Whenever you attempt to write about your family history in narrative form, there are always potential problems. These usually come in the form of the difficulty of verifying family histories in times when community records were never kept or (at best) are incomplete. Such circumstances make it difficult to substantiate important ancestral events and their significance to the overall story you are trying to tell. The only way to address these issues is to take the following steps.
The
first is to only use those tales that you can demonstrate to the reader has
some form of truth or logical reasoning for its inclusion. In my novel, The Legacy of Two Gemini Knights, I
would estimate that I only used around 40% of the tales in my family archive.
The remaining 60% had to be disregarded because of questionable sources. Adding
them, whether I liked it or not, may have lessened the power of the text in one
way or another.
The
second step is to try to cross-reference any type of material you are using.
Books, magazines and especially the World Wide Web do provide excellent means
of providing added credibility to your written arguments. For example, much of
the information on the Battle of Teba, Spain in 1330 as employed in the book,
did help me formulate the Logan brothers’ and the other Templar knights’ roles
in this conflict and the impact it eventually had on the rest of the story.
Another
way to look at family genealogy is to visit those places that your ancestors
came from. Often, small details are not included in the notes of official
texts. On a number of occasions I have picked up vital clues to a story line,
by talking to people at the scene or looking at the physical evidence myself.
Such things can often give a particular insight to events that would otherwise
be lost and in doing so leave the material written rather shallow and without
conviction. For example, my visit to Leith, Scotland, did help me understand
how my ancestors coped with such harsh living conditions at the time. As a
result one could understand how the social culture of that period shaped the
characters thinking on a daily basis and so in turn helped me to enrich the
content of the text.
Finally,
one can verify genealogical situations by establishing a linear series of
events that fit together in some fashion. This maybe over a time frame or
within a cultural setting that has already been established in other recorded
contexts. Again, when talking about the Gemini Knights and their association with
the town of Lanark, the land estates in west Scotland and St. Andrews in Leith,
they were all established as important to the next part of the story by the
interlinking efforts of further research. Such facts enabled family stories and
genealogy to fit into the context of the broader textual message of the
existing story with some degree of reality and understanding. Thus, hopefully
improving the thrust of the book in some way.
However,
no matter how one tries, there will always be gaps in any story from such a
long way back in time. And we as authors must always accept that someone else
will come along in the future and say your analysis on certain situations today
are incorrect. And unfortunately, this is the price we pay for taking the
conversation one step further in the here and now. Nevertheless, all we can do
is our best at the time of writing one`s book and just hope the reader
appreciates the genealogical contributions and connections made to date.
Geoff Logan, a veteran university
lecturer, has a master’s degree in education from Curtin University in Perth,
Western Australia. He now serves as an independent education consultant. “The
Legacy of Two Gemini Knights” is his first book.
