Family History Writing Challenge 2016

It's February 1st, so that means the Family History Writing Challenge begins today. I will be participating for the fifth straight year. The goal of the challenge is to help genealogists make the transition from just being keepers of family statistics and documents to telling the stories behind the numbers and papers. For the second time I will be posting my daily writing on this blog. Last year I wrote every day about John Murdoch, and it really helped keep me on track and make me accountable to myself. John is not a relative of mine, but I have been researching his St. Louis story for many years. It was a good exercise to help me understand what I need to make my own family stories more compelling.

The biggest decision in writing family history is where to begin. When you have over 4,000 people in your family tree, it is quite overwhelming to think about writing the family story. Obviously it is not something that can be accomplished in a month. It reminds me of that old joke - How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So I will begin with my first bite, writing about one particular relative.

I got interested in genealogy when my mom died at the age of 69 in 1989. In a sudden, heart-breaking moment I realized that I could no longer ask her any questions about my grandparents or any other family members, for that matter. Instead I began asking questions of my mom's remaining siblings. So it seems logical to begin with my mom's grandfather, Michael Crusham. Here's how his story begins.

Michael J. Crusham

Note: While the family name has always been spelled Crusham in the United States, there are no records for that name in County Galway, Ireland. My aunts remember their grandpa telling them that a cousin of his came from Ireland for a visit and accused him of being "high hat" for changing the family name. From that we had deduced that the name had been changed. But from what? There was a lot of family discussion on what the name might have been. Cushin? Cushing? O'Cashan? Grisham? (Some deep-seated desire to find out we were related to John Grisham, no doubt.) During a trip I made to Tuam, County Galway, Ireland in 1997, I was able to find the family name predominantly as Crisham. Church records, however, also had it spelled as Cresham or Chrisham, sometimes within the same record that indicated the name was Crisham. I have been told by various sources that the true name was, and still is, Crisham.

Why did Michael leave Ireland? Did he really steal a horse? Was the law after him? Family lore says it is so, but I have not substantiated that fact. What I do know is that Michael J. Crusham left Ireland in 1879. While I have yet to find him on a passenger list, I believe he came to the United States by himself around the age of 22. His age at arrival is a little murky, however. His Petition for Naturalization through the State of Ohio, Hamilton County Probate Court, dated 11 March 1887, states that he arrived in the United States on 4 March 1879 "under the age of eighteen years." Later in the same record the witness for Michael states that he "knows that said applicant has resided in the United States three years next preceding his arrival at the age of twenty-one years."

Tuam, Ireland

A known fact is that Michael was born in 1857 to Michael Crisham and his wife, Mary Henaghan Crisham. His Roman Catholic baptismal record from Tuam in County Galway, Ireland lists the baptism date as 25 August of 1857. While Michael was the first child of Michael and Mary, he had two older half-siblings, Patrick and Norah, who were born from his mother's previous marriage to Michael Henaghan. Later additions to the Crisham family included Peter, Judith and Julia.

Church of the Assumption

The town of Tuam was the second largest in the county of Galway, boasting a population of nearly 4,600 people in 1862. Because the town was central in position with regards to the counties of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, a good deal of traffic passed through the town. The Crisham family lived on Tullinadaly Road, which is indicated on the map above. They worshipped at the Cathedral of the Assumption, and visited the nearby town center. Their extended family all lived in the area as well.

Tuam

So what happened to make Michael leave all that behind in 1879?

It's a New Year

For 2016 I am participating in "365 Days of Free Writing, Creativity & Storytelling Inspiration" with Tanya Taylor Rubinstein. Sometimes we all need a little help with ideas for our writing. It seemed like it would be helpful to me to use the writing prompts for my blog posts, so here we go with day 1. Today's assignment is to talk about what I most essentially want to express, at this moment in my life. Further, I am to write for ten minutes without stopping, judging or editing. So here goes...

St. Louis Flood 2015

New Year’s Day is a day of new beginnings, starting over and taking a fresh look at your life. Because St. Louis has been faced with so much devastation in light of the recent floods, my new year begins with a deep sigh of gratitude that we were not personally impacted by the flood waters. Sure, there are minor inconveniences as three of the major interstates and numerous ancillary highways were forced to close, so traffic routes were diverted. But we didn't have to evacuate our home and wonder what would be left when it was finally safe to return. Many people in our area are not beginning the new year by making resolutions such as how much weight they want to lose or how many times they will commit to go to the gym. Instead they are looking for a new place to live, or trying to replace their basic necessities. Many don’t know if they will have a job to come back to as their place of employment is still under water.

I drove around the area today to see first hand some of the areas that were most impacted by the flood. Somehow when you watch it on television, it is almost like it isn't real. But to be close enough to put your hand in the quick-flowing water quickly makes it a reality.

So I will begin 2016 thanking God for all the goodness he has provided to me and my family, and praying for all those who have not been so fortunate.

A Little Bit of History

The Novel Neighbor

Yesterday a group from the Missouri History Museum took a bus tour in St. Louis, learning about the history of printing and publishing in this area. The tour ended at a local bookstore, The Novel Neighbor, which recently celebrated its one year anniversary. The tour organizer thought it would be interesting to add a segment on self-publishing, so she asked me to come and speak to the group at the bookstore. It was quite convenient for me as the store is located about a mile from my house.

There were 28 tour-goers crammed into a craft/meeting room in the back of the bookstore. Because my presentation was only 30 minutes, I did not need to use any audio-visual equipment fortunately. There would have been no room to set up a projector. I began my talk by asking if anyone knew what the following books had in common:

 A. A Time to Kill by John Grisham

B. What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles

C. In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

D. The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard & Spencer Morrow

E. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.

F. The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer

G. The Plant by Stephen King

H. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

J. The Martian by Andy Weir

Following suggestions that the authors were all from Missouri, or the books were all best sellers, someone correctly guessed that all of these books were originally self-published. And these authors were in good company, as Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther and Walt Whitman also self-published their books. This sort of information certainly makes people think of self-publishing in a different light.

My talk covered the evolution of self-publishing, why authors self-publish, pros and cons of self-publishing, how to self-publish a book, and how I got my three books into print/ebook format. I wrapped things up by discussing the recent trends in publishing before taking questions, of which there were few. I think this topic is far removed from what the group usually encounters on their tours, but I hope some of them found it to be interesting.

It was good preparation for me as I get ready for the next community college class on November 7th. The St. Louis Publishers Association is again offering a four hour workshop on book publishing. This time instead of just being the organizer of the class and moderator for the day, I will be covering the section on getting your book into print and into the marketplace. The workshop is always very well-received, and I look forward to working with the students twice a year.