Seibert Genealogy Book Update
In the past week or two, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not going to be able to complete my genealogy book in time for this year’s reunion. There is still way too much that I need to get done. But I still want to take something to the reunion for people to look at.
I wanted to have a professional looking book printed by lulu.com complete with charts, photos, index, full source citations, etc.
Now I’m thinking that I’ll skimp on a couple things and just have Kinko’s print it out for me, or even just print it out myself, since I could probably borrow my in-law’s spiral binder.
So, instead of worrying about getting everything done, I need to figure out what to concentrate on and what to put aside.
Obviously, the first thing I need to finish is the actual writing. I still have eight chapters to finish. That sounds daunting, but six of them are almost there. I can probably get all six of them done by the end of this week if I really buckle down. The other two will take longer to finish, but at least I’ve already done the outlines for them. The main thing is I just need to sit down and finish them instead of working on things (i.e. the book’s cover design) that are ridiculous to be thinking about when the text isn’t even finished.
Once the writing is done, I’ll make a couple charts. This should be easy. I can just have my computer program spit some out and I can include them as is. I won’t have to worry about how I can get them to fit on a 6×9 page, which has been the main reason I haven’t already worked on them. A few weeks ago I tried to make a chart that would fit in a 6×9 book, but it was incredibly difficult to get everything to fit and be legible (i.e. not incredibly tiny).
Then, I think I’ll finish editing the photos I want to include, but not worry about cropping/resizing them. I’ll just clean them up a bit by fixing the brightness/contrast, etc.
After that I think I’ll work on the sources. And by that I mean that I will fix the sources so that they are complete and in the correct format. I will make sure to have everything sourced when I am actually writing the text… it just won’t be pretty. For example, I’ll change
Newspaper clipping in Jacie’s scrapbook.
to
“S/Sgt. Linton “Buzz” Seibert,” News clipping from unknown newspaper, June 1945. Clipping in scrapbook of Jacqueline (Osborne) Cummings, Inherited 2007 by Jacqueline’s granddaughter Amanda (Stiver) Erickson. Note: There is a handwritten note below the clipping but it is illegible. It looks like it might say “Sunroco News.”
And, I think that’s probably all I’ll have time to do… if that.
Once August 9, 2008 (the date of the reunion) has come and gone, I will be able to relax a bit and not worry about this book so much. I have spent almost every second of my free time (as well as a bit of “work” time) of the past year working on this book and I will be glad to have some time to breathe. By August 8, 2009 (the expected date of next year’s reunion), I will have had plenty time to complete the book the way I really want it.
[...] Posted in: Genealogy, General … and I wasn’t able to finish those six chapters like I had hoped I would. [...]
June 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm