my family to my personal family, my siblings, their descendants  because I do not have any first cousins thus concentrating my close relations into my blood line only.

But back to the work day as this will be a Pencombe day and I did not complete my review on Wednesday so will pick up the traces there and continue with my look at the Herefordshire Pencombe family waiting patiently for my Inquisition Postmortem to arrive. 

Latin is next and I am enjoying my progress this time. I think I needed to be ready to really give it the time it needs to become familiar to me. In September I will pick up French on duolingo (I did have a working knowledge of French from High School and University days (plus I did work in bilingual positions taking French courses whilst I did that) but my spoken french leaves a great deal to be desired)) and then the next year at some point I will pick up German as I studied that for several years at University although it was primarily Scientific German. But it was an interesting language and time is now available for me to pursue my interests. I did spend most of our 54.5 years of marriage helping Edward with his many projects, raising our daughters and working. Although I would not have chosen widowhood one should always reach out to what is  in front of you and live the life God wants for all of us. To be productive individuals in this world is the most important. What the product is; that is variable through our lives. 

When the world is finally free of jealousy, greed and envy we will reach that plain of peace that everyone dreamed of so much at the end of the Second World War (I grew up in a time of such dreaming although smashed somewhat early on by the Russians and their greed for land and  no surprise that it continues today). Greed is by far the worst and the one most capable of destroying our world. Jealousy is just sad really as it hurts people's lives on occasion. Envy is a trait that some think brings one to a higher plain of existence but I really doubt that. I think people live their lives the way they want to live them and are not that influenced by what they see around them in terms of acquisition but they can be bullied into wanting more than they really need just by how people treat them. Not everyone responds to bullying fortunately or it would be a sad place to live in. Lots of people just ignore the bullies and life flows better that way for sure.

Tea is completed. Latin is next and then breakfast.

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