Gathering Information for a Personal or Family History

You Can Do It!
Writing a family history can seem like a rather daunting task. It needn’t be. It can be a highly rewarding activity. Will it be easy? Probably not. Will it take time? Almost certainly. Will it be worth it? Absolutely. You’ll not only be saving an important piece of history, but you’ll be creating links between the generations that will bring your family closer together.

Looking at the whole process of writing a family history may be discouraging. After all, most of us are not writers, historians, or publishers. But when the process of putting together a family history is broken down into its smaller component parts, it isn’t as complicated as it may seem at first glance.

The purpose of this blog is to break the process down for you and to give you some helpful hints and tricks that will make writing and publishing a family history easier for you. So go ahead, have courage, read on, and then just go to work. You won’t be sorry!

In this blog I talk about some basic ideas to help you in gathering information and the kinds of information to look for to create interesting family histories.

Gathering the Information
Your first step in creating a family history book is to gather the information that will go into your book. As you go about this, think about it from the standpoint of those who will be reading the book. Ask yourself how you can help them get to know these individuals on a personal level and what you can do to engage and hold them as a reader.

Obviously, you’ll be telling the story of a person’s or family’s life and how they are connected to one another and to your family now, but perhaps more importantly, you’ll want to help your readers understand who these folks really were, not just what they did or where they went, and to whom they were related. Communicating the “flavor” or personality of an individual brings that person “to life” for the reader, and isn’t that what you want? Family histories should be more than a collection of dry facts, dates, travelogues, or a daily journal of tasks, although even the right amount of that information can communicate some very important things about the individual and their life. Remember too, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Find ways other than just words to communicate interesting things about these people. Use photos, certificates, official documents, and other images liberally.

Detective Work
Finding out what really made the person who they were will take some detective work. My cousin, and family history nut, Russ Robison gives some good advice on getting started.

Russ says, “The most important part of the process is attitude”; he continues:

• Have a strong desire to learn about your ancestor
• Have faith that you will have help in finding important material when you need to find it. Don’t worry about learning a new computer program or function until you need to use it. (Just read and study the help section of a program when you want to learn about it.)
• Then go to work even though you only know one or two places where there is or might be information you need. As you work, additional doors of information will be made known to you as fast as you can gather and record the information you have found.

Kinds of Evidence
As a family history detective, gather up as much “evidence” as you can. Realize right from the start that you’re not going to be doing this project alone. You’ll need to go to outside resources like relatives, on-line research sites, and already published materials. Here are some ideas on the kinds of information you may want to try to find and include:

• Stories, written or verbal accounts of events, thoughts, feelings, experiences
• Autobiographical writings and journals
• Other published histories
• Photos of individuals, activities, and places of interest
• Genealogical charts including pedigree charts and family group sheets
• Famous (or infamous) quotes or sayings by the individuals
• Official civic, religious, secular or military certificates
• Awards or achievements
• Newspaper articles
• Postcards, letters & greeting cards
• Poems & songs
• Reproductions of artwork such as paintings or sculptures
• Favorite recipes
• Maps
• Examples of advertising, products, cars, and clothing from the period
• Important world events, people, innovations, and other general time-period specific information

In my next blog, I'll give some really helpful questions you can ask about your subject(s) in your family history project, or about yourself if you're doing your own personal history.

You can download a helpful 28 page booklet on preparing your family history that includes the information in this blog. Go to www.imageproprint.com and click on the Free Guidebook on publishing your family history.

The Need to Know

Alex Haley described well the deep need we feel to connect with our heritage when he said:

“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage–to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” Alex Haley, What Roots Means to Me, Reader’s Digest, May 1977

I think I know what Mr. Haley is talking about. Just last month my wife and I decided to take a little impromptu trip. That's really not like me. In fact, you could ask my grown kids and they would confirm that. Anyway, I really wanted to spend a couple of days in Snake Valley on the Utah, Nevada border where my Mom grew up. I'd been feeling a really strong need to connect to my roots -- to my heritage. It was surprising how strongly I felt a connection to her and her family as we traveled in the same area where she lived and grew up.

I thought about her life on a sheep ranch in that untamed country. I thought about her visiting Lehman Caves when she was a girl and had to climb down a ladder to get into the cave. I thought about the summers we spent as a family camping at Strawberry Creek in the Snake Valley. I thought about a lot of things.

While we were there, we spent some time in the Great Basin National Park and hiked up to Stella Lake and Lake Teresa. I remembered Mom talking about making that hike and how that was one of her favorite spots. As we hiked I took some pictures. You can see why it was one of her favorite spots and why it's now one of mine. It wasn't until I was writing this blog that I realized that this trip helped me connect with both my Mom and Dad. You see, Dad was an avid and gifted photographer. And while I don't have his talent, taking pictures has become a cherished hobby of mine.

The more I discover about my heritage, the more I understand myself, and the more I discover about myself, the more I understand them.

Maybe it's just my age, but more than ever, I have a need to know.

It's Coming!

I'll be writing a blog about publishing a family or personal history. The purpose of this blog is to provide some helpful hints in getting your family history printed. I've been helping folks publish family histories for 30 years, and in that time, I've learned a thing or two about the process that I'll try and share. So watch for my upcoming posts.

In these blogs I'll cover tips on:

• Gathering information for a family or personal history
• Writing an interesting history
• Choosing the right software to write, edit and format your history
• Deciding whether you'll format your history or pay someone to do it for you
  
• Word processors vs. page layout programs for formatting your history
  
• Scanning documents and photographs
• Saving your history as a PDF
• Formatting that will make your history look great
• Printing methods
• Binding methods
  
• Choosing a printing company
• Saving money and headaches
• And whatever else I can think of....

You can go this link www.imageproprint.com and click on the link there to request a free guidebook on publishing your family history.

See you back here soon!!!!