and then; or, rabbit holing

It started simply enough with a search for a nineteenth-century marriage record. And then suddenly I was looking for a pub and reading Jane Austen and trying to figure out the difference between “yeoman” and “gentleman” and then I found myself on a ship bound for Jamaica, but I still have no idea what port I departed from, and then I dove deep into Lloyds Register of Ships, and then I was looking at colonial gardens and then I ordered a fancy book or two or three online and then I went looking for stitched globes and then I wondered what a wealthy Victorian girl might learn at school and then I started thinking about tides and then I was in Yarmouth with a ship captain and I don’t quite know how I got there from Jamaica and then I was deep into thinking about chintz and made a brief visit to Lancashire mills to trace the differences between dress and drapery fabric and then I started reading poetry about the sea and then I went to see when Queen Victoria was born, but I made a brief but unfruitful detour to the online Nova Scotia archives website and then went for a walk, and now I’m drawing lines and circles and arrows in a billion different colours and creating another mind map and and and

sound familiar?