It is now 2/19/2023, and I didn’t make my 2022 goal. However, all the chapters are written now. Some I have re-written, using my now-improved writing skill. I have decided to split the story into two volumes. My original goal was to follow John’s trail from Ireland to America and that would be the end. Reactions to the draft version showed me that Margaret’s story would be interesting to 21st century women. She was more than a mother and housekeeper. So the scope of the novel is expanded to include both John and Margaret’s separate paths, and reunion in America.

Volume II will cover their life in America but the information I have has many gaps. More genealogical and historical research is needed. For example, we know they landed in Philadelphia, lived for a time in and around Syracuse, possibly Rochester and possibly Littlestown,Pennsylvania, before finally coming to rest in Queens and/or Brooklyn. We don’t know when they moved from place to place but there’s more census data becoming available to the genealogy community all the time, and possibly property records can be found in Cleveland, NY where — oops, no spoilers! Consequently, Volume II at this point is a possibility not a plan. I am confident that someday it can be written, if not by me, then someone else.

Now, I’m going back to my editing and prose polishing.

Hang in there!