Monday, October 02, 2006

How the Research Goes...

Two posts last week. That's all I managed to get in. I'm so far behind with all I have to say it could take me weeks to catch up. But I'm going to try to do it in the next couple days ;-)

I've been putting in a lot of time with the research for my NaNoWriMo novel. I decided to put as many of my research findings as possible digitally at my finger tips so that I can more quickly reference my information as I'm writing. I've started another blog for that purpose (I'll explain why in another post). If you'd like to check it out it's at: These Are My People. So far I've concentrated on just getting basic and vital records information on my main characters (my great grandparents) entered. I'm planning to build on that in the next few weeks.

I've also started a Google Notebook for web sites that I'll likely be referencing as I write. For now it mostly consists of timeline-of-events sites that I will use for background and setting information. If you'd like to check it out, I've made it public and you can view it at: LIPA Novel Research.

In the course of last week's research I came across some individuals that I'm considering including in the novel but that I need more information on. One individual was a patient at Eloise. Those who live here in the metro Detroit area know about Eloise but those who don't likely would never have heard of it. Briefly, Eloise was a complex of about 75 buildings that served the Wayne County (Detroit) poor and indigent in need of medical treatment. For the most part, Eloise is closed now (except for one office building). Finding records for individuals who were treated and/or buried there (yes, they had their own cemetery) has been something of a mystery. But I was able to discover some information that will be valuable to genealogy researchers. Which brings me to the third project I started last week, a new topic page at my PolishAncestry.com web site on Archive Records for the Eloise Complex. More about that in my next post.