Today's Thoughts on… the family saga… "The Homeplace Saga"… series of stories

Today's Thoughts on… the family saga… 

"The Homeplace Saga"… series of stories

I have recently been asked to write a monthly post on the Worldwide Genealogy Blog along with a number of other genealogy bloggers… from around the world - thus, the name of the blog. It will appear on the 11th day of each month.

The subject I will be writing on is: "Keeping Family History Stories Alive through Fiction." The post on October 11 is simply labeled, "Part A." It is an introduction to the upcoming series of monthly posts. The point of the article series is for people to consider using the amazing family stories we all come across in our family history research as the basis for writing fiction stories based on those real stories.

This is essentially where my "The Homeplace Saga" here got its origins… the stories I've gotten from research and observation - about family relationships. I've now created this amazing "place" with all these amazing, yet ordinary, people whose lives we can share and interact with. They just keep telling me their stories to share with you.

The current book in the series - a collection of short stories

[http://www.amazon.com/American-Centennial-Homeplace-Founding-1833-1876-ebook/dp/B00NJFHPVA/]

Direct link to Amazon.com

And now, all of them are available free, to you, if you have the Kindle Unlimited account with Amazon.com. There are now available in this series: 1) three novels, 2) one novella, 3) one short story collection, and 4) one ebook. There is this free blog, that has posts back to March 22, 2010. There are also a couple of what I call developmental wikis, as well (educational websites related to writing historical fiction based on family history research).

Two more ebooks are pending, based on stories that have been shared on HubPages, and are now available for all readers at:

1) http://homeplaceseries.hubpages.com/ - 45 articles (or hubs) - each 1200-1500 words with 3 images each - These include "The Kings of Oak Springs" series and several miscellaneous related stories of "The Homeplace Saga." This is a great place to start, for easy reading! ;-)

2) http://drbill-wml-smith.hubpages.com/ - 60 articles (or hubs) - all in the various branches of the "Weston Wagons West" series of stories where the descendants of the three Weston brothers have interacted with my ancestors over the past  nearly 400 years here in America. One line of this story intersects with "The Homeplace Saga" folks in Oak Springs, as well.

3) http://drbillsmithwriter.hubpages.com - 150 articles (or hubs) - where about 20 have to do with family history and this series of stories - the rest are on a variety of topics, includes about 25 or so related to Heritage Tourism and perhaps another 20 related to book reviews and recommendations.

May we each have a Homeplace, if only in our hearts!

Dr. Bill ;-)

Today's Thoughts on… Part IV, of the Founding Book

Today's Thoughts on…

Part IV, of the Founding Book

The green hill in the valley

Source: http://www.freeimages.com/photo/298032

The following will serve as a guide to the weekly Friday posting for the next several weeks:

From the:

Table of Contents

“American Centennial at the Homeplace: The Founding (1833-1876)”

**Part IV - 1865-1876 review completed

1865-1875 Report with comparison to 1860 status

List of Businesses and Buildings: 1865 to 1875

Land Purchases in Oak Creek Township after the war

Oak Springs Town Plot Land Exchanges

Extract of 1870 Census

Extract of 1875 Census

Governmental Positions by Residents to 1875

1871-1875 Activity Summary

*** The First School

*** Building in Stone

May we each have a Homeplace, if only in our hearts!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

Today's Thoughts on… Part III, of the Founding Book-the rest

Today's Thoughts on…

Part III, of the Founding Book-the rest of the stories

The following will serve as a guide to the weekly Friday posting for the next several weeks:

Starting tomorrow, we share the five other stories....

From the:

Table of Contents

“American Centennial at the Homeplace: The Founding (1833-1876)”

**Part III - Stories of the Civil War Period (1861-1865)

Civil War Short Story

Stories of Civil War Soldiers and Others

*** Daniel McDonald

*** David Baldridge

*** Lewis Truesdale

*** Gideon Inman

*** Owen Olson

The "Civil War Short Story" is the Feature Presentation of the Book.

May we each have a Homeplace, if only in our hearts!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

Today's Thoughts on… Part III, of the Founding Book

Today's Thoughts on…

Part III, of the Founding Book

The following will serve as a guide to the weekly Friday posting for the next several weeks:

From the:

Table of Contents

“American Centennial at the Homeplace: The Founding (1833-1876)”

**Part III - Stories of the Civil War Period (1861-1865)

Civil War Short Story

Stories of Civil War Soldiers and Others

*** Daniel McDonald

*** David Baldridge

*** Lewis Truesdale

*** Gideon Inman

*** Owen Olson

The "Civil War Short Story" is the Feature Presentation of the Book.

May we each have a Homeplace, if only in our hearts!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

Today's Thoughts on… William McDonald

Today's Thoughts on… 

William McDonald

We first met William McDonald in a Surname Saturday - MCDONALD 2, on May 8, 2010, as the father of Joe McDonald, who was the father of Mildred (McDonald) Bevins of the infamous will in "Back to the Homeplace" - dated in 1986-7. He was therefore Mildred's paternal grandfather.

http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/2010/05/surname-saturday-mcdonald-2.html

We second met William McDonald, born 1864, with his parents, the following week, in a Surname Saturday - MCDONALD 3, on May 15, 2010.

http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/2010/05/surname-saturday-mcdonald-3.html

This was followed, on January 22, 2011, when we posted Surname Saturday - MCDONALD 4, with a story written by Mildred in her high school years, presumably:

http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/2011/01/surname-saturday-mcdonald-4.html

Here is the second paragraph of that story:

"David Baldridge, a bachelor, had one sister, Sarah, who married the older of the two sons of Henry McDonald and his wife, Laura. Harry and Sarah had at least six children. The stories they have passed down from Civil War times will make another interesting report. The younger McDonald son, Daniel, was my direct ancestor. He married Jane Truesdale, a granddaughter of Eli Truesdale. Their son, William McDonald, was my grandfather. He was able to keep all the McDonald, Truesdale and Baldridge properties in our family so that my parents still have the original properties more than one hundred years later. We are all very proud of this accomplishment."

So, William McDonald was the grandson of a first settler of The Homeplace, as well as the grandfather of Mildred - who "got the story going" with her will "to keep the farm together" in "Back to the Homeplace."   

I see William as the "glue" that binds the entire "The Homeplace Saga" together. It seems he was still living when Karen was born as a great-granddaughter in the 1930s.

Looking ahead:

1) William, as a twelve year old, will share the story of his cousin, Alex McDonald, during the Civil War in and around Oak Springs during the Civil War - over the next few Friday's installments of "The Founding" stories.

2) William, as a twelve year old, has already appeared as a character in The King Family of Oak Springs, Episode 3, along with his future wife, Charlotte Crane, here (they will continue to appear in the series, from time to time, as "across the valley" neighbors, and schoolmates of the King children): 

http://homeplaceseries.hubpages.com/hub/The-Kings-of-Oak-Springs-Episode-3-Fourth-Sunday-April-23-1876-Part-1-of-2

3) William's birth and and related references will appear in several of the "Founding" stories, beginning with the Civil War story on his father, Daniel, following the feature Civil War story (see table of contents, Part III), here, tomorrow.

4) Journal entries that William makes throughout his later life, and into the 20th century, will play a key role in solving one of the mysteries behind "Three Threats to the Homeplace," the working title on the next full novel in "The Homeplace Saga" series of stories. Members of the Oak Springs Historical and Genealogical Society, founded in late 1996, in "Christmas at the Homeplace," will discover some of his journal entries at a time that is most helpful to families of The Homeplace - when it is in danger of being lost.

[If you haven't read them yet, I urge you to consider reading "Back to the Homeplace" and "Christmas at the Homeplace," for a fair grasp of the entire "The Homeplace Saga" set of stories.... available for immediate download at Amazon.com in ebook format - see sidebars]

"May everyone have a Homeplace, if only in their hearts!"

Dr. Bill ;-)

Today's Thoughts on... Part II of the "Centennial Book"

Today's Thoughts on... 

Part II of the "Centennial Book"

Getting back to sharing... links to recent posts, and upcoming segments, the following Fridays...

[Source: Currier & Ives, “Home in the wilderness,” c1870; Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov : accessed 31 Dec 2012)]

Centennial Book Outline - 4-15-2014 update

“American Centennial at the Homeplace: The Founding (1833-1876)”

Table of Contents
[Partial]

**Part II - Oak Springs, Oak Creek Township Stories to 1861

Founding of Oak Springs - link to part 1 of 2

1855 Summary of Growth - link to part 1 of 2

1860 Summary of Growth - link to part 1 of 2

Extract of 1860 Census - tomorrow!

Township Land Purchases to 1861

Oak Springs Land Purchases 1848-1861

List of Businesses and Buildings to 1861

Governmental Positions by Residents to 1861

Today's Thoughts on… Has it really been six weeks since I posted here?

Today's Thoughts on… 

Has it really been six weeks since I posted here?

I took a little break - waiting for Spring, perhaps - from sharing posts here. I wasn't really sure anyone was watching. I now see the last post has 216 hits… folks are coming to the page, and seeing no activity. That is not good.

I have been writing, but writing other stuff. We'll talk about that.

I've been wondering if there is really interest in the "backstory" of "The Homeplace Saga" stories… shall I continue to post the stories from the 1860s, etc? I get no comments, so it makes me wonder. However, each gets 60-80 views. Is that worth the effort? What level of interest justifies the effort??

We are approaching the Civil War Story in this series - and I think it is pretty good. Spent a lot of time on it. It was published in the Anthology of Short Stories last fall… but, of course, no one has read it there!!  ;-)

In recent weeks (months?) I've been publishing the first 21 episodes of the "Weston Wagons West" series of historical fiction short stories. You can see them here, on line, free (of course): http://drbill-wml-smith.hubpages.com/

There is a tie-in between the two series of stories, by the way. In this story: http://drbill-wml-smith.hubpages.com/hub/Weston-Wagons-West-Jacob-Weston-moves-his-family-to-St-Louis-Missouri-in-1823 I introduce Levi Weston, as a son of Jacob Weston. He is reported as a new resident in Oak Springs here: http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-founding-of-homeplace-summer-1860_28.html Did you read about him?

I'll see if I can't get the posts going again… the stories are all complete.

I'm also thinking of writing short stories, on my other Hubpages account: Homeplace Series: http://homeplaceseries.hubpages.com/ (have you read any of these?) starting back in 1987 after "Back to the Homeplace" to fill in the activities of our primary characters. Would that be interesting to you? Thanks for comments.

Today's Thoughts on… the Founding of the Homeplace (I)

Today's Thoughts on… 

the Founding of the Homeplace (I)

[This is a new Daily Theme I've adopted here as Author and Creator of The Homeplace Saga, beginning with the start of 2014. The intent here is to be able to "step back" and share what I see as useful thoughts about both process and product issues of the Saga components.]

On November 2, 2012, I posted the first of an ongoing series of Friday posts (one, two or three a month) beginning to share stories related to the Founding of the Homeplace from early 1833. These have generally been presented as 4-part serial presentations of a series of short stories (1833, 1838, 1843, 1848). [You can start at the link above, read each one, and read the next at a single click at the end - if not, please let me know! ;-)]

[Source: Currier & Ives, “Home in the wilderness,” c1870; Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov : accessed 31 Dec 2012)]

I have previously noted that these Founding Short Stories will eventually be compiled into the "next book in the series." - likely titled: "American Centennial at the Homeplace: the Founding of the Homeplace (1833-1876)." That will probably still take place, later in 2014, or early in 2015.

However, the NEWS today is that, rather that ending the Friday serial presentations in January, as I had earlier anticipated, the Friday serial presentations will be continued, and perhaps accelerated to an every Friday serial installment presentation.

Let's step back, for a moment, and consider the background of this decision. For some time now, I've been posting book excerpts on Monday and these serial presentations of Fridays. These, with reminder posts on social media (Facebook, Google+, sometimes Twitter), typically receive about 100 page views - several have exceeded 200, and some have exceeded 400. Free gets attention! Some of you are obviously reading what I write - even if not everyone, of course.

Contrast this with relying on "books" - either print or Kindle - for you folks to read my work. While "Back to the Homeplace" did sell several hundred print copies, and more on Kindle, the subsequent books, in the recent years of ebooks, have been read by very few (can't be read, if not bought!). Publishing, reading, … the whole industry… has changed dramatically.

THEREFORE, the decision to continue to publish the weekly stories of The Homeplace Saga.

All four books are still available in print and kindle. Please consider adding them to your collection… to get the FULL stories. Meanwhile, thanks for reading these posts.

This discussion will continue next week, in this spot…  ;-)

*****

"May each of us have a Homeplace to hold onto, if only in our minds."

Bill ;-)