My other blog

Blogs seem to be like potato chips - one just isn't enough. I've got several ideas for blogs other than The Cannon's Mouth but, at this point, I've only put one into action. It's quite different from this blog and is a bit of an experiment on my part. Can the blog format be used as a living, ongoing encyclopedia? My other blog is called "Soldiers of the 38th", and is an attempt on my part at an ongoing mass biography of the officers and men of the 38th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, during the First World War. As I wrote in the initial entry on the blog:

For several years now I've been researching and writing a history of the 38th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and its experience during the First World War. Throughout this time one of the things that's bothered / intrigued me is the amount of information I've been able to gather on individual members of the 38th but without any really feasible outlet for the information. In the back of my mind I've wanted to write a collective biography of these men, but I'm not sure that will ever happen. (I still have a lot of work left to do just writing the overall history). Putting the information slowly onto my website is also possible, but seems a lot of web-type work that I'm not really up for. So, what I have concluded is, why not use a blog to present this information? I'm already familiar with Blogger (from my other blog - The Cannon's Mouth) and it's a quick and easy means to get some information out onto the web and, hopefully, garner some feedback as I go along.

So, here's the plan. I will write individual posts on members of the 38th - hopefully one a day or so - using some of the basic information I've gathered. I will then consider each of these posts to be available for editing, in other words I will add more information as I find it - images, medal citations, newspaper blurbs, etc., etc. I will use labels (see the bottom of this message) specific to each unique family name (all the Smiths together, for example) and these will appear on the right sidebar as a type of index to the individuals. This will become unwieldy when I've written posts for hundreds of individuals, but I'll try to figure something out.

Feedback would be wonderful! Further information on one or more soldiers I've written about, fantastic!

I've currently written individual posts for more than fifty officers and men - obviously, I've got a long, long way to go. But, I'm in no hurry and am willing to put years into the project. After all, what are more important than the stories of some of the men who have fought (and about 1 in 5 members of the 38th died during the war) for this country.