By Paul Chiddicks
We all have a story to tell, but writing a family history story can seem like an arduous process, a chore rather than a pleasure, but it doesn’t have to be like that. Many of us are happy to spend hours and hours absorbed in the process of researching our family histories hoping to discover those hidden gems buried within our own ancestry, but are we willing to spend the same time and effort to preserve and record our own memories and stories and those of our ancestors?
But where do you go from here? You have a pile of certificates and a pile of notes, how do you turn all your hard work into something more tangible and something that your friends and family would love to read? How do you actually approach writing a family history story?
Writing a family history biography, or a family story, isn’t for everyone and I always say to anyone that I speak to; ‘it’s your family history, how you choose to present your work is your own personal choice’. It could take the form of a visual representation, pictures, collages, framed images, or it could take the form of a book, or you could choose like I did, to create your own blog. Whatever you decide to do, it must be right for you. You must feel comfortable with what you are doing, otherwise you will fall at the first hurdle and give up too easily. The key thing in all this is you have to enjoy it!
I never set out with any intentions of writing a blog myself, I kind of stumbled into blog writing! I had all my folders and certificates and notes neatly stacked up on the shelves and my family tree software on the laptop, but that’s it. There was nothing for my extended family to see.
Writing stories didn’t come easy to start with – I am not a natural writer – but as the saying goes, the hardest step is the first step. My early work left a lot to be desired, but I didn’t give up. I kept going and over time, I managed to work out my own style and format.
Do Your Research
My advice to anyone sitting on the fence is to read as many family history blogs and stories as you can. When you think you have read enough, go away and read some more! It’s not about copying any one particular style, it’s more about deciding what you like in terms of layout and format. So, make a note of what you like, but just as important, make a note of what you don’t like. There’s not enough space here to go into the details of what blog sites and themes to choose as that’s a whole different article in itself!
I am going to highlight the process that I go through for each of my family history biographies. This is only a guide and hopefully, you will find this helpful. This isn’t a rigid format for you to replicate, but hopefully, it will act as a prompt to help you formulate your own ideas.
The Layout
There are various ways to represent an individual family history biography. You can stick with a straightforward timeline, which is what I do – from the cradle to the grave. This is a standard format, but I would urge you to consider mixing it up a bit and look at different options before you come to a final decision.
You could, for example, go backwards from an ancestor’s death and burial (tell his or her story in reverse). It’s the same process but from a different perspective. You could focus on a life-changing event in the family. Maybe an ancestor’s child or spouse died in tragic circumstances or very young, this could be the main focus of their story. Start with a life-changing event and build their life from that point outwards. Alternatively, you could start from a pivotal moment in history that would have had a dramatic effect on your ancestor and their family. World War I and World War II are obvious examples and you could again frame the story on either side of a major event in history.
What about the women on your tree? Women are the unsung heroes on our family trees. They did not necessarily leave a big footprint behind in the actual records themselves, but their contributions are nonetheless important. What was working life like for a typical Victorian housewife? How did they cope with poverty and the loss of so many children? Was your ancestor sent away to work as a housemaid or domestic servant? What was their daily working life like?
These are just a few suggestions, and I am sure that you will have some of your own. All I would say is don’t be too rigid in your decision-making – be flexible in your approach.
Once you have decided on how to build your ancestors’ story, the next part is collating what you have. When I worked on my ancestors, I found it a great exercise in finding out what parts of their story were missing. For example, the odd census return, or maybe a baptism, or burial location. This gave me some focus on the gaps that needed to be filled in before I even began to write.
Don’t worry if you don’t have every piece of the jigsaw, I certainly never had all the information for some of my stories. If you wait until you have every last detail, your story will never make it to print!
Assembling a Timeline
Once you have filled in as many of the missing pieces as you can, the next part is assembling the facts into a timeline. From this timeline, you can then work out the story chronologically, or whichever format of storytelling you have decided at the outset.
The next part is the hardest part, the narrative itself. Some of my early stories were just chapter and verse – born here, census there, died here! There was no story, and it was just a cold set of data. Now, I am not going to pretend that it’s easy, I have grown into it shall we say! One of the key elements is to add social and historical context to your ancestor’s story. You can use the FAN (Friends and Neighbours) process to help with this, I used that a lot with my storytelling.
An example of this would be to look at the census return for your ancestor and look at the neighbouring households. What occupations did the neighbours have? This could indicate a local industry that was a major occupier in the area where your ancestor lived. For example, I have ancestors who were in the Cement Industry along the River Thames. This enabled me to research this industry in detail and I was able to add some depth to my ancestor’s story by detailing what it would have been like to have worked in this industry at the turn of the century.
What was happening locally, or even globally at the time? I have already mentioned the two Wars, but what about the Spanish fly pandemic? The General Strike of 1926, or the Dockers’ Strike are other examples. What was the mood in the country at the time? What decisions were the government taking that would have had a direct effect on your ancestors’ lives? There are lots of different ways to add context to the facts. What you discover in the BMDs and census returns are the foundations of your story, but it’s the context that will bring your story to life.
Like I said at the very start, it’s your family story and you can take it in whatever direction you want. Don’t be put off by trying to be the greatest storyteller ever, but try to tell your family’s story in the best way possible. The hope is that by telling your ancestor’s story, you will entertain and engage your extended family, and it might even inspire them to find out more about the story you told.
Paul Chiddicks
Why not visit my two websites?
Copyright © 2024 Paul Chiddicks | All rights reserved
