RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: cristeen on Monday 21 August 17 20:56 BST (UK)
-
I am seriously considering this and was looking for advice, suggestions, any input at all really.
When I first began this genealogy lark I was given various documents etc relating to different branched of the family. One of these was a 'memoir' written by my great grandfathers older brother and transcribed/edited by his nephew in the 1960s. It is a fascinating account of his life and work (1880-1961) which has been useful in guiding my research also. Along the way I have collected lots of images, census returns, maps, newspaper articles etc relating to the people and events he describes. I have been lucky enough to find some colourful stories relating to his family and the two generations preceding it (riots, false imprisonment, Gretna Green marriages etc) and also have an account written by my grandfather which provides further details.
I have bought several books relating to particular family branches so I know others have produced similar works. I was thinking of weaving elements of local history in along the way, where relevant.
I don't expect that my specific family would be of major interest (they were fishermen & sailors mainly) but their lifestyles and daily challenges might be.
Any thoughts?
-
Have a go, you have lots of authentic information, accurate dates etc.
You need a framework-scaffold, to hang it all from.
Decide which info is dominant ,such as a craft or trade handed down generations or a specific place.
Decide on a theme whereby the info is well linked through the generations.
If there is enough about the characters could you do it as a sort of diary, although working class people would not keep one.
How about treating them as entries in a family bible then enlarge on the bare entries in chronological order, filling out the characters with as much as you know.
Do you want to write the history of your family as a factual account or weave it into a novel?
Best of luck. Viktoria.
-
It sounds like you have a great platform on which to build a family history.
Perhaps Could provide members of the family with a written account of the lives, occupations, social history of the area lived in of these ancestors for you all.
One of my distant cousins wrote a short book about her father who was in the RAF during the war and his capture in Holland. There was a brief history of his life before during and after the war all with documents she'd found and been given. It was published through Amazon and it made for interesting reading although we are not directly related.
I'm sure you will enjoy the challenge and wish you the best of luck.
Caroline
-
All of the advice you have been given here is sound but I must add on word of caution. You mention that you have a number of maps, documents and perhaps photographs which might be included in your work but please bear in mind that many, maybe all of them may be subject to copyright.
The basic rule is that copyright subsists in the original author and his/her descendants for 75 after his/her death. In the case of photographs and maps the same rule applies except where the person who took the photograph or created the map is not now known, in which case copyright pertains for 75 years after original publication.
-
I would urge everyone to write their personal memoirs. How often do I hear people say, "if only I had asked 'Aunt......' about the family. Well, we can't repair what we failed to do but we can leave something of great interest for future generations to come.
I wrote most of my memories decades ago but then what with so much happening and a big move I didn't add to them. I had written some 37 chapters and only got as far as 1976. After the move I was more interested in doing something about all I had learned about 18th Dynasty Egypt and that led me to writing a novel, The Tutankhamen Code. Even when I finished it I didn't return to my memoirs - not until about two weeks ago when I suddenly had this amazing urge to push on with them. So I picked up the story again in June 1976 when I arrived back in Australia after 3 years in England and began working as a Travel Manager for Tom Hunt who I had never met before. Tom was one of the most amazing characters in my life outside of my own family. He was so generous and I more or less kept in touch with him until a few months ago.
Anyway there were one or two things I needed to ask his son Barry about his Dad and it was then that I got an email back from Barry to tell me that his Dad was confused with most of his memory gone and in very poor health. The following day the sad news came to tell me that Tom had passed earlier that morning. I attended his memorial service on Sunday afternoon - two days ago and as expected there was nothing but praise for a man who had been so heart feeling for everyone else whether family or total strangers.
I am sure now that that urge to write about him and get on with my memoirs was coming from a soul that had already left its physical shell.
So do it now, jot down on a notepad every single memory that marked a point in your lifetime and then fill in more detail to paint the picture of everything that you've experienced whether good times, or sad, and especially all the happy and funny incidents.
Malcolm
-
WOW! I have learned through life to acknowledge signs. When I read over my last comment I see that I've hit a round figure - 1000!
-
Thank you all for the advice. I have recently completed writing up the family history researched to date & thoroughly enjoyed the process. This idea would take a few generations from one line and explore their lives in a little more depth. Viktoria, your suggestions are very helpful, one of my problems is always going to be regarding what I don't include so having a theme running through will help to focus my thoughts. Keitht, good point re copyright, I realised I would have to tread carefully in that regard. Most of my sources are well annotated so I can refer back to an original author/producer but I will have to explore this aspect further.
Malcolm33, funnily enough i have started noting down my own memories, focussing initially on early childhood and my grandparents. No-one may ever read it, but you never know.
-
Even if you don't write a book - do write it down. In a series of short stories, perhaps.
And put photos in where you can.
Some FH writers even write poems about family events :) :) :)
Dawn M
-
I have considered writing up the family history but I have no writing skills and as my colleagues say I am incapable of using the English language. One of my daughter's cousins has written and published a book on family history. He starts with a particular couple and each chapter maps out a different line of descent. His main theme is how diverse the lives of the current generation of descendants are and how far spread they are around the world.
-
I was just writing my life story for my girls and family...
it became too painful to continue
so I had to stop...
I have had a happy life, (so far ;D ;)) but attempting to remember certain things shared with CLOSE CLOSE people no longer here ----- I just couldn't do it...
maybe have time yet,
we shall see
xin
-
Hi Cristeen,
There are several topics about writing family history books in the subforum:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/fh-programs-organisation-presentation/
I collected some of them in a list here
Topic: RootsChat Topics: Organising and Presenting your Family History
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=158638.0
regards,
Bob
-
I once saw an interesting article about writing a family history, but unfortunately the web-link doesn't work any more.
Here is a short summary.
The author (Margaret Anne Storey) listed 5 ways of writing a book:
- 1. Standard Data:
Example: "William Smith was born in 1652 in Little Dribbling" - Absolute Minimum => BORING !!!
- 2. Expanded:
you will need to do a lot of research into your ancestor’s occupation, the village he lives in, his neighbours, the climate etc. It is probably the most acceptable as far as what most people expect a family history to be.
"The old stone church sat high on the hill. The gravestones all around showed evidence of it's past, and of that of the villagers who had once lived in Little Dribbling"
- 3. Very expanded: like 2. plus a bit of imagination !
Example: The Smith family approached the old church, high on the hill. The baby, wrapped in an old christening dress, lay cradled in her mother's arms. It was 1652.
- 4. From the author's point of view: (as if you were there)
"I slowly climbed the hill, to the old stone church. The gravestone nearby told me a tale of a byegone age, that of my ancestors".
- 5. Fiction + Fact = Faction: Facts + Imagination in the form of a novel. This is probably the most difficult: you are leaving the path of the proven facts and adding a lot of imagination and speculation.
- will the relatives like this ?
- more important: will ich be fun for you ?
As a "technician" I can write reports fairly easily but I find it hard to write about non-technical subjects. My website/family chronicle is written mainly in style 1 - standard data - with occaisional excursions into style 4 - "I .." where I also include information about the search itself for information. Now and again I'll add some of my speculations as well (style 5)
A useful help here (for style 3-5) are "biographies as novels". The authors will often take known utterances of 'public' people (from diaries, letters, and other publications) and weave them into (fictitious) dialogues. i.e. they did actually say this, but in another setting ! If you have diaries, letters and other documents of your ancesters, you could build them into your narritive here.
-
- 4. From the author's point of view: (as if you were there)
"I slowly climbed the hill, to the old stone church. The gravestone nearby told me a tale of a byegone age, that of my ancestors".
This method presupposes that you have actually been to these places :)
Even if you don't write the whole book or chronicle in this style, it might be an idea for the introduction or preface.
Bob
-
For those of you who find it daunting to write have you thought about doing an oral history and recording your memories and putting these recordings on a web site or leaving them with a archive for future generations to listen to.
Regards
Panda
-
Thank you all, lots to think about and some great advice :)
-
For those of you who find it daunting to write have you thought about doing an oral history and recording your memories and putting these recordings on a web site or leaving them with a archive for future generations to listen to.
Regards
Panda
I'm even more ashamed of my speech than I am of my lack of writing skills
-
Don`t be ashamed of your speech, the vast difference in regional dialects ,word use and even grammar is so interesting.
I can remember when people where I spent my childhood had
such a lovely soft accent and hundreds of words peculiar to that region(South Shropshire).
Now only the oldest people have retained the words and accent
ibn its purest form
I recorded some and oh what a change has taken place . Whether coincidental or not it dates from them having T.V which was much later than most places as there was no electricity until the early 60`s.
I think it is a great loss.
Have a bash, you may regret it and I`m sure your family will appreciate it very much- they won`t want you to "talk posh".
Best wishes with that, Viktoria.
I`ve come over all weepy now. Struggled to remember my mum`s voice. All I can hear is her saying my name in a very sad cross way when I decided to change horses in mid stream so to speak and take another direction in my training.
Got my dad`s but sadly after throat cancer and a tracheotomy tube, so not really him..V.
-
Look up the Writers' Digest books. They have a couple excellent books on writing your family story. I can't remember which one I read (I had a housefire, so my library burned to the ground and I don't recall the titles of all my books, but I know there were a couple good ones on family memoirs.
Your approach obviously matters. Is this a history for just your family and friends, or do you want to turn this into a biography or novel?
If it's for public consumption then you'll need to focus on a common thread that others can relate to.
Don't worry if your family are fishmongers or sailors or whatever. Everyone has a story, and you don't need to be blue-blood nobility to be interesting. In fact, most often IMO it's the lives of the common and everyday people who are far more interesting.
If it's a generational story, find a common thread that you can use to bind the generations. It could be a family home or a locket owned by an ancestress and gifted to each member in the story. It could be as simple as a family recipe passed down.
One of the biggest choices is whether or not to fictionalize. Me, as a fiction author, I fall on the side of fictionalizing. I take what I know actually happened or words that were actually spoken (whether hearsay or actual quotes) and then work around that.
One thing I will say is don't get stalled in games of "he said" "she said" unless you are up for exploring that. And potentially fictionalizing that. My sister died a few years ago. At the time she'd asked me to write her life story (it certainly was an exciting one). When she died of cancer, everyone in her family started blaming her for all the bad stuff that happened. Till today I don't know what the truth is.
At this point I've taken a year or three off the story to both decide who's telling the truth. (Family members often lie to protect their own selves.) And to decide if I'm going to go ahead with a fictional or non fictional version, or not at all.
Either way, enjoy the journey! Trust in yourself and in your unique voice!
-
A great example of writing up your family history has been done by Tony Berry in his book "From Paupers to iPads". He's woven the mundane facts of his family history which in all honesty, and is the same for us all, is only of interest to him, into a story going back hundreds of years. It's well written and worth a read if anyone is interested in writing their own family history and turning it into something that others would like to read. It's well written It's available on e-books and also in a hard copy.
-
I have added this topic to
Topic: RootsChat Topics: Organising and Presenting your Family History
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=158638.0
Bob