Monday, January 21, 2013

Getting ready for the Family History Writing Challenge

The Family History Writing Challenge is coming up really quickly. I have pledged to write 1000 words a day. I don't think that it is an issue for me. It helps to be wordy. What I find difficult is the research. Having all the facts is only interesting to me.

The Armchair Genealogist is one of my favorite blogs. It is a complete one-stop-shop for research and writing family histories and she pulls in others who share their information as well. I have been reading all the new posts and have discovered I am woefully under-researched.

I have one week to find out what was going on in Sneedville, Tennessee during the time period I want to write about. I need to know what was going on in the country. I know that James McCollum missed the Civil War by going to California. I know that the Clinch River flooded at times and the family lived on the river. I read in the letters that they had to pull up the corn as the river rose along the banks where they planted.

I don't know where my mother found the information that John Brewer is the one who shot my great grandfather. Since Brewer must have lived in Sneedville too, that is another avenue to explore. The Brewer family does have a history that includes later relatives who had a gun battle in town over an election around 1900. Is it the same family?

The more I find, the more questions there are. This is going to be a busy research week.

No comments:

Post a Comment