My latest book, “One in Six Million”, is the story of a cold case solved by a genealogist from Montreal. The genealogist is named Stanley Diamond, and he sadly passed away in December 2024, just a few months before the book came out.
Because Stanley was unfortunately gone,
before the book was released, I sent an e-copy to some of his closest colleagues, because I knew that’s what Stanley would have wanted.
The only problem was
that one of them found a mistake.
When I was talking about the founding of
JRI-Poland (or Jewish Records Indexing Poland), I accidentally said that Michael Tobias was the project manager due to his outstanding organizational skills and that the computer programming mastermind behind the database was Steve Zedeck.
Unfortunately,
the reverse was true.
Michael was
a really good sport about it, but I could tell he was disappointed. He Facebook Messengered me to tell me about the mistake and asked if it could be corrected.
“Unfortunately, the transcript has already gone to the printer,”
I wrote back, “and now it’s too late.”
My heart sank, though.
After six years of interviewing, and fact-checking and double checking. After months of working with my editor, and having a proof-reader take a second and third look. I really hoped against hope that we had created an error-free book. (Although I knew that that would be next to impossible in such a detailed project, but I was still hopeful.)
“Would it be possible to correct this on the second printing?”
Michael asked me. I rolled my eyes inwardly. Second printing. Can you imagine? At that moment I had not yet even held a first printing. I still had to launch, and book tour and promote and social media…
“Sure,” I said. “If there’s a second printing, I will make sure we correct it.” I never thought it would happen.
Well, as luck and hard work would have it,
we ended up with a second printing of “One in Six Million” after only seven weeks. (Full story of how that happened here). And so far, this is the only mistake that’s been identified. We were able to correct it, and henceforth, all page 68s will correctly recognize Michael Tobias as the computer brains behind the JRI-Poland operation.
As luck and hard work would also have it,
I was accepted as a speaker at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, where Michael was also a speaker.
I went to his talk about 200 years
of Scottish Jewry, and waited in line to speak with him at the end.
I introduced myself and told him I had very good news.
I explained that we had a second printing, and with it, the opportunity to correct my mistake, and I brought him an updated copy of the book, Post-It-Note-marked to page 68 which has been updated accordingly.
As much as it was a bad feeling
to hear that I had made a mistake in the first place, it was a great feeling to have the opportunity to correct it and to let Michael Tobias know in person. I mean, he lives in Scotland, so it was really lucky that we had both schlepped to Fort Wayne, Indiana and that the second printing was ready in time (and that the conference swag bag included Post-It-Notes).
Persistence on his part
was that he read the book when I sent it, that he identified a mistake and that he calmly and directly told me about it, and asked that it be corrected.
Persistence on my part was
that I heard what he was saying, and even though I was upset about it, I didn’t let it overshadow everything good that was happening with the book. I just made a note of it, and moved on, knowing that I would correct it as soon as I could.
Also, I sought him out
to let him know that we had corrected our mistake, and I gifted him with a fresh copy.
I think that’s what Stanley would have wanted.
That is a lovely story! Perseverance furthers, as the I Ching says.
Persistence wins out again! It's a good lesson. I love your humility. That's an important lesson too.