Our Iowa Family has been in the works for years and years, beginning within a month or so after we closed down our family website. You might think that it shouldn't have taken so long considering its small size. But we hope you will think of it as "compact" rather than "small," because when we started out we had a huge amount to work with (scattered in different places) and part of what took so long to produce this was winnowing out what was unimportant or repetitive, or did not fit within the intended scope of this project, which was to (insofar as it was possible) recount the lives of those of our direct ancestors who either came to Iowa to live from somewhere else, or were born in Iowa, before the year 1900. We kept to this standard as much as possible, though we made some exceptions (which you can read about on the Questions & Answers page).

Another reason it took so much time to produce this is that we don't have all the pictures we had before as some have been lost due to floppy disks that erased themselves and computers that died. Much emailed information has also been lost, for the same and other reasons. We've had to make do with what we do have, and substitute some pictures for others.

Also, many, many pictures (not of people but of places and maps) have been found on the web to use in this project. These have been very useful in providing us with a better idea of what kinds of places our ancestors lived in. Many are old pictures, not copyrighted, yet in some cases it is alleged that they are copyrighted; however, they were copied and used here, knowing they are just for some of our family members, not for re-publication (please do not put any personal information or pictures on websites until all those who are included in this history, and their children, have died...and please do not kill us in order to do this -- for one thing because we have much more on our family that we have not yet published, and you wouldn't want to lose out on that, would you?). Some pictures we've used, for instance of scenes in Iowa, are recent photographs and no permission was obtained to use them (though we have tried to identify all sources of photos that are not family photos, unless they are of something like mason jars or an outhouse), but, again, these pages are for family members and not available to the public.

Other photographs were used that we haven't used before that were provided to us for the Goffe Book or for the old family website, or for some other purpose, or were simply provided to us to do with as we wish. We have provided the name of the photographer or contributor whenever we have known this information. Much time has been spent in the gathering of, and examination of and decisions about, these photographs, though it was not an unpleasant task.

Literally hundreds of pictures have been gone through to not only choose the most appropriate, but also to find the largest and clearest pictures that we have (since in this case we did not need to shrink them down for web page use). Many non-digital photos had to be re-photographed with a good camera to make a better-quality digitalized version (we used to have a cheap portable scanner that did not do a good job). In many cases there were no pictures of high quality at all and we had to settle for what was available no matter how small and/or pitiful it might look, as long as it could help us better envision what life was like for our ancestors.

Also, all of the pictures that are too large to fit nicely into a web page have had to be coded so that you can click on them to see them in their larger size. (Some pictures are too small for that, so be warned that they won't all enlarge when you click on them; a few will, perversely enough, get even smaller.)

One of the last major tasks that had to be done was to get old pictures off several dozen old floppy disks they had been stored on since the Goffe Book was finished; we wanted very much to see what was on those that could be used in this project, but for a long time neither one of us has had a computer with a floppy drive and we despaired of ever being able to see those pictures (and many other important files) again. Finally, and gratefully, in late winter of 2009 we received as a gift an external floppy drive so that we could retrieve those pictures -- and by the way it took a couple of weeks of "spare time" just to get those pictures off the floppies and organize them on the computer -- and then they all had to be gone through to check to see what we could use including pictures we've never used in a project and also pictures we've used but in smaller sizes, and so were able to replace.

Also, many of Alice Reagan's small, inexpensive (but precious to her) religious objects, etc. that she left behind had to be photographed, many of them from different viewpoints, plus most objects were measured, and all of the pictures had to be cropped and labeled and measurements and descriptions had to be included where the pictures were displayed. All of the pages in her autograph book, as well as the front and back covers, were also very carefully re-photographed, and transcriptions of (mostly easy to read, but fading) what was written on its pages were typed and included on the pages with the pictures.

There was also some new "light" but productive research done and old records were looked at again for new ideas about what might have happened or where to look for more information. So, we have a few new tidbits to offer that we had no idea about before (so it's a good thing this has taken so long, right?).

And THEN all the pages had to be written from the huge amount of odd notes and charts, the old family website pages, the Goffe Book, and from censuses, maps, ship passenger lists, old emails, many folders full of notes and copies from lots of research, marriage and military records, and so on and on; and appropriate pictures had to be located and added to the text they were to accompany, and links made between pages. Then we had to figure out how to present all this, divided into families as it is -- Where would a person start in to read it? What path would they follow? How could they get from one section to another that they were in search of? Would they feel isolated and unable to get to some part they'd like to change to? So the introductory pages had to be written, including the Introduction, this Preface, a Link to All Maps, and a Table of Contents that would give people a choice of where to jump in. And then came the Questions and Answers page, anticipating your wonderings.

Then came the proofreading. That took an awfully long time.

About the Addendum (to come)

The addendum will consist of pages that are similar to those in this little history, but it will be much shorter than this project because there won't be nearly as many people to cover (however, there will be more about these people because we know more about them than we knew about their ancestors). The addendum will be devoted to the lives of the last generation of our direct ancestors born before the year 1900, plus the early part of the lives their children (who were born before approximately 1935) -- up until approximately World War II. These people will include Eleanor Josephine Goff and her second and third husbands and her children -- Of course James Thompson, her first husband, will be mentioned, though more thorough treatment on James is in the Our Iowa Family project you are now looking at; and the addendum will also include Alice (Gilchrist) and Charles Henry Reagan/Regan and their children. Peripheral family members will of course be mentioned, but we are zeroing in on these particular very recent direct ancestors . So, if you are descended from Eleanor Goff and from Alice and Charles Reagan/Regan, you are one of the people this "Our Iowa Family" CD was meant for and also you should be quite interested in the addendum.

Since the addendum will be smaller than what we've done here, it won't take nearly as long to produce (though we can't tell you when it will be done or how long it will take -- a nice long break from doing this sort of thing is planned). We have all the information and pictures (for the addendum) that we believe we'll ever have, though some of it has been acquired just recently and needs to be incorporated, plus some things we had but didn't know we had have been found (a fact here, a fact there). And, who knows, something else might pop up before we're done checking all the pages to see if it's ready to go.

But even though we already have most of what will be in the addendum in one form or another, it has to be put together. Getting it all together in a form in which it can be comprehended most easily (and without making it just a boring list of facts) will probably be the hardest part.

Also, as with this Iowa Family project, which we've just finished and which you are looking at now, everything will have to be re-read again and again (and again), and corrections made. The addendum will not be nearly as difficult or time-consuming as this project has been, though. We have done much of the work already, having already chosen the page and font colors (and style and sizes), the way to present each person or family, the basic formats of the pages, etc. The photographs will have to be chosen, though, with the idea of getting the largest and best that we have that pertain to the subjects.

WHY WE DO THIS

We do this because we have gathered so much information and old family photographs over the years, and so we feel obliged to share copies of these things with any family members who want to have them. It would be very easy to lose these in a fire or have them thrown out by some "helpful" house cleaner, or who knows what else might happen to these things. The only way to guard against such a great loss to our family is to distribute copies to every interested family member and hope that they keep them and hand them down. We realize that there won't be CDs around forever as they will be replaced with something new and "better," and it will become more and more difficult to find a way to access what's on our outdated CDs and then nearly impossible, then impossible. We can only hope that the files will be transferred to whatever other medium becomes available before it is lost forever.

THANK YOU!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN A HELP TO US ON THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT...Though in one case the person died before it was started; however, she had already provided the information we have used and so we can say she was extremely helpful even after death.

Thanks, most of all to (in alphabetical order):

Jan Baldwin
Kirsten Bowman
Linda Craig
Paul Jensen
Marge Witcraft

Special thanks to: Sharon Wedlick, who, without our asking, had a copy made of the Goffe book that we had sent to a handful of family members who were interested (including Sharon), and mailed it to us -- knowing that we ourselves did not have a copy as we didn't feel we could afford to make another copy for ourselves. Having that book has been a huge help. If we had realized how important it was to have a copy, we certainly would have had another one made for us in the first place, but we had not done so.

And lots of thanks to the many others who sent us their pictures to copy (unfortunately before we had a good way of copying them they were returned, so the copies we have aren't as good as they could have been) and facts and memories and family stories about people they knew or they had heard about from older members of the family. Everyone was very generous with their time and information, and we are truly grateful.