I am struggling at the moment to write up the finds of a metal detectorist who has worked for over thirty years in one parish in England. The finds range from the Stone Age up to the nineteenth century. My difficulty is how to present the data so that it will say something about the history of the area.
I keep thinking that there will be some really simple way of doing this that no-one else has thought of. So far the analogy of a kaleidoscope is the nearest I have come to. Each of the pieces is wonderful in its own right (even a fragment of a Roman brooch has an historical value) but put them together and the historical pictures should be as dazzling as turning a kaleidoscope. Except that they aren't dazzling - they are dull and lacklustre.
Although there are a lot of artefacts they are nonetheless the finds of one person who has probably scanned only 200 acres of this enormous parish. Without this man's work we would know a lot less about the history of the area but had there been a team of archaeologists we would have known a lot more.
And so it is with Sharehistory. Each item has an intrinsic value but it is the quantity of items which will contribute to our understanding of history. That cannot be a lone mission but a group dedicated to uploading their own items of history, that is powerful. Your area of interest may be family or local history or the history of teapots - it doesn't matter. Where you are in the world doesn't matter either. What does matter is that when we turn the kaleidoscope to view the history which is there, part of the dazzle is due to the items we have uploaded.
The team at Share History wish you a happy and healthy 2011.