This site is concerned with two subjects, naturalistic philosophy and the Tichenor family genealogy. I have written a book on each of these subjects, Taking Nature by the Hand and Tichenor Families in America.
Philosophy
has been of life-long interest to me, but it has been only late in life
that I put my ideas in print. Taking Nature by the Hand in part
chronicles my pursuit of the valid use of the word "knowledge"
and in part is a declaration that it applies to the natural world. The
synopsis, available on this site, gives more detail.
My interest in the family genealogy began as early as my interest in
philosophy. My father had a copy of Richard Bennington Teachenor’s
genealogy, which has a long title that begins "A Partial History
of the Tichenor Family in America." In the remainder of the
title we learn that the author has attached a Teachenor line to the
Tichenor family. This little book or pamphlet was a treasure and seemed
as sacred as the Bible. I could not imagine that it was not all true.
It gave me enthusiasm for family history -- not, however, without a
let down. Teachenor had attached the Teachenors to the Kentucky branch
of the Tichenor family. It became my unhappy lot to inform my readers
in Tichenor Families in America that this is not true, a fact
I learned on my first trip to Kentucky. I was not, however, dismayed
by this. The enthusiasm that Teachenor's book had engendered was permanent,
and I gave all my spare time for the next 14 years to researching and
compiling the Tichenor genealogy.
Tichenor Families in America was preceded by my Descendants
of Martin Tichenor: A History in the Making published in 1977. By
"a history in the making" I meant "a history in the process
of being written." My purpose in publishing it was to convince
Tichenors everywhere that I was serious about the Tichenor genealogy.
It may interest the reader to know that Tichenor Families in America
was compiled with a computer that seems primitive by today’s standards.
It had 64 K of RAM with 2-megahertz and used single sided diskettes.
The memory was so small that the word processing software had overlays,
that is, when it needed some features it would have to erase another
from memory, copy in the new feature, then reverse this when the original
feature was needed again. It took the computer three days to create
the index. The problem of storage for the book was solved by using an
external hard drive.
