It is one of my regrets in life that I did not take a little more interest in History at school, so having some time on my hands I thought I would make some notes ... and a website saves paper.
This site is a personal venture, though at he same time, comments and contributions are always welcome. It is likely to revolve around personal interest and family history, which in some places is quite well documented, especially that on to the "de Vesselisky Merriman" side" with roots in Russia and Montenegro, . The Walkey side of the family, whose history is less well recorded ( or less well researched as yet) will also bring in Australia, India, South America,  the Scilly Isles and a few other places on route, probably covering most of the British Empire.

Generally the site is likely to be a bit delinquent and offers to rewrite articles or of proof reading are always welcome.

Included in the menu is a place for Myths and Improbable stories, recognizing that the stories themselves are part of our history, and beyond that even a place for Fiction, which is also part of our culture; Dickens certainly had an effect on the national conscience.
 It may at times even be useful to find, say a brief history of Bilbo Baggins when attempting the Tolkien's epic stories, or perhaps the origins of Superman when trying to follow a Science fiction plot.
Ancestors and Family history, will provide stories which  are both interesting and worth telling, though need to be well told ... help me if you can.
Family friends and perhaps even some of the more deserving family enemies will not be excluded ... and lets face it, a good feud can be fun.

 Where to begin?

The first problem of course is where to begin!
Do I start at the beginning with the "Big Bang", which is where things are currently supposed to have started; some 14 Billion or so years ago, or should I start with "Now" and work backwards perhaps?
Either way I fear the topic is so vast that I will never get to the interesting bits, so I will present some sort of "Global Timeline" and fill it in .... as I have the time. Please forgive the gaps and shortcomings, and even help fill or correct them.

 How do we know what happened?

From a personal point of view we have of course grown up with the "Family Legends", dark histories of Russian generals in bloody duels over fair maidens, Uncles lost in the Amazon rainforests and a long line of Cornish Vicars who by repute were able to drink everyone else under the table.

Reality may be a little different, but will leave the joy of the stories untarnished, though it would be good to find a bridging point between the two.

Modern history is of course well documented with books, films, photos and the vast resources of the internet. We can also still find living witnesses to the events of the last 100 years or so .... yet people still argue about what happened.
 
Going back a couple of centuries, things were a little different, most people were illiterate and education was the privilege of the rich, or those training in political or religious organizations. This tended to mean that written documents were the views of those who could afford to be educated, or of the establishment.
 
Illiterate people would have expressed themselves verbally, in stories, song, dances and crafts. Perhaps relying on a local Priest to record anything that needed a written record.
Some of the Folksongs and stories survive as does some of the craftwork and other artifacts. 
Every generation has left artifacts and buildings, tools, pots, swords, medals and graves which all provide clues to events and lifestyle.
 
But clues can suggest many different theories ... history can become a thing of the imagination .... a story to fit the clues.

 What assumptions are to be made and tested?

Where history is written or deliberately recorded in some form or other, can we assume it is "truth"?
Recording things takes time, money and energy, all of which are valuable resources.
History is only recorded by those who can spare these resources and if they are prepared to spare them we must ask why.
The assumption they were doing it for our benefit may not be entirely logical ... few people commit resources to projects without some hope of benefiting by it and however pure their motivations they would still be restricted by the viewpoint of their own position, time and  lifestyle.

I suppose the most basic assumption we make is that time is linear. I.E.  Yesterday happened yesterday and not the day before, or sometime in the future. Which may sound daft but if in a couple of millennium from now  somone really did manage to produce a working Time Machine and decided to " tidy history up a bit", this could really make things complicated.

A wandering into folly no doubt, but surely one of the major lessons of the last century must be that yesterday's impossible dreams can be tomorrow's reality, so it may yet be foolish to close the door on the idea altogether.
 
If the parallel dimensions of Science Fiction should be proven to be a reality, we could also be in for an interesting time as the study of history would then become a Pan-dimensional experience, which could even allow a student to write a history and then seek out a dimension in which it happened, if, as some suggest everything happens somewhere.

Perhaps we can only imagine events that are within the possibility of a given range of dimensions








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