Writing a genealogical article is just terrible. Whatever joy is had at a discovery is sucked out twice over by the grueling task of writing up a family and footnoting each and every genealogical fact. And naturally, you have to branch out to the siblings of your own ancestor and their children, so there is such a wide amount of documentation, it is frightening.
You never know if you've missed something. There is that feeling of fatigue--can't we let this one branch of the family go? It's really like running a marathon.
You do feel wonderful when it's finished. It's the process that I could do without. 11 pages, 90 footnotes and that's the first draft. I actually need a paper draft to see all the holes. Then I use it to fill in more footnotes while at libraries and other genealogical haunts, such as the Strafford County Courthouse to which I'm driving on Monday.
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