Midlist Writer: Websites for Writers: USGenWeb

Monday 16 August 2010

Websites for Writers: USGenWeb

Hello everyone! I just got back from hiking the East Highland Way in Scotland. I'll be writing this up for Gadling and will be sure to remind you once the articles go live. I've also been playing around with a bit of horror photography, which you can see by following the link. Now I'm back in Oxford and it's time once again for Websites for Writers, where I highlight a non-writing website that's inspirational or educational for writers.

This week's choice is USGenWeb, a free genealogy website. If you're writing a historical novel, or one centered around a family, be sure to check this out, especially its state-by-state database linking to branches of USGenWeb and other free sites.

The site for Missouri has given me lots of leads. There's a state and county map with clickable links, and interesting projects such as a collection of articles on colonial Missouri and photos of unknown Missourians that users are trying to identify. If these ghostly old images of forgotten faces don't conjure up a dozen stories in your head, you're chasing the wrong muse! Pages for other states have similar projects. Discussion groups can answer even the most obscure questions.

The coolest part of USGenWeb are the family homepages where people have uploaded the results of their research. These real-life family epics can provide a huge amount of inspiration for your own stories. Don't follow them too closely, though, because these heroes and heroines were real people!

Take for example the Helman family of Missouri and Oregon. This site has biographies, photos, obituaries, the story of how one of them founded a town, and little gems like a diary from 1858 and a poem from 1910. And where else would you learn that Helman is the 7,970th most popular surname in the United States?

I would be remiss to talk about genealogy without mentioning Ancestry.com. This is a pay site so I haven't explored it much, but every amateur and professional genealogist I know has an account because it has important research tools the free sites lack. Writers should be just fine with USGenWeb, though. Unless, of course, you catch the genealogy bug. . .

Ambrotype c. 1860 courtesy David Hoag via Wikimedia Commons.

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

The Last Hotel Room

He came to Tangier to die, but life isn’t done with him yet. Tom Miller has lost his job, his wife, and his dreams. Broke and alone, he ends up in a flophouse in Morocco, ready to end it all. But soon he finds himself tangled in a web of danger and duty as he’s pulled into scamming tourists for a crooked cop while trying to help a Syrian refugee boy survive life on the streets. Can a lifelong loser do something good for a change? A portion of my royalties will go to a charity for Syrian refugees.

Warpath into Sonora

Arizona 1846: Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter. But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages. Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Radio Hope

In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . . A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son. A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump. The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command. One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2)

When you only have one shot, you better aim true. In a ravaged world, civilization’s last outpost is reeling after fighting off the fanatical warriors of the Righteous Horde. Sheriff Annette Cruz becomes New City’s long arm of vengeance as she sets off across the wildlands to take out the cult’s leader. All she has is a sniper’s rifle with one bullet and a former cultist with his own agenda. Meanwhile, one of the cult’s escaped slaves makes a discovery that could tear New City apart. . . Refugees from the Righteous Horde continues the Toxic World series started in Radio Hope, an ongoing narrative of humanity’s struggle to rebuild the world it ruined.

The Scavenger

In a world shattered by war, pollution, and disease, a lone scavenger discovers a priceless relic from the Old Times. The problem is, it's stuck in the middle of the worst wasteland he knows--a contaminated city inhabited by insane chem addicts and vengeful villagers. Only his wits, his gun, and an unlikely ally can get him out alive. Set in the Toxic World series introduced in the novel Radio Hope, this 10,000-word story explores more of the dangers and personalities that make up a post-apocalyptic world that's all too possible.

Trench Raiders

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think. After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate. Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?