--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:
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> Well I can perhaps offer some insight into publishing >pro "secrets". I'll break it into points:
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> 2. Writing my book was the most enjoyable and cathartic experience ?of my life.
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> 5. A book about your life, is a legacy for children and your >children's children. If you never write your experiences down and >pass them on, they will be lost.
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> It moved me to realize I had no legacy.
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> So in closing, I think writing a book would be very profitable, as >long as you don't expect that profit to be in the form of currency.
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Well, Frank, I've left a legacy of sorts. But not like you might suspect. Last September I delivered 30 copies of a 50 page genealogy report to a family reunion is Mississippi, over 100 in attendence. I gave them free gratis to make as many more copies as they needed. I did over 400 hours of research (time I could have been working). I paid for all the publishing myself, postage and everything.
Why did I do it? There was an old man of 80 years when he died buried up in the Northeastern part of the county. He died in the year 1900. He was our direct ancestor (my great-great-grandfather. The only thing known about him was "he was from Alabama." Absolutely nothing else known about him.
That was my starting point. Tracing the generations backwards I got to tell my folks about the great German/German Swiss emigration to the American colonies in the 1700's when over 100,000 of them emigrated to America.
I got to tell them about Susannah Crim, widow with children, who arrived at Charleston, SC aboard the ship Samuel in 1735. She was promised 300 acres of land, free provisions for 1 year and tax exempt status for 10 years to make the Atlantic crossing. Her's was one of the First Families of Orangeburgh Township, SC.
I got to tell of her son's experiences in the French & Indian Wars.
I got to tell about two of her grandchildren who were patriots in the American Revolution. I got to tell of the migration from South Carolina to Alabama and Mississippi in the 1820's when lands opened up in what was then the American Southwest. 4 Crim families made the migration. My great-great-grandfather was a 6 year old kid on the wagon train.
And I got to tell them of the heartbreak and tragedy of the Civil War where the Crim casualty rate was horrendous. One ancestor, Abraham Crim, saw 5 sons, along with 4 sons-in-law off to the war. Of the nine young men only 2 returned. One had his foot blown off at the Siege of Vicksburg.
My own great-great grandfather, William along with 4 brothers joined the Alabama 44th Infantry Regiment on 19 March 1862. The battles the 44th participated in reads like a who's who of Civil War battles. Two of his brothers died in the war. He was at the surrender at Appamatox.
William and his wife Martha had both married other people in the 1840's. His first wife died in 1848 after having two children. Martha had married Emberson Brockman Thrash, a plantation owner in Georgia. She was pregnant when Emberson "went west" looking to buy more land. Subsequent to his departure she received a letter stating that her husband had been killed and the party needed money to ship the body back to Georgia. She sent the money. Subsequent to that she received another letter asking for more money. There's are hustlers in every generation. William and Martha married in 1850 and are buried together. She died in 1906.
I got to deliver all these stories and many more to that family reunion. Not long after I started receiving emails thanking me, not only for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren. Being one of the "wayward sons" and a "black sheep" I got a big kick out of being the one that that did it. Even my uncle, the PHD and retired college president was impressed.
It was the most gratifying experience of my life. And sometime down the road, several generations from now, some kid is gonna read that document, and see my name on it.
