Well there's no hurry to get upstairs today so I can finish that case study. It's gone. I learned a lot along the way and validated my skills - that I could take 25 or so men with the surname White in a NE TN county, and figure out which one was the father of John, born 1828. For
Lucylee, yes, John is the son of who I thought, but I had figured out that without a single record saying directly that John's father was Dan. I used a lot of reasoning and researching people around him and around the men who could be the father, ruling them out one by one. Identified John's brother and can associate them in records, can associate this brother with the father, right place at the right time, ruled out other men in the 1830 and 1840 census. But no record saying directly who John's father is. The tax record I found yesterday says that directly and it's strong evidence. Listed another John several lines below and "John son of Deborah" to distinguish between them. (A case study takes a research question and solves it. Since there's an unequivocal answer out there in records, my solution is moot.)
It does solidify my confidence but it's probably three to four solid months of researching and writing, that I was close to wrapping up, down the drain in terms of my portfolio. Dh asked last night what would happen if I never finished this, and I would be unhappy with myself. I want to finish this.
So I'm not sure what's on for today construction wise. We're supposed to have sheet rock people after lunch today - this is putting it back up, not the awful sanding. Dh and I are planning to either order out or eat out. They replaced the window in our breakfast area yesterday and it looks wonderful. I love having a window there that I can open too, the large window looking out doesn't open.
We are beginning to plan things to do again. We signed up last night for the preview party for the Arts festival here in April. Will see lots of friends there. We also have ATL friends coming here for a weekend end of April, and we got tickets in August for the Van Gogh exhibit in ATL. We have a week at the beach beginning 30 May, and another week beginning 27 June. And we made reservations in New Orleans for the wedding there end of Sept. The other wedding - the Nov wedding of the twin brother of the NO wedding - is off. They have broken up. This couple came within two weeks of getting married at end of last March and I have the perfect dress for it, if you remember dress shopping last year.
I can't help but think that it was a blessing the wedding was postponed. The NO couple has already married legally - I assume there will be some kind of ceremony and a big big reception with the NO wedding parade this time.
Anyway, I need to do a lot of thinking on redirecting. I had decided to change another part of the portfolio based on not overlapping with this case study. I have a lot of research in this NE TN county but none that stands out to me as a research question. There's the danger of working a research question for the case study and never getting the answer also, so it's not useable.
After writing that thesis, the reason I went with anti procrastination today is that I'm not obsessed with the case study today. I'm not very motivated today however.
And I'm getting my second vaccination at noon!
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [wo]man. Ben Franklin
However the paternal side of the family did me a favor and there are 6 generations of the males being named Wm Jackson Smith. The maternal side of the family is named French and they were some of the founders of K-Town. 
