Blog

Another day another tweek.

I am in the process of rebuilding the timeline to reflect dating of the generations of our trees. The generations proposed by Strauss and Howe are shown for reference but will not be included in the timeline itself. This change came about because as I began to construct the timeline the conflicts between the two separate generational datings became very confusing.

I hadn’t actually made a lot of progress on the details of the timeline as it turns out, so it shouldn’t be difficult to adjust.

A Bit of a Change

Just a quick note about the status of the site. I have decided to fold the two family trees into a single narrative rather than keep the two stories separate. I think the added clarity will make up for the loss of distinction by having both trees buried in the same historical milieu.

It was becoming quite clumsy and a bit repetitive to do both. Bottom line, in the interim, this sight might be a little redundant and/or confusing here and there.

Summurtime Today

Well, we made it through the mid-terms, and it seems as if the expected results never showed up. I have voted in about thirty national elections, and they always find new ways to surprise the prognosticators. I have to say, though, that I am dumbfounded by the hard line of separation of views in our society today. I have grown up and old believing that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and the differences are what voting is all about. Yet, some segments of society seem to be challenging that idea in favor of a “my way or the highway” approach. Very disappointing indeed.

I have made some minor changes to the arrangement of the contents within each section this week. The site will be undergoing a lot of perturbations until I settle on a way to smoothly mesh the genealogy with the raw history data.

Some family dates to remember in the next week:

No family dates yet uncovered. Keep watching.

Outside the family.
  • Russian Empress Catherine II or “Catherine the Great” died on 17 Nov 1796. She was born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst and went on to become one of the great rulers of the 18th Century leading to the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.

Don’t give up on SumMurtime yet.

I haven’t been active on the blog for a while but I have been working behind-the-scenes on the site. I didn’t feel that including a blog would add much to the website without any significant content to point to. I also hesitated to promote the site or get a conversation going until the site was sufficiently well organized to make sense to a new visitor. I think I am getting close to that point now, even if I have a ton of work left to do, and so I am going to try to get into the habit of posting as I move along.

As I suggested earlier, I have changed the emphasis of the site to be mostly about the family. Hopefully I can keep the historical content to a supportive role. The Site is split into two parts. My family tree and my spouse’s family tree are separate sections of the site. The narrator’s voice is imagined to be that of one of our children. That is intended to keep the perspective the same in both sections, hopefully eliminating some generational confusion.

It is moving slowly but it is moving. In the meantime I think I am going to start posting more often and listing some upcoming memorable events when I do post.

Some family dates to remember in the next week:
  • My paternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth “Bessie” Murray (born Nelson), was born on the 9th of Nov. 1893.
  • My Spouse’s maternal Grandfather, Jack McLaughlin, died on the 14th of November, 1935 working in the oil fields in Texas,
  • My Spouse’s Mother, Hazel Irene Summers (born McLaughlin), died on the 12th of November, 1993.
Outside the family.
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, activist for Women’s Rights was born on November 12, 1815.

A New Approach for a New Day

Have you ever been racing along, looked out the window, and saw yourself going in the opposite direction? That’s what has happened to me in the wake of this Covid debacle. I have been plodding along on this site, trying to find solid footing since the pandemic began. I have always been heading towards a new and updated presentation for my U. S. History site (timepage.org) which would include a place for my genealogy work. As I began to awaken from the Covid nighttime we have all been going through, however, I realized that what I really want is a new way of looking at my family history that includes contemporary historical context. Flash! The bulb goes off.

I had already created this website, in the early days of the Covid train wreck, but I was still thinking of it as a new way of looking at History using real people from my family tree. Now I have flipped it. My family tree is going to be painted with a coat of reality based on my familiarity with the Strauss and Howe “Generations” insight. When I am done there will be one website which should reflect my family history in Generational terms. If I do it right, it could serve both purposes.

To be honest, I don’t know if it will work yet. It is a lot of information to shuffle together. The poor old timepage.org website is hopelessly outdated and full of obsolete references and links (oh my). But if I work it right, I should be able to reconstitute the good bits of the old site as functioning components of the new one.

One of my fears is that the History content will overwhelm the genealogical content. This is particularly true in the earlier years of the model where my family tree is pretty sparsely populated. When I get a little further along, I will make an effort to expose the new site. I may not know if I succeeded until then.

One year on.

We have been wallowing in this darn Pandemic for a year now. A lost year with no end in sight. Well, maybe a slight hint of an end. I actually was optimistic that I would get well into this project with all the time I saw ahead of me. It didn’t turn out that way though. I found out, once again, that I get all my decent work done in the last minute and we haven’t had one of those yet with COVID. I have done some background work. Mostly related to the history timelines that this site will tie into. That won’t finish the job though, will it?

My sense of how this site will flow and how it will relate to my History page (TimePage.org) is changing as I proceed, so a lot of what I have been doing is going back and changing what I have done before. Wheel spinning, I guess is a good way of putting it. I have to believe that I will come to a “light bulb” moment eventually, and all of the pieces will fall into place. I am still enjoying the ride but mostly, I appreciate the distraction from all of the insanity going on around me these days.

Things are moving . . . slowly.

Hello to you all. I am finally beginning to make some progress on the layout of the site. The outline of the discussion is in place and some of the supporting material. As I had hoped, it is an interesting way to look at the family tree. Trying to merge all the family stuff together and placing it in a reasonable historical context is eye opening. I had barely started when I noticed a couple of time correlations that I had never noted before. Hopefully, this will continue as I add to the page. Don’t forget to let me know if you accidentally stumble onto the page.