How are you telling your family stories?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Patten on July 24, 2009 at 8:44pm

I'm writing my family history in two styles:

1. A traditional family tree book, with notes, references and stories. It will act as a reference for historians and family, whilst being a companion volume to the second work:

2. A book(s) of Narrative / Creative Non-Fiction.

The second book I'm finding a lot more time consuming, as I am being driven to learn a great deal more about my genealogy in the process of researching each element, fleshing out characters, and telling the story as accurately as possible in the style of a novel. I chose the style of narrative non fiction because I am telling a true story, and despite having to invent dialogue, I will remain as faithful to the true nature of the characters as is inherently possible.

The story I'm writing is of 4 or more generations of my paternal family. My father, a professional boxer and football (rugby league) player. His brother, an Indigenous rights activist in Australia, North America and South America (my paternal heritage is Aboriginal Australian), my grandfather, who in the 1930's was a major human rights figure in Australia, as illustrated on the following page I've written - http://pattenproject.com/jack and then my great grandfather, who as an orphan child saw a rebellion carried out against the government by his elders, and as an adult served as a tracker with the police in the outback for 30 years. My great great grandfather, a farmer who was born at the time of the first incursions of white people in his tribe's territory during the 1850's (one of whom was his father).

Should I complete the above volumes, the long term plan is to write a sequel, focusing on my mother's genealogy, which includes free settlers from Ireland, England and Sweden to Australia and convicts from England aboard the first fleet of colonial ships to this country in 1788.

I really won't be surprised if this work consumes much of my free time for the rest of my life. A good thing that I've started earlier than most genealogists then!

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 25, 2009 at 7:30pm

In the book I have on writing family genealogy this is called Fictional Family Sagas Based on Truth -- Because it is fiction, this type of writing is not document, but some historical or genalogical fiction writers add an author's note, which includes the sources they consulted. An example is Alex Haley's Roots.

There is another genre called Family History Narratives - Narrative family histories are fully documented and tell the story of a family. One might call this creative, dramatic, or literary nonfiction writing. Written in third person (using he, she--as opponed to I), the focus is on people and setting; the story has a plot and reads like a novel. Woven in with the facts about the family gleaned from genealogical research are family lore and social, oral, ethnic, and women's history. A combination of this genre and genealogical narrative make an ideal book; The first par of the book is the family history narrative; the second part contains the genealogical family summaries. Depending on the quality of the narrative and its audience appea, these can be commercially published, published by a scholarly genealogy press, or self-published.

Permalink Reply by John Patten on July 26, 2009 at 7:05pm

Hi Trudy, thanks for replying to my post. I'm glad you feel the story would be of interest, especially for the fact that it is of a foreign culture to you (I would assume - apologies if incorrect).

Whilst I understand where your book on family genealogy is coming from, I wonder if it is perhaps not a little dated in its categorization, or that the approach I am taking has been misinterpreted?

Narrative Non-Fiction, or as it is more commonly known - Creative Non-Fiction, is an established form of writing that is only now becoming known in wider circles. It is a style pioneered by guys like Truman Capote, and Tom Wolfe in his epic - The Right Stuff.

These are works that take historical documents and first hand accounts and create a narrative, and without introducing new characters or situations.

Unlike with many other researchers, I am writing from a position of having access to many sources that flesh out my family history. My family appears in almost every book on Australian Aboriginal history, both political and in general when dealing with the Eastern States.

If I were to write my families stories in a manner that would require inventing plausible scenarios, rather than extracting known and wholly true scenarios, as per Alex Hailey's 'Roots' (which not only was fiction based on an occasional historical element, but in part was also stolen from the work of others) then I would be more inclined to refer to my work as Historical Fiction. But, fortunately, this is not the situation I am faced with.

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 26, 2009 at 7:17pm

It sounds like a very good approach for you. You are highly fortunate to have such rich resources to work with.
P.S. I am acquainted with the story of the Rabbit-Proof Fence..
T

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 25, 2009 at 7:33pm

It sounds like this will make a very interesting saga. You have quite a family background. I can't wait to hear more about this.

Permalink Reply by Lynn on July 25, 2009 at 8:07pm

I started telling my Family Story by first showing a photo of my Grandfather, then went to the cottage in Wales where he was born. Then I went into a detail description of how the Surname of HUGHES was first known as the surname of THOMAS; because of the wellsh naming system. example Thomas ap Hugh, or Thomas son of Hugh which later was known as Thomas HUGHES.......confusing for sure! From there I told the story of my ancestors and how they lived in Wales, and why my Grandfather emmigrated to America.........from there it was generations and photos and pedigree charts.
Hope this helps someone. I am still working on it, a work in progress!
Regards,Lynn

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 25, 2009 at 8:38pm

I think NAME background is really interesting. I like that approach. My last name has quite a NAME background.

It seems you name linage is similar to the Norweigian way last names were created. Sometime in the late 1800's the Norweigians took permanent last names. They either took the first name of their father, Henrick Chritianson, or they took the name of the place they lived. My ancestry had a farm name Guthorn, a farm southwest of Oslo, so they took the name Horn.

Permalink Reply by Gail Evans Tilton on July 25, 2009 at 11:21pm

I like your Quilt idea for two reasons: I'm a quilter, and it sounds like an easy way for my old brain keep things straight!
Gail

Permalink Reply by Gail Evans Tilton on July 25, 2009 at 11:30pm

I'm a long way from writing a book, but it's my goal. Like Trudy I don't have children and I want to produce something interesting for my nieces, nephews and cousins. I think the first thing I should do is write down the anecdotes and other family stories before I forget. How do you organize this kind of info? At what point did you start putting anything into narrative form?
Gail

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 25, 2009 at 11:46pm

Actually, I started writing down some of the stories my Aunt and Mother told me. Both have passed away, first my mother and then my aunt. For my aunt's memorial service, I created a video of pictures for both my mother and my aunt telling their story ( they were twins). My cousin and I did a few voice overs on the video telling some of these anecdotes. I also tried as my aunt was telling some of her stories, put them into my Family Tree Maker software. So that was my start.

Permalink Reply by Trudy Doolittle on July 26, 2009 at 12:40pm

Nancy,
This is a wonderful example. Would you be able to upload your first chapter for all the see. I think they'd enjoy i it as a great example. You will find the upload files options below the comment area. To make it easier for others to read, since there are many versions of Word, SAVE AS "RTF" Rich Text Format. This can be read by Word 2003, 2007, etc and WordPerfect.
Trudy

Permalink Reply by Myss Story on July 29, 2009 at 8:47pm

Hi Everyone,
looked through some posts and I think this is a good place to be for my current situation. I've collected just about everyone I can, with just a couple of brick walls. I won't give up on them, but I want to get some of my research compiled and presented in a palatable style for my family.

So one of the things I've given thought to is how to get my family interested. They don't read much, don't know much history and don't care as much as I do about ancestors. I plan to make several family trees instead of the big glob I presented them with so excitedly a few years ago. I think it may have been used to hold up a table leg or start a holiday fire in the fireplace!

There isnt much memorabilia left, so I have to find copyright free pictures and clip art to punch up the bare bones of B-M-Ds. I'm taking very short-direct generations so that it remains meaningful. There are a couple of interesting people in our direct family history, so I will concentrate on them, and how they are related, and how they lived in their time and compare to popular movies and topics, and find some common interests and traits. They won't care how good a researcher I am or my sources, but hopefully learn something outside their day-to-day life and enjoy it. That's my current goal.

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