Research Downtime Isn't

One of the things that can frustrate researchers is unanticipated equipment outages. As one who has built his own computers since the 19-hum-hums, I can verify that when things go south, they can keep on going beyond expectations. "While I've got the box open and everything disconnected..." and one winds up trying to resolve all those accumulating annoyances since the last rebuild. The wait for parts to arrive forces an hiatus on the main research line.

Workstation wreckage

 

And so I move to the mini-laptop, without the major research files. The resource files and working environment are so heavily contextualized on the disabled machine that it's not worth sharing them to another computer. Instead, I step back and reconnect with genealogy writers and other resources. And I actually open books.
My dilemma (I resist the "brick wall" cliche) is a direct-line ancestor who was born, but has no parents. A cousin who introduced me to the research years ago also has been hammering at this character for some time.

Jeremiah Woods, we know from later records, was born in 1805 in Clermont County Ohio. No parents known. It probably was in what became Dayton, in what became Montgomery County. He was married there and we have the record, and we know nothing about his wife. He was buried further south in what is Clermont County today. Since 1805 was very early in the initial settlement of the area, how do we track back further? The surname is hardly unique, but no other Woods in the area seem to meet all the necessary criteria.

The computer down-time prompted me to pick up on historical context in hopes of finding another way in. I've found some fascinating (to me) late 19th and early 20th Century history books for reading on line covering the early settlement of the Ohio and Miami River areas. I've been reading about the exploration, the battles and interactions with the natives, and the settlement of the once wild regions. I've been reading about who settled where, and where the early settlers came from. I've read about the large land purchases where settlements were planned and developed, and the founding of Cincinnati and Dayton. The old turn-of-20th-Century texts are full of detailed stories of people and events through wars and battles with natives, land speculators, congressional privilege, and all the pressures of expansion. It's been a fascinating odyssey.

That said, this is all context. My computer parts arrive tomorrow and I'll get the mess cleaned up. I still haven't found my ancestor, and I need to develop some more imaginative research plan. Time to shift focus and move on again.
Scenemaker 14 October 2014