Tips for Writing Family History Books - International Institute

Simple Ways to Organize Your Book
There are many good methods of organizing a family history book. Your choice depends partly upon whom you have chosen to research and partly upon the way you want to present the material to your chosen audience. The most common alternative is a narrative account and this can take one of many forms.

Narrative Accounts
In addition to the information about your ancestors this can include accounts of how you did your research and discovered each one. The process of research can be just as fascinating as the actual discoveries. A classic tale is Donald Steel's delightful and masterful presentation on the English Honeycombe family. Discovering Your Family History, which was enthusiastically received on television and helped fuel the family history boom in the 1970s-1980s.

Two more classics of reconstructing ancestral events are J. Richard Houston’s Numbering the Survivors: A History of the Standish Family of Ireland, Ontario and Alberta, and John Phillip Coletta’s Only A Few Bones: A True account of the Rolling Fork Tragedy and its Aftermath, a history of the German-speaking merchants of the Mississippi Delta. Alex Haley deserves credit for his tale of black ancestry, Roots, which was phenomenally successful in promoting family history in North America, but it has since been shown to be partly fiction.

An equally fascinating account (The Ensign. Oct 1998 page 69. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and episode 3 of PBS Ancestors series 2000) is that of Sheila Hsia’s discovery of 172 generations of her ancestors! I was fortunate to play a small role in this process in the following way. One evening whilst on duty at the Burnaby, Vancouver FamilySearch Center two Chinese women approached the counter. The younger one asked for about 100 blank pedigree charts. Now it isn’t unusual for someone to need 100 family group sheets, but 100 pedigree charts? My curiosity was piqued and upon enquiring I was told that her mother had recently been instrumental in getting family records going back to 2079 B.C. out of China. She was planning on putting them all on computer but needed to translate them from Chinese to English on paper first.

Records of the first 12 generations had survived two revolutions in China by being buried in clay pots by an illiterate man who didn’t know what they were, but knew they were valuable. This story and that of how they were found, copied and spirited out of China this century is an incredible one. Sheila continues to transcribe the records of over 15,000 kin.

The stories of how you discovered your ancestors may not be quite as dramatic as Sheila Hsia’s but they will be fascinating to your descendants so by all means include them. With a narrative account you may choose to tell the story:


 * as a Descendancy


 * along Ancestral Lines


 * as a combination of these two by picking a pivotal couple and doing their descendants and then their ancestors.

Telling the Story as a Descendancy Although you do your research going backwards in time, the most satisfactory way of telling the history of a family is often the other way around. You will thus have to reverse gears, so to speak, and work forwards starting with the earliest ancestral couple. This allows you to see their life in the order that they lived it. So often we don’t do that when researching, as we find their marriage first then their birth and parents!

You may choose to do only one surname, or selected lines coming down in time, or all descendants of this couple. You will want to include the living members of the family and this will involve collecting their information as well. Be prepared to wait, and wait, and wait….. for them to reply! It’s odd how not everyone in the family thinks genealogy is important!

Our Descendants Book is part of a series and a copy of the letter requesting relatives’ assistance is included in the chart below.

It is helpful to the reader to create a numbering system for your book so that each person's ancestry can be readily visualized. I use a European system with an example from my own family in the charts below. North Americans may prefer the Register System or the NGSQ System (Hatcher; Curran, Crane and Wray).

STRØM/CHRISTENSEN Millenium Project!!

Numbering System for a Descendant Book

Descentants of William and Mary Ann GARDNER



Once you have organized the framework you can then proceed to write a paragraph about each person. The format in the chart below has proved successful:

Paragraphs for Entries in a Family History

The term Person refers to the lineal descendant

Then add a page of photos, and any maps and other illustrations that would enliven the family history.

Telling the Story Along Ancestral Lines Here you move backwards in time, telling the story of each family one generation at a time.

One Surname Here you are dealing with only one line, which may be your agnatic line (father, his father, etc.) or any other surname line. ‘Diversions’ through a female having an illegitimate offspring occur in any family as well. You simply describe each couple and their life in as much detail as you wish, perhaps following the paragraph formula above or in more creative ways.

Matrilineal Descent This deals with your mother, her mother, and so on and is a growing trend, appealing to those interested in the descent of culture and heritage through females. It’s also a more certain biological line!

Several (or all) Ancestors Start with yourself and work backwards, either one surname line at a time, or generation by generation.

If you deal with each surname line separately it is probably easiest to follow if you place them alphabetically in your book. You will need pedigree charts, starting with each female (who introduced this new surname) in the #1 position, to assist the reader.

If you choose the generational method then it is simplest to use the Sosa-Stradonitz numbers in ascending order. When you start a new generation, at numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. then announce this in your text as Generation Number 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. With any of these ‘Ancestor’ methods or organization, if you are going to discuss the wider family grouping, and not just ancestors, then you should decide on and stick to a pattern of dealing with them as ‘children and their families’ or ‘siblings and their families’ of your main ancestors. This can get rather complex and you might be better off using a Descendants style arrangement instead.

Telling the Story as Descendants and Ancestors of a Pivotal Couple A combination of the above techniques also works well. Choose a Pivotal Couple whose complete descendants are reasonably well known, and divide your writing into three sections:


 * Descendants of Pivotal Couple
 * Ancestors of Husband
 * Ancestors of Wife

If your generation already has grandchildren you could use your parents as the pivotal couple and work both ways. First do a history of the descendants of your parents, and then sections for each of their ancestors. Charts 78 and 81 concern this type of project. This is a combination of the above approaches so their numbering systems apply here also.

Family Reference Book
You may prefer to compile a simple fact book full of Family Group Records and short biographies, a kind of reference book rather than a narrative account.

Theme Approach
Another approach is to use themes which may be geographical, such as The family in England, The family in Canada, or by occupation for example, The lawyers, The carpenters, or any other themes relevant to your particular family.

It would be helpful to have a general section on the theme first to set the stage. They may not all fit into chosen themes, so you may choose to only do some families, or include an Other section. Your public library will have several references on how to do this kind of writing.

Sources-based Approach
The focus here is on the sources and repositories from which the information was gleaned. This tends to be a rather unappetizing variety for family consumption.

‘How I Did It’ Account
Alternatively one can choose to write a ‘How I did it’ book devoted to the methodology of your searches. This is unlikely to appeal to your family, but may merit publication to the wider genealogical public, particularly as an article for a family history magazine. Readers of good genealogical journals are avid to see how someone else solved a problem, either by locating little-known sources or by careful analysis and synthesis of information.

Combinations
Sometimes combining themes and How I Did It into a narrative account works very well, the example to follow being Steel’s work on the Honeycombe family. Or you can combine the narrative with the Reference ideas, perhaps by including substantial appendices of Family Group Records.

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