Genealogy and family history research is all about “finding the dash.” The “dash” is what exists between someone’s birth and death, the stories and experiences that make up their life.1 It’s easy when doing genealogical research to get stuck on collecting facts without taking the time to analyze them or seek out the context and stories behind and between those facts. I do genealogical research to find the dash for my ancestors to the best of my ability and to flesh out my family’s history beyond just birth-marriage-death dates.
My intention for this site isn’t to be everything for everybody. There are plenty of existing genealogy blogs and podcasts, both generalist and niche, that cover a lot of bases. I’m going to focus on sharing my own experiences in researching, trying out new services and technology that exist around genealogy, and building out frameworks for people interested in different ways to compile and share their family history. There will be a lot of thinking out loud and growing ideas over time.
While I will be covering somewhat technical topics from time to time, my audience is one that’s comfortable trying out new services and learning new things but not necessarily one that’s comfortable with setting up their own server.
What is a “digital garden”?
I just recently learned of this concept and decided this new project would be a great place to apply it. Here’s my attempt at explaining it (and better attempts by others are at the end).
A digital garden is a personal web site where ideas exist in different stages of readiness.2 Sticking with the garden metaphor, I have seedlings (the barest of ideas, the roughest of drafts), plants (the thoughts are forming into something cohesive), and food (ready for consumption). One key characteristic of a digital garden is that the ideas within it are constantly evolving, being tended to, and refined over time. So, an essay about a topic might start with a few lists and links to articles. Then some thoughts pulling those bullet points together will start to form until eventually there’s an essay. But even that essay will change with time.
Digital gardens also tend to make heavy use of internal linking between ideas. It remains to be seen how much of that will happen here. This is new for me and I’m open to letting this thing grow as it wants to.
If you’re still not quite grasping it, I think of this as a cross between a blog where everyone can see drafts and a wiki. There’s some more classification happening here than you might see on a wiki, but the information isn’t presented in a linear fashion like a blog.
So, let’s see how this goes. Let’s see how this grows.
- Family Locket has a nice background on the concept of “the dash.” And there’s also Linda Ellis’ poems “The Dash” and “The Dash Between.” ↩︎
- For some additional reading on digital gardening, I recommend:
* Maggie Appleton’s “A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden” (see also: her own inspirational digital garden)
* Chuck Grimmett’s “What are digital gardens?”
* Spudart’s “Starting a Digital Garden” ↩︎