THE TALES YOU COULD TELL

Researching the family tree is a great ride. It is time travel at last. Digital technology, ease of communication and curiosity can rocket you backwards through the centuries. Though you may never find a family coat of arms or clan tartan, you can learn worlds about who your people were, where they came from and how they lived in their time and place.

You can create a digital record of family names, dates, emigration and immigration. You can find rarebits and tidbits, sepia-toned photographs, holy bibles and wills. With time and interest or the help of a professional, you can discover the grandfather of your grandmother, learn which ancestor was a hero at Gettysburg or a scoundrel in St. Paul and name the boat they all came in on.

Then what?

Once you know the stories, the task is to share and preserve them for the family. This means putting the data into a narrative form. Creating the narrative can be for some as much fun as the research, but others draw a blank at this stage. The finished project might be an attractive folio to give to the family as holiday gifts, or a stunning multi-media presentation on the Internet replete with bells and whistles. Whether you are a natural writer or not much of a story teller, you can look to this blog for ideas about a narrative approach to family tree preservation.

There are dozens of sites about how to do the research so this blog will focus on the story telling. I am a believer in setting the story within the context of time and place, so I will give tips about how to add colorful historical reference to the stories. I will talk about how to gather stories from living relatives for use in your project and how to use fiction writing as a companion to the non-fictional accounts of your ancestry.

Check back often for ideas on bundling together the bits and pieces of family history you have found.