An Intro

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Why yet another internet blog? Why yet another web site? What is this all about? And who's writing this  anyway?

  • My name is Michael Toalster. I'm in my mid-50s and up to 2021 worked as a programmer for a small publishing house, turning manuscripts into files ready to be sent to printers or made into e-books.

  • Before then, I studied mathematics and consider myself a logical, rational, analytic thinker.

  • In December 2021 I had a stroke, which destroyed parts of my brain and changed both my abilities and my ways of thinking. One major problem that I have is sorting and remembering thoughts. So one reason for this site is to allow me to hang on and direct my thoughts.

  • I have an unusual surname, and I have always been told that all Toalsters in the world are descendants of one single man, called Tolster (without the “a”) who emigrated from Ireland to England in the 1850s, where the “a” found its place into his name by a spelling mistake when he arrived.

  • My parents emigrated from England to Germany with my two brothers and me when we were children, and I never had much contact with the Toalsters back in England or, although I kow there are a number of them, in the rest of the world.

  • So the second aim of this project is to collect all information I can on my family, Toalsters and others, and share it with anyone interested.

I'd like to invite all who are interested to join me here with comments and suggestions, either on the Toalster family and its branches to other families anywhere in the world, or on my non-family projects that range from mathematics and programming to music and art.