Going Down the Proverbial Rabbit Hole

I have an alert on my computer! Every hour - on the hour - a man, in a loud whisper - states the time. For example, I'll be trolling the internet and hear this "It's 2 o'clock!" from the speakers on my laptop.  I look up to discover that it's 2AM. Yes, 2 o'clock in the morning and I've spent the last several hours 'online'.

Or as a dear friend says,
I've been traveling down the proverbial Rabbit-Hole! 

From Alice in Wonderland ... 

"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

For me this typically starts with my desire to locate one piece of information. A question that needs an answered, so that I can continue my 'journey of discovery'. Frequently that elusive 'nugget of knowledge' is found on one of the following 10 websites. Many times all of these are open in tabs on my screen, with me clicking back and forth endlessly.

• WorldCat.org
  
• Find-a-Grave.com
• Ancestry.com
• DigitalArchives.wa.gov
• Newspapers.com
• Archives.gov 
• ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov
• Hathitrust.org
• Wikipedia.org
• Infoweb.Newsbank.com (historic Seattle Daily Times 1895-present)

However, the road to locating this 'nugget' is a long winding path with many offshoots that catch my attention! Eventually, I can't even remember what the original question was, and I've quintupled my list of questions. I've learned to write down the original question on a notepad next to the computer, in order to stay focused. Plus open a Word document on my computer to capture the list of new questions - to capture them for further exploration.

Today I was online researching a question that had nothing to do with anything Norwegian. I found myself on one of those offshoots, traveling deep into a list of books that piqued my interest. The subject matter was Norwegians AND the American Civil War. Below are links to the books I discovered. 

• Americans at heart : a study of Norwegian immigrants who volunteered for service in the American Civil War, and into the question whether they later benefited from their participation in the war, once they returned to their civilian lives and once again pursued civilian careers. by Laila Sandvold Macdonald. 

• Nordmenn i dødsleirene : tusen norske soldater døde i den amerikanske borgerkrigen  (Norwegian soldiers in the prison camps during the American Civil War) by Torbjørn Greipslad.  

• Jens T. Dahle : an immigrant's Civil War by Jill Kea Morelli

• The Man called Swede by Walter N. Hokanson

I thought others who read this blog might also find these books to be of interest.

I also wondered if others ever get caught up in the proverbial Rabbit Hole?  If so, I invite you to share your thoughts on it in the comments. 

Now I can get back to my original rabbit-hole question. :)