Introducing “Documented lives”

I’ve spent almost every available hour of this three-day weekend building a new and exciting companion site to the BlackenedRoots blog, called Documenting lives (http://blackenedroots.com/lives/). While it’s not completely polished, it’s certainly ready for you to preview and even use, if so inclined. This new site focuses on original letters and documents and the stories they have to tell.

Purpose of the new site

It is my hope that this new site will serve many purposes for many people. It will definitely be a place where old, mainly handwritten documents relevant to our family history can be easily found and viewed. I hope it will also be a place where these documents can be read, cooperatively transcribed, and discussed. For me, this site will serve as an ongoing experiment in how best to achieve these goals. To that end, you’ll notice a few unorthodox features on the new site. For instance, the dates of the posts are not actually the dates the posts were published; rather, they represent the dates that the original documents were written. This will hopefully make exploring the repository and finding interesting documents an easier, more enjoyable experience.

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