Book Writing Status

It has been 20 months since my last update on book writing. During that time I've had another career change, the Newfound Baptist Church Minutes book was published, and my wife had been fighting cancer since June of this year. A lot has happened and most are going well. My wife is finishing up her last week of radiation and chemo treatments next week and we hope that in the next couple months she'll be back to her normal self.

Regarding the book on Thomas Patterson... I knew earlier in 2023 that this book had become too large to publish as a single book. Too much content. I went back and forth many times on how to break it down.

Recently I settled on the concept of writing smaller biographies on our various family members, with a goal of focusing on one specific person in each book. Naturally, many surrounding family members will be covered in each book, but I won't have to write a thesis on every single person in every single book. I will save the bulk of my evidence documentation and sourcing for content related to the primary person in the book. 

That has been working great. I have been able to use much of the content already written in the bigger Thomas Patterson draft, so nothing lost there. All of this research began for me over 30 years ago, perhaps even 40 years ago, with John Patterson - son of Thomas. John Patterson was my 4x-great-grandpa and he married Margaret Black. So, I've started with him. 

John Patterson of Jenkins Branch, Buncombe County, North Carolina is the working title. There are so many John Pattersons and Robert Pattersons and Joseph Blacks, etc. How do we tell them apart? I will now forever refer to this John Patterson as John Patterson of Jenkins Branch. That is the location where he lived for 20+ years in Buncombe Co, NC and where the vast majority of public documentation for him exists. 

Furthermore, I created a template to use for each of the biographies in this series that will guarantee a similar thread of content delivery about each person. Consistency. 

I would guestimate that I am at least 50% done with this book, and hope to have it in the hands of the OBCGS (Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society) for publishing by April 1, 2024. I would like to publish 2 or 3 books per year, if at all possible. That is my goal.

So be looking for these items coming in the near future.

Wes Patterson