52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 39. Steps. A Cautionary Tale

LOIS SOANES 1828-1917

A Cautionary Tale

For last weeks post I wrote about John Soanes, who in later life was caretaker of Lowestoft model yacht club. This weeks post I am writing about his sister, Lois, daughter of Robert Taylor and Esther Soanes, nee Youell. Esther was the sister of my 3x Great Grandfather William Youell.

Lois' story fits the criteria of 'steps' due to the complexity of her relationships and marriages. She had 5 children from her first marriage, in turn there were 4 half blood step siblings to these 5 children and non blood step siblings too. Lois' story is full of tragedy such that had I not researched this story myself I would have expected Lois to feature as a character in a Catherine Cookson novel (British author who wrote numerous novels of hardship on Tyneside.)

Well this was the story I was intending to write! But I had a mini tragedy all of my own. 

Lois' story is quite long with lots of characters, information and links and has taken a while to write. Yesterday I had reached the point of her second marriage and I was hoping that I could finish this today. However last night I awoke about 5am, usually I would read for a short while and then return to sleep, but having finished my book prior to going to sleep, I thought.... 'I will write a little more of this weeks blog'. Big mistake! Having written a couple of paragraphs I was set to add an image, I hit the wrong key at the wrong time and in a puff of smoke my whole blog post disappearred into the ether.

Now, even in the antisocial night time hours I knew this was not the end of the world, all I had to do was click the 'undo' icon. But whilst my PC was on fire, my own internal computer was in drowsy mode and suddenly the refresh internet page icon in my head morphed into the undo icon. Well that was it. I tried to recapture the page via various  internet suggestions of'How Too's'. Sadly the story remained floating about in internet land somewhere and I have now given up in this one sided game of hide and seek.

So what was to be a blog post about step children has become a post about the steps I will take in order to NEVER (I bet it isn't) lose a story again.

So here are the 3 steps I will remember in future, in no particular order.

1) When I first started writing my blog posts, I would write them using my computer's offline software. This became a bit of a faff, having to copy and paste all the information and then having to go over this ensuring consistent formatting. Now I need to make sure I back up the story I have written, so I do not lose hours of work at the click of a button. Possibly by reversing the process.

2) If things go wrong.... DON'T PANIC! Cognitively I knew all I had to do was click the undo Icon, but in my half asleep and panic state, I was unable to find the correct icon.

3) Never Ever attempt to write anything in the middle of the night! 

Rather than rush to write a blog post that would not give Lois' story the telling it deserves, I have written this cautionary tale, to remind myself of the easy steps I can take to avoid further costly errors.

For anyone interested in reading Lois' story I aim to rewrite and publish it under another suitable blog theme due in a few weeks time.