The Genealogy & Family History Social Network
How are you telling your family stories?
-------Chronological by Family
-------Generation, Era or Historical Event (Revolutionary War, Pioneers, Immigration--families intertwined)
-------Use of local flavor, i.e. what were the times like when your relative lived
-------Pedigree line with little stories spread throughout
-------Family pages
Just some thoughts
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bonnie Skiles Rost on
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I love your approach in writing your father-in-law's family. You've provided me with some great techniques. Thanks.
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Great idea by bringing the history of that era. I like to start my research with the locality, which I have many history websites that I reference. I also find that chronological writing keeps one on track. Good luck.
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Permalink Reply by Eric K. Schweer on
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This is exactly why I got started with my family history. It started out as a desire to write a biography of my Father. With the research, came a love of the "family tales", then an interest in the struggles, dreams, goals. achievements and disappointments of each generation. It seems the more I get
involvedengrossed with the genealogy of my line, the bigger my plans get.
I now want to write a book / books, probably like your saying, one for each side. Something to pass on to the next generations to come. I don't have any children of my own, but do have step children, nieces, and nephews. Most of all I want the book to be in more of a story format, with "local flavor", and sharing many of those family stories. Even the ones I can't substantiate, but explaining how I was able to discredit them. Of course I'll have to have the formated genealogy in there somewhere, perhaps as appendixes. I hope to make it fun and interesting to read, maybe pass on the genealogy bug through my writing.
My biggest problem right now, is the influx of information. One of my aunts has traced the family tree quite a ways back. Unfortunately, I have already found some inconsistencies with names she listed. Public records, along with other family trees and fact sheets I've found on line don't quite match up. I've been muddling through all of that trying desperately to confirm information one way or the other. For instance, just this weekend, I found a site with a list of family group sheets of some of my ancestors. I couldn't download it, do I printed each and every sheet, 397 of them. After going through each one of them last night, I actually found one that listed me! Once I confirm sources and facts, this will take my tree back several generation past what I have already.
So with each breakthrough in my research, the book project gets bigger and bigger. -
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Good luck. I certainly understand where you're at in your projects. I have had so many starts and stops because I get caught up in the research of each family, which can days, weeks, months. Yes, the project just keeps getting larger and larger. So glad you found a site that's helpful with your reseach; especially one on you. I hope it was accurate. We just keep chugging along;-)
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I saw some on Google Docs, I'll have to see if I can find the links again.
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I have these 3 books in my library. I purchased them while taking writing classes. They are very good; however, if you go to Amazon and type in "how to" write family history, you get a list of results.
You Can Write Your Family History by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack
Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking
Writing Life Stories: How To Make Memories Into... by Bill Roorbach
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Permalink Reply by Myo on
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Do you have a local historical or genealogical society near you. Maybe they will have copies of family histories that you can look at. I have looked at some in our local library and it seems everyone has their own way of doing it.
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Permalink Reply by Ellen Rowan Taylor on
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I have started two blogs, one for my mother's family and one for my dad's. My plan is to just get the information out there. I think I had no idea how hard even this simple project would be. How much to write, how many of those elusive ancestors do I include, and how many do I leave out. I am catagorizing by generation and surname.
At the same time, I did "Nano WriMo" 50,000 word project last November. I used my matriarchal line, from myself back 5 generations, and used actual and fictional accounts of the women. It was a wonderful experience. I am still trying to find the time to edit it and to research the times that they lived, so to make it more accurate. I have photographs of all of them, so can picture them as I go, even though the earliest one was born in 1795, and was pretty sad looking in her picture. It was an interesting experience, as I told the stories in first person and found myself getting so involved in the stories that I would actually be in tears when they lost children or husbands. I know-that is really silly!
I am not particularly organized, by the way.
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Ellen, I've been contemplating a genealogical blog as well now that they have become so popular. I have researched many and found them to be helpfu in my researchl; that is, if the title blog is by surname(s).I love the idea of doing a matriarchal lineage. I know just how it feels as you're working on the family stories. I, too, have found myself in tears. One comes to mind in my father's lineage. An ancestor and his wife had 3 children. The house caught fire one day, and the husband saved his 3 small daughters, but wife died in the home. He took his 3 little girls to his parents, and he raised them there. He never remarried. Luckily, I have photos of them. As for being organized, I'm finding in trying to write a history book, neither am I.
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I inherited the family history from a cousin who spent 25 years researching and writing about the family. She put it into sections with each family line being its own 'chapter'. She started with the earliest known person in each line. Most chapters have an opening statement about that person and a little history about him and his life. The rest she used a descendent outline format with known information inserted for each person. Some more then others. It is interesting reading but hard to follow family lines. She did all this work before modern computers and internet. She wrote and hired researchers to get the information. The writing was done on an early computer that didn't even have a hard drive, you put in the program disk, then the data disk - 5" floppies - in an early version of work perfect. She made a very limited number of copies of her work. I was one of the lucky ones to get a copy. It is a treasure, especially since we are related on both sides.
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Myo, how blessed you are to receive a copy of a very special treasure. It sounds as though your cousin was very methodical in the way she planned the organization of her book. Gees, I wish she were sitting here beside me to guide me. Twenty-five years of writing - can you even imagine her dedication to keep your lineage alive? I am thrilled to hear you got a copy.
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Bonnie, yes I am. I wish she were still with us. I have found several things that she had been looking for and was not able to find - maybe she is guiding me from above. I did also get a set of the computer disks of her work so have updated the format on that and have it on my computer. I added some additional information - charts, picture, records etc- and organized it a little more and put it on a cd for a family reunion we had. I don't know how many were really interested but at least the information is in several locations so there will always be a copy of it.
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