FHWC: I'm in, but way behind

The Family History Writing Challenge, in case you haven't already heard, is a 28 day project to motivate genealogy researchers to put their family's story down in writing. Though I'm a little late in getting my research organized, I am going to at least do the best I can to get started writing before the end of February.

So, I've chosen an ancestor to focus on. I decided to go with Joseph Ben Nowell because I actually tried to sit down and write up a little history on him a few years back for some cousins who were interested. He is my ggg grandfather, and could easily be the oldest relative we have actual photographs of.

After gathering all of my documentation into one place this morning, I wrote up a timeline of his life in Notepad. I included the source citations for each fact in my timeline for convenience later. That took the better part of the day because I had to go back and look up the proper citations for census records I had downloaded from FamilySearch and HeritageQuest Online.

I'm missing some documentation too, but one of my cousins will be mailing it to me soon. My next step will be to add historical events to his timeline. I'm not sure how long that is going to take, but it will give me a better feel for what his life was really like.

I haven't even set a word count (probably 500, but we'll see) because I know I'm not going to be ready to start writing on Friday. I still need to determine how I want to write it, and get an outline drafted. So, I'll be getting a late start when it comes to the actual writing, but maybe I'll be able to stick with it through March.

Anyone else out there taking the Family History Writing Challenge? Am I the only one too far behind to get started writing on February 1st?

Sympathy Saturday - The truth about Santa

"Santa's not real," my daughter proclaimed yesterday morning when my mother-in-law mentioned him in passing. As I proudly beamed at my spawn for reaching a new stage in her development, I think my mother-in-law, who was visibly shaken, died a little inside.

They continued to discuss the matter, my 8-year-old asserting that it's just the parents, my mother-in-law scrambling to suggest that the parents are just Santa's helpers. The kid wasn't buying it.

My daughter didn't argue in the way she would if Grandma tried to assert that 2+2=5. Nor did she laugh like she does when Grandma asks her silly questions like why she has 12 toes. She simply stated her case in a way that said, "I know you don't believe the lie, either."

Her grandmother laughed as she made her last attempts to convince this child to hold on to Santa just one more year. But it was that nervous laugh. She made one last joke blaming public school, then walked away. Defeated.

This is very similar to how it went down when I was a kid. I declared that my mom was Santa. She denied it, but Christmas morning I pointed out that the "From Santa" written on the gifts was clearly her handwriting.

While I was proud of myself for solving the case, my mom was clearly disappointed that I had spoiled this aspect of Christmas for her. I never understood why, and I guess I still don't.

My mom was over it by the next Christmas. And I suspect it was nice to not have to stay up all night to place the presents from Santa under the tree after we finally fell asleep. But I know she took those Christmas Eve vigils very seriously.

I may not exactly understand why it hurts, but I chose Sympathy Saturday for this little tidbit of my continuing family history to acknowledge all of the women in my family who were devastated by hearing the truth about Santa.