Wilson Bingham Book Progress Report - October 2005

In This Newsletter
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I. PROGRESS REPORT
II. THE WISHLIST
III. THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Hello everyone! Time for this month's progress report.

I. PROGRESS REPORT
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1) Grace Callan has sent me narratives of her family history, beginning with Marjorie and Ralph Kitchen going down to the present day. I've begun composing chapter five with this information. Dale just sent me a chronology starting with their marriage and going through their descendancy.

2) Chapters 1-5 and 9 are underway and in various stages of editing. There is a total of 100 pages in the current manuscript, some of which being entire chapters that remain without content. The approach I'm taking to constructing each chapter is first copying and pasting what I have on hand and trying to set it in chronological order. Next, I will mix and blend various biographies and my own commentary (to clarify context, create narrative flow, and elaborate on certain items that may be of additional interest). Fact checking will follow that, with cross-checking of dates, places, names, and situations between individual biographies to create consistency. Then comes paragraph and photograph placement as well as font typesetting. Finally, a proofreading effort will finish each chapter, focusing on grammar, sentence length and placement, spelling, naming consistency, etc.

3) Ruth Young has been so wonderful to help by sending me biographies of several of our ancestors and answering questions (be ready, Aunt Ruth, I'm about to have a bunch more questions for you). Below is a list of what she sent me, and which will keep me quite busy for the time being:

Thomas Henry Wilson
Minerva Dixon Keele Bingham
Elizabeth Harris Powell
Caroline Annie Merchant Wilson
Joseph Huvvy and Emma Jane Powell Bingham
Emma Jane Powell Bingham
Alfred R. Wilson
James Butler
John Powell
Jeremiah Bingham II
Elizabeth Barnes Merchant

as well as her own family's biography briefs to date. She also sent me a lovely recollection of her memories of my grandmother, Maxine Folster Wilson. As you know by now, Maxine passed away on September 15th, 2005.

4) When cleaning out Maxine's apartment, we found a number of genealogy items that will be helpful towards publishing the book, including Naomi Higginbotham's bound family history manuscript from 1992 and other research that Maxine herself had done. I wasn't able to bring much back from Arizona with me because the majority of pictures and her research are bound in heavy book of remembrance binders. They wouldn't fit in my luggage, and even if they did I didn't want to risk them being lost by the airline. So, Allen and Dee Wilson lent me their digital camera to make a photographic catalog of the items in Maxine's collection. If you're interested in seeing these images, send me an e-mail and I'll mail you a CD-ROM.

II. THE WISHLIST
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Here is the latest list of the items that will help move us towards our publication date of July, 2006.

1) I have updated the outline (initialoutline.pdf) and have uploaded it to the "Files" section of our group web site. I am still in need of more information from each family, including full and maiden names of spouses, names and birth orders of children, etc. Everything highlighted in yellow is something that needs attention. Please let me know if you are having difficulties opening or reading the initialoutline.pdf file.

2) If you have any computerized versions of your genealogy information, no matter how complete or incomplete you believe it to be, please forward it to me via e-mail. You can send it as a GEDCOM or PAF file.

3) I would like phone numbers for the following individuals:

Arlene and Richard Edsall Afton and Mitch Wilde Lawrence and Christine Young Daren Young and Steven Fisher Craig and Eva Wilson

The rest of the cousins we seem to have found via the various phone directories available on the Internet.

4) I have not heard back from anyone on the proposed cost estimates of the book binding and publishing. Please respond and let me know if $30-$40 for paperback or $50-$60 for hardback of around 400 pages would be acceptable. If not, please tell me what you would consider paying.

5) I would really appreciate as many sets of eyes as I can get with doing any of these proofreading stages. If you have a background in proofreading...or even if you have good eyes in your head...please let me know if you're interested in taking on some of these proofing and fact checking tasks.

III. THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Special thanks go to Grace and Dale Callan for putting together and sending their family history narratives.

Thanks again to Ruth Young for sending me the biographies of the majority of our ancestors. It is fascinating to read these histories and put together the pieces of the Lord's great plan for us all.

Thanks to all for your time and willingness to see this through to publication.