Writing
Personal and Family Histories—2005
By Taylor Macdonald
“Each
time a person dies without his or her history being preserved, it’s as if an
entire library burned down.” African proverb
Introduction
Building relationships is vitally important, especially
relationships with our family members, close and distant, living and dead.
Personal and family histories help build and strengthen relationships.
Goals of this Class
(1) To make you all feel capable and competent to write a personal
or family history.
(2) Help you obtain a desire, when you leave here, to write a
personal or family history.
Why
Family and Personal Histories are Important—Your Own and Your Ancestors’
Help us and our children realize we are part of a chain of people
who came before us, and there will be a continuation of people after us. Those
who lived before us are real people, but they become “real” only if we learn
about them, and we can learn about them only if someone has written a history.
Similarly, we will be “real” to our own descendants only if they can read about
us.
1. Histories help
strengthen relationships.
2. Histories help us
keep track of the ups and downs of our own life. There is also the phenomenon
of not always understanding the significance of certain events in our lives
until afterwards when we look back on them. We can better look back and learn
if we have histories to read.
4. Histories of ordinary
people are just as important as the histories of prominent people and leaders.
5. “One of the major
reasons why we need to find out as much as we can about our ancestors is so
that we may interpret ourselves through them. Genealogy is important because
our families are the extension of ourselves back infinitely and forward
infinitely. It is by virtue of them that we are individuals. We do not act
alone. The antecedents of our actions go back to our ancestors – what they have
done, what they have passed on to us in the way of sin and in the way of
virtue. And the consequences of our actions go forward to our descendants....
That is why we have to thank our ancestors (that is one side of it) and to
forgive them (that is the other side of it); and why our children will have to
thank us and forgive us.” (Arthur Henry King, The Abundance of the Heart)
12 Unacceptable Excuses for Not Preparing
Your Own or Someone Else’s Life History
1. I’m not a writer
2. My life is boring
3. I never did anything
worth writing about
4. There are sad or
embarrassing things in my life
5. No one is interested
in my life history
6. I can’t remember much
of anything interesting
7. I don’t know how to
get started or how to organize it
8. It’s too difficult
and confusing
Getting Started on a Recorded Oral History
1. Buy a cassette recorder
and get a sack of blank tapes. Then talk till you’re hoarse!
2. Label each tape.
(Unlabeled tapes get erased, recorded over, or thrown out.)
3. Don’t be
self-conscious, and don’t worry if you sound funny on the tape. Just talk!
4. Don’t worry about
getting things out of order, or interrupting you, starting over, etc. Just
talk!
5. What to include?
Everything! Give lots of details. Don’t just talk about the big events in your
life, include big
things, little things, everyday things, happy, sad things,
problems, and successes.
6. Use video cameras, if
available. No one cares if they are professional quality. Just do them.
Writing About Sad or Difficult Events
Every person and family has problems and challenges. You can
choose what to include and what to omit in your history. However, knowing how
you or others handled and coped with problems may help those who come after to
keep their own problems in perspective. You don’t have to go into every detail
of a difficult event, but you can briefly describe it, your feelings about it,
what it means to you now, and what you learned from it. Mistakes, problems, and
trials are a major part of life. Don’t dwell on them, but you don’t have to
make people look perfect. Caution: Above all, don’t let fear of a difficult event prevent you from writing
a history. As a general rule, follow Alex Haley’s advice: “Look for the good
and praise it.”
A Word About Perfectionism
Perfectionists are people who strain toward impossible goals that
often end up obstructing their accomplishments. Perfectionism is not necessarily desirable or a sign of high
achievement. You may do an outstanding job on your life history if you aim for
just a good narrative rather than a masterpiece that produces stress and perhaps
prevents you from achieving your goal. Caution: Avoid the urge to
constantly revise as you write your rough draft; the compulsive search for
perfection will keep you from ever completing a manuscript.
Six Steps to Writing a Personal or Family
History
1. PLAN.
Decide the scope of your history:
• Life of one person
• Story of a nuclear
family: a couple and their children
• Multi-generational
history
• Collection of
histories on the ancestors of a certain individual
• Collection of
histories on the descendants of a certain individual
2. RESEARCH. How
to begin your research depends on whom you are writing about.
Researching your personal history. In
writing your own history, research will usually start with your memory. To get
your memories out of your head and onto paper, you can:
• Make audiotapes as
previously described, then type and organize the transcripts.
• Write in long hand
then get the manuscript typed, preferably on a computer.
• Gather with your
brothers, sisters, cousins, or old friends, then reminisce. They will remember
things you forgot (or perhaps never knew), and will spark your memory. Record
these conversations or have someone take notes.
• If possible,
schedule several of these sessions, for as you talk and reminisce, things will
return to your memory that you have not thought of in 50 years. When the first
session is over, memories will continue to flood your mind. Capture them.
• Be sure to get the
details for each story or event, if possible: date, place, people involved,
time of year, etc. This will add richness and credibility to your finished
history.
Researching an ancestor’s history.
This requires more work.
• Assemble what
information you have in one place—a binder, file, box.
• Determine what key
information is missing, devise a plan for obtaining it.
-County histories. Most U.S. counties have published histories
with surprising amount of detail about early settlers, maps, property plats.
You may find when your ancestors moved in or out, the exact location of their
property. Many are microfilmed in the FHL and available at Family History
Centers.
-Other local histories and biographies
-Surname genealogies and histories
-Letters, diaries, family documents
-Newspapers
-Family History Department Research Outlines
-Internet. Use search engines for names and places. Add key sites
to Bookmarks or Favorites.
Take good notes. It’s discouraging to have to go back and repeat
steps because you didn’t take good notes to start with. Include full
information on your source: title, author, publisher, publication place, year,
page number, microfilm number, location of the source, file number—in short,
whatever is necessary for someone coming along behind you to be able to locate
that same information. Photocopy documents whenever possible. State name and
date of personal interviews or conversations. Give date, author, and location
of letters, diaries, and newspaper articles. You must simply plunge in
and learn as you go. Tip: Gather the basic information you have,
go to a library, walk in, and start asking questions. Tip: Learn about
Inter-library Loan, even overseas. If you have a public or academic library
nearby, pay for a user card.
If you make a research trip, plan ahead. Write the people and
offices you wish to visit and ask to meet with them and for other guidance.
It’s a waste of time to travel a great distance only to find the library closed
that day, the librarian on vacation, or some other unforeseen obstacle. By
writing or calling ahead, you can be put in contact with local historians and
historical societies who are often a gold mine of information. They are usually
enthusiastic helpers.
Caution: Research is fun; you can do it forever.
But at some point you must cease research and start writing.
3. ORGANIZE. For
many, this is the most difficult part. To start, a chronological system usually
makes sense (You may change it later).
• Place all your raw
research data in chronological order in folders, in a file drawer, or tabs in a
binder. If your history is long, one long continuous file may become unwieldy.
In that case, sub-divide into several major periods, Period 1, Period 2, Period
3, etc.
• After gathering the
raw data, put the information on 5" x 7" file cards or in “chronology
blocks” on your word processor. Date of the event in the upper left corner, the complete
bibliographical source information in upper right corner. Then the information
itself taken from a research source (county history, census, newspaper article,
oral
interview, etc.).
• Continue in this way
as long as necessary, adding cards or computer “note blocks” as you gather new
raw information. You may end up with hundreds of these cards or note blocks
stored in a box or on your hard drive.
(Life & death caution:
ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR
COMPUTER FILES ON DISKETTE OR CD OR ZIP DISK OR SOMETHING!)
For a long history, a purely chronological organization as the
final form may not work. You may have to divide your subject’s life into
topical threads, and double back once in a while, for example:
1. Birth and childhood
2. Youth and education
3. Family background
[Temporarily leave the husband’s life]
3. Wife’s birth and
childhood
4. Wife’s youth and
education
5. Wife’s family
background
6. Husband and wife meet,
court, marry
[Joint history from this point on]
7. Husband’s work as
farmer
8. Husband’s work as
miner
9. Husband’s final work
as mill worker
[Flash back to:]
10. Family life: children,
family stories, illnesses & injuries, family activities, home descriptions
11. Husband’s community
& church activities, hobbies, clubs, service organizations.
[Flash back again:]
12. Wife’s activities,
hobbies, career
13. Final years,
retirement, illnesses, missions, deaths, funerals, obituaries
14. Others’ memories of
the deceased
15. Summing up
4. WRITE. You
now have the building blocks to create your history; just link all these cards
or chronology blocks together. You will now change the sterile dates and facts
into a living chronicle for future generations. There are two major formats:
A. CHRONOLOGY
This is a list of dates and events. A possible finished product.
Even if you stop with a chronology, you will be providing a great family
history service. As you can see, it doesn’t require writing or organization
skills. However, if you wish you can use this chronology as skeleton for
creating a full-blown narrative.
B. NARRATIVE HISTORY
Besides, the chronology described above, another option is to
write a narrative history, what we usually think of as a family history or
biography. You can use the chronology you’ve just constructed as a starting
point, then write transitions from card to card (or block to block). You can
organize it into parts or sections or chapters. The hard work— researching,
taking notes, preserving sources, and organizing—is already done. The remaining
task is largely one of writing.
Chapter Titles. Write chapter headings that are
descriptive. Good chapter headings will allow your readers to read the Table of
Contents and search the history more easily. Short chapters are usually more
inviting to the reader than long ones.
Subheadings. (Like this one.) Within chapters, it’s
helpful to insert subheadings every so often to allow your reader to track and
skim easily. Remember, most readers will not read your book just once, but will
return to it as a reference many times looking for a specific event, story
or date.
Photos, maps, genealogical charts, drawings. Use
them copiously.
Captions. The most read parts of your history will
be your captions. Spend time composing them with great care. Don’t do them in a
hurry or offhandedly, and don’t write under a photo: “Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt
Belle, cousin Bob, and the kids.” Their names may be well known to you, but
down the road, readers unacquainted with them will be frustrated. In addition,
add all the information you can about the photo, for example, when and where it
was taken, the significance of the photo.
Footnotes, Bibliography, Index. These are not options;
they are requirements even for the most amateur family historian. Without
sources and attributions, your work will merit little regard. Even if your
source is an oral interview or telephone conversation, state the source, the
participants, and the date the conversation took place.
Letters. Letters are a wonderful source of family
history, for they lend a sense of immediacy and reality to your history. But
letters tend to cover many subjects in one document, so be sure to quote only
the passage of the letter that applies to the topic at hand. If the entire
letter or even a series of letters are important, include them in their
entirety in an appendix at the end of your history.
C.WRITING SUGGESTIONS
Your own style. Don’t become self-conscious or try to
use language that is too high sounding. It is especially important to be
relaxed about your writing in the early draft stage. Revision will be the key
to a satisfactory finished product. Seek to transfer a picture or an emotional
experience to your readers in plain language.
Keep the narration moving forward.
Your reader will feel more comfortable and be more willing to read your history
if you give the feeling that you are moving the story along. Keep up a brisk pace,
and only take a detour for background or context when necessary.
Background and context. Keep the narrative moving, but if you
feel that it is important to insert some background or context, you then take
the reader on a short detour to explain the circumstances behind the family’s
decision to uproot themselves from their ancestral homelands where they and
their forebears had lived for centuries. It requires judgement on when and how
much of this kind of background information to include. As a general rule, keep
focused on your main subject, and include only enough information to give
meaning or understanding to the narrative. If you feel more information would
be interesting or necessary, place it in an appendix or a long end note rather
than in your main narrative.
Stop and paint an occasional picture.
While keeping the narrative moving, bear in mind that it may enrich your
history to give a more detailed description or tell a story once in a while. If
a Scottish parish is important because it is the cradle of your extended
family, you may want to describe it and include interesting quotes from other
travelers or histories about the region. Describe the crumbling ruins of an
ancestral castle, for example, but make it short and return to your main story.
Beginning, middle, and end. Good beginnings are
often the hardest to come up with, and endings the next hardest.
Good beginning. Try a startling statement, an unexpected
revelation. Use a family symbol to start; or use the family as a symbol. Start with
a family photo and a family assumption about it. Action and suspense make a
good beginning. Use a characterization of your ancestor or yourself to start. A
“sense of place or time” can be a good starting point. Start with a short
anecdote or a colorful quote from a letter or start with a crisis.
5. EDIT.
When your history is essentially in the desired form, make copies and send it
to several people to read and comment. You can usually find experienced people
within your circle of family and friends to read it for free. Or you can find a
professional editor to read it for pay. Be sure to agree on a price or a rate
up front. It’s essential that you let your manuscript sit for a while and cool
off. Then when you return to it, you can look at it with fresh eyes and more
objectivity. You and your readers will find awkward phrases, ambiguities,
inconsistencies, and confusing passages that you will be happy to discover
before your history is printed in final form.
Caution: Avoid the urge to constantly revise as
you write your rough draft; the compulsive search for perfection will keep you
from ever completing a manuscript. Save editing for later.
Epilogue. When the main narrative is completed,
add information of interest that may fall out of the range of your history.
Perhaps indicate that this history is the first of a series, and invite others
to contribute.
Appendix. Important and interesting information
that would disrupt the flow of your history if you were placing it in the main
narrative. Can include genealogical charts, family group sheets, facsimile
reproductions of special documents, expanded details on certain elements of the
history, town histories, etc.
Bibliography. List of sources, their authors, and
location. Required! Index. List of names, places, events, ideas with the pages
in the history where they can be found. Required!
6. PRINT.
There are many ways and prices for printing your history. Shop around, visit
printers and copy shops. Ask questions, get samples of paper and bindings, and demos,
prices, and time frames. Ask about different processes and costs of reproducing
your photos. Tip: Take nothing for granted! Don’t assume the printer
knows that the index comes at the end of the book or that the pages are
numbered all the way to the end of the history. Don’t assume what your cover
will look like; ask for a mock-up or an actual sample of the cover or title
page. Don’t assume that the binder knows how to spell your name on the cover or
spine. Don’t assume anything!
Final form of your history:
• Photocopied, Docutek
or offset printing
• Binding: stapled,
spiral, other
• Soft cover, hard
cover
• CD-ROM or web site
USEFUL BOOKS AND CDs
1. Bringing Your Family History to Life Through Social History, Sturdevant
2.
The Elements of Style,
Strunk & White
3. Keys to Great Writing, Wilbers
4. Writer’s
Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s, McCutcheon (others in this series)
5. A to Zax: A
Comprehensive Dictionary for Genealogists & Historians, Evans
6. Family History
CD, published by The Jefferson Project,
www.familyhistorycd.com
431 E. 2700 N.,
Ogden, UT 84414. (Software to publish your history on CD)
USEFUL WEB SITES:
4.
http://uk2.multimap.com (U.K.)
5.
www.old-map.co.uk (U.K.)
6.
www.ellisislandrecords.org -
Ellis Island Passenger Arrivals: American Family Immigration History Center
7.
www.lib.utah.edu/kvk/index-b.htm -
Utah’s Catalog (Searches every college library in Utah plus UNLV)