My first venture into the Book Publishing World was with, Notes And Documents of Free Persons of Color. There is an incredible amount of research and documentation that goes into writing a book, especially one based on a Family History. Notes And Documents is not a Genealogy Book per se, but is a compilation of Biography's of my Noteworthy Ancestors. They are the ancestors who left a footprint in time, by participating in historical events.One of the ancestors chronicled is Great-Great Grandmother Leah Warner, who was kidnapped an enslaved when she was twelve years old. She was living a normal life in her Village in Africa, and her enslavement thrust her into history. Her story of struggle and survival touched my heart, and endeared her to me. My Grandmother Leah Ruth-Martin was named after her, as are several cousins in my family. Other female ancestors are Lydia Hilliard (born 1690 in Westmoreland County Virginia), a white female, who had a child by a negro man. She is my oldest documented ancestor so far, although the Native lines go back much further.
Once all of the information is compile the hard work starts, of putting it into a manuscript. That took a lot of hours, especially when a Computer I was working on Crashed. There went my information, and it was almost back to square one. It was a good thing that I saved the information on disks, and was able to avoid starting from square one. Then it was edit, edit, and edit again, before the formatting could start. This process did not take weeks, it took years because there were other things going on, like rent, utilities, food, and other necessities, which required attention.
It was music to my ears to hear praise from those who read the book. There was criticisms as well, and those were taken into account with my second book, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family.
Amazon.com now has a two for one sale on both books:
Link to Pieces of the Quilt
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