Opining Online

A comment from Don Michel on this post about the rewarding, but frustrating, hobby of genealogy:

It sounds as though you have not defined what you want from genealogy, that is what is your real objective. Is it to gather lots of names and dates, or is it to know you ancestors as real people, how and where they lived, did they have unusual hobbies or personalities? Doing this will help you develop a reasearch plan and strategy and keep you from frenetic activity and then the periods of burnout that you seem to be experiencing.

I admit, he’s right. I don’t have a plan and even when I have an immediate goal I am far too easily distracted. I do, however, have an ultimate goal and it’s time I made a plan to accomplish it.

My ultimate goal is a book for my grandchildren. I envision it as a way for them to know their great-grandparents – only two are still living and some of my grandchildren haven’t even been born yet!

I also envision it as way for them (and me) to learn how their family before them fit into this nation and the world — I want them to know where they came from. I want them know the history that was the present when their gggg-grandmother was alive and how she might have spent her days.

What better way to illustrate the Civil War than with stories of their ancestors’ battles? In my family tree, there are Union and Confederate soldiers, as well as one poor man who fought for both sides, was imprisoned by both sides and died in Andersonville.

I want a history of the migrations. Maps. The groups of families that traveled together and intermarried. And photos.

I want it all, which is quite a lot. And if I’m going to accomplish it, I certainly do need a plan.

Thus I need HELP! Planning is not my forte. Or even my pianissimo.

But here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Capture now what might disappear. We have recordings of my father, my mother, my grandmother, my aunt. There are three other aunts and a great-aunt I need to interview soon. You’d think I would have learned by now to not put this stuff off.
2. (actually, no. 1, part a., but I’m not that good with html) Scan photos belonging to my aunts, cousins, etc. Decide on a way to label and organize them. Back them up in more than one place. UPDATE: Include old recordings, voice and movies in the preservation.
3. Get documents for the generation before me. It did not occur to me until considering joining DAR that I needed documentation for people I knew. Like my mother. My grandmothers. I knew them, why would I need any documentation!

HELP! I am open to any… all suggestions.

Iowahawk (who I don’t have on my blogroll, but perhaps should) in a most serious note suggests that he is Joe.

Joe is defined too narrowly as merely a plumber. Joe is more than that, don’t you think? He represents my pipefitter husband, his welder brother, whose two sons are actually plumbers!

And how are they different from my dad the logger and sawmiller, my stepbrother who followed in my dad’s footsteps? How are they that different from my brother who didn’t, but perhaps wishes he had?

How are my sons – a teacher in training and AF National Guardsman and a disabled, but determined man different from Joe? Do they not have dreams? Are they not working to make them reality? Why, yes they are. Are they perfect? I wish… though I love them as if they were.

Truly, I can’t think of a more “perfect” example of the American working man than today’s plumber. While no more dignified than ditch-digging, it requires more education and training (yes, there’s math and physics involved).

If I understand Democrat ideals (it’s entirely possible I do not), Joe the Plumber should be their poster boy. Yet… he’s not. Why? Why are middle Americans not represented by the Democrat Party? And why do so many of them think they are?