Just "finished" typing six pages of history on the Victorian family that I'm researching ready to discuss it with the secretary of the local history society tomorrow morning. She's going to give a talk on them in a week's time but my research has radically changed what was previously known, so she has to revise it entirely. I've only written the facts though, not what one discovers when the dots are joined up and one looks into the family's acquaintances; that's when the whole thing comes to life, but maybe history isn't meant to do that. I'm no historian and I don't know how much of history is just collating source material and how much speculation. I find the speculation far more enjoyable and that's how I found some of the more obscure source material. For example I wouldn't have known that the family had any connection with Australia if an internet search hadn't revealed a letter from there to them held up because the sender hadn't paid the right postage.
I don't have time to write my version of the family history with all the speculative parts incorporated. I wouldn't know what genre it would be if I did and what I would do with it then. 50% research plus 50% speculation adds up to what, half history, half wit or just half-witted history?
I can't say how my day went today because I won't know until tomorrow and by then it will be history. That's the trouble with life, that pretty much all you know about it is history. At least I can post this without having to worry about the right postage though.
