I’m a gal who does her best to get her facts right. Actually, I kind of obsess over it. It’s part of my character. Here are a few facts that I found out while writing Tangled Roots!

The Ouija board was invented in 1890 and patented in 1891. (The idea of “talking boards” actually goes back much farther. “Fuji” spirit writing dates to around 1100 AD during the Song Dynasty in China, for example.)

A Ouija board shows up in Tangled Roots, although it isn’t used in the traditional way. I wanted to know if a particular ghostly character would even know what one was or not. Answer: Yes. The popularity of “talking boards” has surged and ebbed over time. If interested about the long history of the Ouija board, here’s a nice write-up from The Strong National Museum of Play.

On January 10, 1921, a devastating basement fire at the U.S. Department of Commerce Building in Washington, D.C., destroyed or severely damaged the majority of the 1890 U.S. Federal Census population schedules. I stumbled on this while researching census records in general, as they play a part in Charlotte’s research in Tangled Roots. The vast majority of the records for the 1890 census were destroyed, if not by the fire itself then in the smoke and water damage. There was no way around it; Charlotte had to deal with missing some data as a result.

While researching census records, I found that forms for many decades are freely searchable online. I wanted to be accurate on what information Charlotte could find. For grins, I looked up an ancestor and ended up sending this screenshot to my folks:

Plastic wrap was launched as a household product in 1953. The underlying material (polyvinylidene chloride) was accidentally discovered in 1933 by a Dow Chemical Company lab worker named Ralph Wiley. The material was first used during World War II to protect military equipment, and the consumer food wrap version was officially introduced to the public in the next decade. This particular fact came into play when I wanted a past character to use the material and wondered if it was possible. Answer: Yes.

The Homburg hat was invented in Germany in 1882 and made it to America in the 1890’s. I needed a distinctive hat for a character in the past, and this fit the bill. Most people recognize this hat from much later famous wearers, such as Churchill during World War II or Eisenhower at his 1953 inauguration.

There are more tie-ins to real “things” in Tangled Roots, which I’ll delve into in future posts! If you like modern-day mysteries but with a strong historical vibe, have a look at my Secrets in Casten’s Horn series. You can learn more about Driftless Spirits (Book 1) or read about real things in Book 1 to start.