Sunday 19 November 2017

What Is It That Will Get You To Write Your Stories


While I am working at the Family History Center, I frequently have people come in and ask what we do. The basic answer is to assist people in finding their ancestors. A frequent reply to that is "my Grandmother has already done our tree".  "Wellll", I say, "have you written your stories? Who can tell them like you do? Who knows them and will care to tell them if you don't."
From my own experience, my Hero wrote his "Personal History", but it was a factual history, i.e. I was born... He did not include any of his "stories" of what made him the person he was. His good fortune was I was a good listener and in my grief, I wrote the stories that made him come alive again to his children and will help his grandchildren to know him.
What help me to write his stories was I found a group called GeneaBloggers on the Web and their memes gave me the platform to write those stories. GeneaBloggers has transitioned into GeneaBloggers Tribe, but still has the prompts for those that have a hard time zeroing in on a topic or thought.
Another point is, if you procrastinate, you might lose the capacity to remember and or write those personal memories. Just saying...
I, personally, am going to pick up with my stories now and if it triggers one of the Hero's then I will write that too.  Please, if you have only been concentrating on other's stories or professional instruction, teaching, et cetera, pause occasionally and begin writing your own stories. This is a plea on your behalf and those that come later.
PS Did you ever think that your story that includes others, rarely is a story about only one person, could help another learn about their family member too.
'Til next month... keep writing.

2 comments:

  1. I could not agree more. A good place to start telling our own stories is to record where we were when, like when President Kennedy was killed and you first heard about it. I also suggest when you start telling a cute or memorable story on FB or other social media to record it. Or, while reviewing all our photos, tell a story about one or two that are special. Thanks Fran for a great reminder.

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  2. Thanks for that additional thoughts Carol. Mixing our own perspective of history with our stories... great

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World Wide Genealogy Team