Enriching Your Story with History

March 8, 2015| Lynn| 0 Comments|

In the Getting Ready to Write and Authentic Ancestors workbooks, I mentioned historical timelines and their importance in organizing your research and writing your ancestor’s stories. Not only is it important to map your ancestor’s life on a timeline, but also to map world, regional and local history. It’s necessary to consider what was happening in the world around your ancestors and it’s relationship to their life.

I want to spend a few minutes today discussing how we can use historical events to enrich your stories.

Historical events can provide both a background and a setting for your story. However, while these events can add a lot of colour and depth to your story, it’s important to not just insert a historical event in your ancestor’s narrative only because it happened during their life. It’s important to look at how those events may have impacted your ancestor’s life, actions, and reactions. While some events will be easy to include due to your ancestor’s direct relationship to an event, do not discount an event because it did not happen directly to them. It may be happening in the background and influencing their life.

These historical events can happen before, after or during the story. It may be something from the past that sets in motion a current event in your story. Historical events can add richness to your story and can place your ancestor’s life and story within the context of the world. It can also help to establish the tone of your story for your reader. By linking your ancestor’s story to something happening or that has happened, this event may impact them or people around them. It’s important to consider how the event may change their feelings, attitudes, culture, or society.

These historical events may strengthen your story ideas and feed your ancestor’s stories. Perhaps your ancestor’s story will be a political or social statement about abortion, adoption, slavery, corruption in politics or the environment to name but a few. You can look to historical events to help you build your story ideas and theme.

An excellent resource for looking at events in a variety of categories is The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun. This book is organized into seven categories, history and politics, literature and theatre, religion, philosophy and learning, visual arts, music, science, technology and growth, and daily life. It spans from 5000BC up to 1991 and is organized on a year by year basis.

I’ve also provided you with a small chart below for you to download and use if looking at the historical events of your ancestor’s life and analyzing them for the impact on their lives. Completing this chart might help you to shape your story with regards to plot, theme, and your story question.

Don’t limit yourself to just the large world events. Regional and local historical events must also be considered. We often think wars and national tragedies when discussing historical events. However, a local storm that causes devastation to area crops or local politics may play a significant role in your ancestor’s life and decisions.

Historical events provide context and richness to your story, and it places our ancestor in the world making them more real and believable to your reader.

Here’s the timeline with a couple of examples filled in.

Timeline Table

Timeline Table – blank

Where Do I Begin and End My Ancestor’s StoryWhere Do I Begin and End My Ancestor’s Story

October 17, 2016| Lynn| 0 Comment| 11:30 pm

Often we are held back from writing our family history stories because we just don’t know where to start and in turn, where to end it.

If we’ve managed to find a starting point, we often find ourselves in the middle, floundering, being pulled in different directions. This is often because we’ve picked our starting pointing out of midair giving little thought to why we chose that starting point and how we are going to proceed. That’s why it’s important to have a plan.

Identify a Goal

Sometimes we immediately think that our ancestor’s stories begin with their birth and naturally should end with their death. While you can take that approach, a far more interesting and engaging way to tell your ancestor’s story is to highlight a period, an event, a day or a pivotal moment in your ancestor’s life. This time-period should show when he or she has overcome significant obstacles in obtaining this want or a goal in their life.

We can discover these goals by looking at the events that played out in your ancestor’s lives, immigration, marriage, land owner, business owner, education, children, freedom, the list goes on. Start by identifying a goal your ancestor pursued in their life and structure your story around it.

Once you’ve identified that goal, you should easily be able to find the obstacles your ancestor overcame in pursuit of his goal. Click here to learn how to find the conflicts and obstacles in your story.

Where to Start Your Story

Start your story just before your ancestor made a change in his life in seeking the identified goal. When did he make a conscious change in his life to pursue his goal?

Show us your ancestor in his normal life before he made that change before he began to reach for that goal. Let us see the motivation for this goal. What in his history drives him to achieve this goal. This helps your reader to understand your ancestor’s state of mind, and why this objective is so important to him.

As you proceed through your story, you can share the struggles he overcame, one after another, all while also sharing some insight into his decisions, his motivations and what is at stake should he fail. Click here to learn more about goals, motivations and stakes.

There was always plenty at stake if our ancestor failed, poverty, freedom, jail, poorhouses, conscription are just a few. Allow the reader to see the possible risks it keeps them tuned into your story.

Where to End Your Story

Your story ends when your ancestor achieves his goal. In the conclusion of your story, you can show your reader how his ambition changed him and his life. While it will be natural to show us how his life changed physically, don’t forget to tell us how he changed emotionally. In your resolution, you want to demonstrate not only how the outward circumstances of his life altered but how does he perceive his life and the world around him after achieving his goal.

Structuring your ancestor’s story around a particular event, a monumental moment or an achievement helps you to write an engaging tale with highs and lows, rather than a linear plot of birth to death. Give your reader a reason to root for your ancestor, engage in the story, all the while delivering the information and facts of your research.

When you take some time to share your ancestor’s story around a goal, with obstacles, you give your readers an ancestor they can relate to, and when they can relate they will be more inclined to absorb your story and take away its meaning and importance in their life.

Ultimately isn’t that what we want from our stories to affect how our readers think about their ancestors and ultimately themselves.

To learn more about structuring your ancestor’s story pick up a copy of Finding the Story in our shop or learn more about our upcoming course Plotting a Family History Story.

Filling in the Details with Social HistoryFilling in the Details with Social History

December 14, 2016| Lynn| 0 Comments| 11:51 pm

When you write a family history story, you rely heavily on social history to fill in the descriptions and details of your ancestor’s life. Most likely the details we are talking about won’t be found in your genealogy research. We have to look outside of our genealogy research for these details. We have to turn our attention to social history along with the world, regional and local history of the day.

In our previous post, we began a discussion about social history and its importance in telling our family history stories, Writing a Family History When You Don’t Have All the Facts. This week let’s dig a little deeper into this subject and discuss the variety of topics that make up social history and where to find these social histories.

For Example

You have a marriage certificate, which gives you a lot of lovely facts about your great grandmother’s wedding. However, it doesn’t tell us anything about the ceremony itself. Social history can do that. History and social history studies can tell us what the church looked like, the wedding customs of the day, her dress, his attire, the religious ceremony and even the weather for the day.

Social history along with the world, regional and local history is a great tool for reconstructing your ancestor’s entire world.

Another Example

Suppose you don’t have a picture of your ancestor. You know he was a peasant farmer in the mid-west United States during 1850. Based on this information and by doing some social history research into farmers in that area, at that time, you can determine, the style of dress, hairstyles, facial hair. Look at his culture, religion, which also might add some insights into his appearance. Based on your social history research you can then surmise a brief description of his appearance. You know the expression a little goes a long way. In this case, it definitely applies. Give the reader just enough and let their imaginations fill in the rest.

Here is a list of some of the social history factors you can research when building your ancestor’s world.

Architecture	Geography	Time and Season
Dating and Marriage	Old Age and Death	Family
Education	Occupation	Economy
Childraising	Health and Medicine	Technology
Cuisine	Fashion	Entertainment
Ethnicity	Language	Social Ranking
Law and Society	Military and War	Migration
Politics	Religion	Architecture

Where to Find Social History Information

Social histories are found in a variety of places. And just like your genealogy research don’t limit yourself to online resources only.

Books Stores – Online stories and brick and mortar stores, particularly those second-hand bookstores will often offer books on local histories and custom of the time.

Libraries – Online libraries, local and regional libraries, college and university libraries all great places to look for social histories.

Local Archives and Museums – Connect with the local archives and museums in the area your ancestors lived. They often have books written by local authors that have never made it to the internet or a bookstore including letters, memoirs and diaries of locals.

Local Historians – Local historians are well read on the local history and social history of the area. Ask your local archives or museum for a meeting with a local historian.

Social Historians – There are social historian societies, reach out to them to find a social historian knowledgeable on the particular subject you are researching.

Living with the Locals – Immerse yourself in the hometown of your ancestors. Learn from the locals, visit the local tourist organizations, take a walking tour.

Newspapers – Newspapers are an incredible social history resource. They provide not only local politics and events but local businesses, gossip, family events, marriages, deaths alongside the world and regional events.

If you would like to learn more, we discuss social history in detail in Authentic Ancestors, Workbook #2. Learn to use social history to bring your ancestor and their world to life on the page.

Also, check out our Social History Resources page, it contains links to many online websites that can help you with the details you require to add description and detail to your stories. Make sure you bookmark it we are always adding more links.