As of 4th November 2007, I have started writing
the book of this
project. Over the last few years, I have found so many reasons for not
doing this, but I have now realised that I will not achieve closure
until the book is written. It is going to take a while to do - I've got
enough material to make a book several feet thick and it is going to be
difficult to pick what goes in given that people have to got to be able
to lift it to read it. Whether it conforms to the following plan
(written several years' ago) remains to be seen...
The longer that I follow the amazing path that this
research has taken me, the more that I realise that the story of my
search must be an important part of the book that I produce. That said,
the core of this book will consist of three main parts:
- A biography of each man in the group
photograph.
This will give as much of a general flavour of his life as possible.
Within this I would include: his family background (general lineage,
parents and siblings), his education, his war service, his work, his
recreation, his immediate family life, his witnessing of historical
events, and his personal characteristics. Also included will be very
general biographies of his direct descendants, to give an idea of how
many children, grand-children, great-grandchildren, etc, he had, and
how they have spent their lives.
- A visual chronology.
For each year since 1864 (when my great-grandfather was the first
member of the photograph to be born), there will be a page giving a
pictorial represention of the life-state of each member of the
photograph and their direct descendants. In addition, each year will be
put in context by including historical markers (contemporary
photographs, events, ideas, inventions, etc). This group photograph was
less than a second in the lives of these men, but for some of them it
may be one of the few things that is left to view them by (and even the
shortest-lived of them was alive for something like 594,928,800
seconds) - my aim is to show a somewhat bigger picture of their
existence. In order to produce the visual chronology, I need to collect
the birth, marriage (and divorce), and death dates for all the men and
their direct descendants, as well as all their spouses.
- An analysis of all the detailed
information about the families.
I am interested in looking for connections between these men and their
various families. The men in the photograph shared a lot - what do
their families share now? How many things do I encounter in the living
of my life that are connected to me by this photograph? With these
things in mind, I need to collect as many details as possible about
each of the men in the photograph and their families (particularly
concentrating on their direct descendants - I’ve got to narrow things
down somehow!). This includes:
- times and places that they have been in;
- events involved in or witnessed;
- details of education, work, hobbies, interests;
- details of creations, or publications, appearances
in the media (e.g. newspapers, TV, radio, film) that others may have
come across. (For example, in January 1998 I was watching the Time
Team’s programme on Channel 4 about Richmond Palace, when who should
appear as an historical adviser but John Cloake (son of Cecil Stedman
Cloake), who I had only met a few weeks previously.)
( NOTE: I am very aware of the need to protect
the people’s privacy, so I will NOT be publishing the exact details of
living people. Detailed family trees, addresses, etc., will be in my
private collection – what will be published are general biographies,
and results of my study of the group as a whole (i.e. trends and
connections). I will of course comply with any specific requests not to
publish particular material.)
|