Format, Timeline Concepts and Software Source
Copyright © 1999-2017 Charles Benjamin Blish
This genealogical compendium is made up exclusively of Blishes
and those that are very close to the Blish line, either ancestral
or as offshoots.
The initial linkage data for several thousand individuals was
gathered from the 1637-1905 work by
James Knox Blish.
Additional information is now being gathered from the 1956
addendum published by
Matthew Rhodes Blish.
In addition to these works, I have added further individuals and a
number of images to the genealogy, and have made many corrections in
the listings with regard to indexing. More importantly, each and
every individual has a record in my system, wheras in the JKB
book, only about 8% of the members of the family tree are distinguished by their
own records. Everyone else was mentioned only in the context of
those with records - and believe you me, it's been quite a job to
get that all squared away, but it's working very well now.
To get from the raw data to the three thousand five hundred (plus) HTML pages
(160 million bytes of HTML!) you'll find on
www.blish.org, my
custom genealogical software
processes all relationships, generates family trees
(also known as pedigree charts), lifespans, historical timelines,
and a number of different types of indexes.
This compilation of the genealogy accounts for both married and
unmarried partnerships. It repairs many of the linkage errors that
occured in the James Knox Blish and Matthew Rhodes Blish
books. It incorporates many photographs of family members and provides
supplementary pages where important events are described in
some detail. I have also extended the genealogy further back, to a
known date of 1518, and added quite a few new members to the
earliest generations. These entries can support considerable
additional research - especially along the lines of the
female family members, which unfortunately suffered from the
inherently male-oriented view of genealogy common in the past.
As of April 10th, 2000, I have 100% of the basic data set
entered from the JKB book, at 3,213 individuals, which also
includes several
hundred new people I've dug up.
We're probably looking at about 4,000 to 5,000 web pages for the
genealogical data I have now, at a very rough guess, for the JKB
book and the MRB book both. I've been able to add about one hundred new
entries a day, on average. I post these on the site the same day.
Sometimes my job takes all of my free time, and then the site languishes
a bit, but rest assured, I'll get back to it as soon as I can when that
happens.
The Matthew Rhodes Blish book is much shorter, and some of it consists
of corrections and additions to the records in the JKB book. Although
I've not made a comprehensive survey of the MRB book, I believe it will
take only a month or two at the most to enter the connectivity data
therein. So I think we're looking at a summer 2000 date for a complete
set of connected records on-site.
Having said that, even once the full complement of individuals is
entered and online, there is simply a huge amount of data still
to be entered that extends beyond the linkage information. Biographical,
speculative, etc. Because of this, this will always be a work in
progress. As such, some parts can (and will!) get ahead of others as
I get time to work on various aspects of the genealogy database. I have
every intent to turn the genealogy here into a veritable showpiece of
what an online genealogy can be.
Please keep in mind that the vast majority of this ongoing data
entry I regularly do is for generations past. I would be delighted to
update, or insert, your specific family line and get it online
immediately (that means, within a week or two of receiving the data;
it's still a big job!)
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James Knox Blish
Beulah Wilcox Blish
Lillian Martha (Blish) Purmort
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