Days 2 & 3

Nearly 1,700 words flowed from my fingertips to my keyboard in the writing challenge yesterday. It was fun to relive my trip to Ireland to discover the town my Crusham ancestors came from and, more importantly, the spelling of the name in Ireland (Crisham, so not too far off). Today I barely managed to eek out 400 words. Part of the issue is that I spent 4 hours at the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center this afternoon researching property. I didn't attempt to do any writing until after I ate and watched the opening episode of Who Do You Think You Are Season 3. I love that show, and it is so inspiring to see the journeys that the celebrities take to find their ancestors. At any rate, I think by the time I sat down to write my brain was pretty drained. Tomorrow my strategy is to write first thing in the morning while I am fresh. I think it will make a huge difference.

I did have some success at the library today. My purpose in going was two-fold. First, I wanted to find out all the resources they have on Webster Groves because I have put together a facebook page for researching your house history in Webster Groves. I want to list the different resources held at the many repositories in St. Louis. Second, I am still trying to track down the wily owners of the house our business is in on Big Bend, and now that we have purchased a third house to find out something about those owners as well. I looked in their card catalog (yes, they still have the old fashioned index cards in addition to computers) under the map section. When I came across one for Webster Groves from 1897 I had the staff pull the map out for me. I have always wondered about the original border of Webster Groves since the houses I am researching are located right next door in Shrewsbury. Lo and behold, the 1897 map shows our houses to be in Webster Groves at that time. That is good news because Webster Groves has tax records I can look at; Shrewsbury has none, and it didn't even become a village until 1913. Now I am curious about when Webster Groves gave that land over to Shrewsbury. But that is a question for another day. My next stop will be to the Webster Groves Library to look at the tax records.