How do the rest of you write up your family history? I am just curious. Family history software packages can churn out "book" style reports with names, dates, etc but I was just wondering what other people do to not so much liven it all up, but to make it more interesting for others to read and not so computer generated.
Does that make sense? It's just that I was reading through the latest "book" of one of my lines and was wondering what I could do, apart from adding photos and maybe some maps, to make it a bit more intesting for the rest of the family - from my twelve year old niece to my eightythree year old great aunt!
Writing up your family history
Moderator: Global Moderators
-
Spider-Girl
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 1:42 pm
- Location: Dumfriesshire, Scotland
-
tishgibbons
- Posts: 303
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:47 pm
- Location: Galway, Ireland
Spider Girl,
don't know if it helps - I had the same problem and also had to contend with family members who couldn't read gedcom or (more usually) didn't use a PC. So I wrote it up like a sort of journey of discovery, detailing how and where I found people and connections. I had the odd funny quote or quip from living family members and from some books and drew exagerated connections between those discovered and existing family traits. Light stuff but enough to keep people reading I hope. I had submitted an article to the ANESFHS booklet and I based it on the facts in that but padded out with family 'stuff' if you know what I mean. I still haven't managed to get a simple tree printed but I put little diagrams in the margin to show parents, etc.
Everyone professed themselves interested - but then they'd hardly say to my face that it was hogwash!
Good luck with it anyway - and enjoy!
Tish
don't know if it helps - I had the same problem and also had to contend with family members who couldn't read gedcom or (more usually) didn't use a PC. So I wrote it up like a sort of journey of discovery, detailing how and where I found people and connections. I had the odd funny quote or quip from living family members and from some books and drew exagerated connections between those discovered and existing family traits. Light stuff but enough to keep people reading I hope. I had submitted an article to the ANESFHS booklet and I based it on the facts in that but padded out with family 'stuff' if you know what I mean. I still haven't managed to get a simple tree printed but I put little diagrams in the margin to show parents, etc.
Everyone professed themselves interested - but then they'd hardly say to my face that it was hogwash!
Good luck with it anyway - and enjoy!
Tish
Researching Mitchell Grassick Bowman Farquharson Wilson Allanach Leys Coutts Gauld McNerney from Crathie and Braemar, Strathdon and Glenbuchat and who moved on to Aberdeen, Glasgow, Ireland, Australia, India, Canada.
-
sheilajim
- Posts: 787
- Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:42 pm
- Location: san clemente california
Hi Spider-girl
You could add some writing comments like for example:
Facts:GGGGrandma, Jane Smith born 1830 married 1850, Died 1910.
The facts are very dry. You might put in what the town where she grew up was like, and what her life might have been like. Did she work before and after she was married? Did any of her children die young, and what she must have felt when that happened. Did she and her family travel from town to town in search of employment? What her husband, also your ancestor did for a living? What was entertainment like for the people at this time? Was there any civil unrest?
Finding out these things takes quite a lot of time and research. We can't know exactly what our ancestors were thinking, but if we put ourselves in their shoes, within the context of the times of the day, it might be possible to come up with a reasonable facsimile. Remembering of course to let your readers know that this is your opinion of what some of your ancestors might have thought.
I think that pictures and maps do help to tell your story.
Regards
Sheila
You could add some writing comments like for example:
Facts:GGGGrandma, Jane Smith born 1830 married 1850, Died 1910.
The facts are very dry. You might put in what the town where she grew up was like, and what her life might have been like. Did she work before and after she was married? Did any of her children die young, and what she must have felt when that happened. Did she and her family travel from town to town in search of employment? What her husband, also your ancestor did for a living? What was entertainment like for the people at this time? Was there any civil unrest?
Finding out these things takes quite a lot of time and research. We can't know exactly what our ancestors were thinking, but if we put ourselves in their shoes, within the context of the times of the day, it might be possible to come up with a reasonable facsimile. Remembering of course to let your readers know that this is your opinion of what some of your ancestors might have thought.
I think that pictures and maps do help to tell your story.
Regards
Sheila
Sheila
-
Spider-Girl
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 1:42 pm
- Location: Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Thanks for that.
Some of my lot were fishermen on the Solway Firth (in fact, that is how the Lupton family ended up in the Annan area in the first place, coming up from the Morcambe bay area) so bought a book written by a local on the history of fishing and shipbuilding in the area - pretty thrilled to see the name "Lupton" in there too! Some useful information in there that will help to fill out the family history a bit.
My great-grandfather didn't go in to the fishing trade, but went instead to work at Cochran's boilermakers so have e-mailed BIB Cochran in the hope that they can give me a litte bit of an insight as to what the Newbie works would have been like at the turn of the century.
Thanks again!
Some of my lot were fishermen on the Solway Firth (in fact, that is how the Lupton family ended up in the Annan area in the first place, coming up from the Morcambe bay area) so bought a book written by a local on the history of fishing and shipbuilding in the area - pretty thrilled to see the name "Lupton" in there too! Some useful information in there that will help to fill out the family history a bit.
My great-grandfather didn't go in to the fishing trade, but went instead to work at Cochran's boilermakers so have e-mailed BIB Cochran in the hope that they can give me a litte bit of an insight as to what the Newbie works would have been like at the turn of the century.
Thanks again!