Cough cough cough
I've been awake most of the night listening to my middle daughter cough (not Covid related).
Like all mother's, when she first started coughing I listened intently. Is this a bark? A whoop? A dry tickly cough or something more chesty?
Unlike mother's for 100 years of so ago, I had no reason to be overly concerned. She'll have been vaccinated against most of the worst causes of ceaseless coughs - TB, whooping cough and those that can prove nasty are often treatable.
There's a lot to be grateful for in the age of immunisations and antibiotics.
In the past, a relentless cough would have been a real cause for anxiety. Have you ever written about this nursing aspect of motherhood when considering your ancestors?
Here's a few writing ideas for you:
- Investigate the treatment of illness in the past, here's an article on 18th Century Whooping Cough.
- Compare and contrast treatments of coughs - honey and lemon isn't going anywhere soon, cocaine isn't likely to make a come back!
- Write up a memory of your own childhood illnesses - how old were you when you got Chicken Pox? who looked after you?
- Investigate the history of vaccination or inoculation, you might enjoy this episode of #TwiceRemoved on Small Pox.
- Practise exercising those writing muscles, use all 5 senses to describe a breaking fever.
Speak tomorrow,
Natalie
p.s. Curious Descendants Club members - don't forget co-working is on at 6.30pm tonight! I'll send the usual Zoom details through an hour beforehand.
Genealogy Stories
Have you ever thought about writing up how you discovered your ancestors stories? Last week I uploaded the recording of the latest Curious Descendants Club workshop into the membership portal. The session, led by expert Dr. Sophie Kay, was all about narrating methodology. Sophie likened writing up our research processes and journeys to writing a piece of autobiography. This totally blew me mind! Because she is so right. When we write about how we found our ancestors, we have to also consider...
Last night in the Curious Descendants Club co-working session we got chatting about the way working practices have changed over time. One of the attendees explained how being in the office early meant that he'd been on hand when his boss wanted to sound off, and this had helped his career. He explained that it didn't matter who he was or what he said in reply, he could have been a "rubber ducky" and it wouldn't have mattered. His boss just needed to verbalise his problem, and by doing so he...
Today I'm attempting to resume a little bit of normality after the manic whirlwind adventures of History For Ukraine. Sometimes life throws us into a spin (good and bad) and researching or writing our family history ends up taking a back seat. Re-finding your mojo can be tough, we have to go back over old ground, refresh our memories and sometimes find our flow again. If you've been taking a break, or poodling along but wishing you could kick things up a notch, then here's a couple of ideas...