Basic genealogy research can be cumbersome because of everything you have said about spelling, penmanship, etc., but this?? So complex. And every piece of the puzzle is loaded with sadness and injustice.
Douglas, I can identify exactly with your paragraph “I will tell you that the first time...”, as I went to the Records Office at Kew in 1997 to search the original documents for the name of a slave mentioned in the family. The horror of seeing all these people, from tiny toddlers to disabled elderly listed like second hand tools with defects or not, to be used or discarded at will, has stayed with me the rest of my life. I still have the A3 photocopies staff made for me.
Basic genealogy research can be cumbersome because of everything you have said about spelling, penmanship, etc., but this?? So complex. And every piece of the puzzle is loaded with sadness and injustice.
Amen, Kathy. Sadness and injustice. But they endured.
Douglas, I can identify exactly with your paragraph “I will tell you that the first time...”, as I went to the Records Office at Kew in 1997 to search the original documents for the name of a slave mentioned in the family. The horror of seeing all these people, from tiny toddlers to disabled elderly listed like second hand tools with defects or not, to be used or discarded at will, has stayed with me the rest of my life. I still have the A3 photocopies staff made for me.
Fay, Thank you. I know you know the feeling. Would that more people could experience it, given how that past lives on.
You fascinate!
June, Thank you.
I was about to "like" this, but the verb sounds so wrong for this chronicle. Compelling? Yes. But so are all these inquiries you have posted!
Syd, Yes, I know. The machine responses the Internet offers don't cover it. The poverty of emoticons. But thanks for acknowledging.
Great research and analysis, Doug. Wondering if your book is a novel or and why this subject. Maybe you explained in another pot.
No, not a novel. And I haven't said why I am writing the book. It's part of the book.