Writing an Ancestor’s Story

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

How can you write the story of someone’s life when you are dealing with boxes of pictures and memorabilia? How to even start? It’s a bit like the old adage of how to you eat an elephant. A bite at a time. Let’s look at some ideas to help us organize and get busy writing. Here are some thoughts.

There are similarities when writing about one individual versus your entire family line that you can use to your advantage. I would suggest looking at these ways to organize your story then sort your information accordingly. If you have a lot of loose papers and photographs, it is ideal if you take the time to scan them or photograph them so you have a digital copy to work with. If they are original photos and documents, consider storing them in acid free protective sheets or boxes. I like to group papers in protective sheets by family and individual in 3-ring binders. You will need to set up a similar system for your digital collections.
 

1. Audience. For whom are you writing this document? You. Your grandkids. Future generations. A historical publication. Once you’ve identified your audience. You can better identify your style of writing. For example, if you are writing about your grandparent so that your grandchildren (and your children) will know more about their life, you might choose to write from a first-person perspective, telling them what you remembered about this person and stories that you can share. It doesn’t mean you are limited to only your lifetime in the telling of their story but you can see how this might be a more personal perspective than if you were writing about them for a publication.
2. Place. Sometimes we have so much information about a person, including documents and photographs that we become overwhelmed. If you are writing about an immigrant ancestor, you might want to sort your information by place. For example, write about their time in the “old country,” the trip to America and the place they settled.
3. Events. Perhaps you don’t want to write someone’s entire biography but instead want to make sure that stories about the interesting events in their life are captured such as military service or marriage or career or their talents. If you are overwhelmed by having so many stories, start with the one that speaks to you the most and work on that. There is no rule that says you need to write in order of events. You can write in any order you choose. With computers, you can always reorder your work to follow a timeline.
4. Timeline. You can follow a linear timeline of someone’s life. Birth. School. Work. Marriage. Children. Death. Write about what is important to you and your audience.
5. Photos/Memorabilia. If you are stuck and the idea of writing someone’s entire life seems overwhelming. Pick out a few photos or memorabilia that remind you of important stories about them. Use these as guides to help you remember why you want to write about the person in the first place. There are many companies that have online photo albums where you can have a photo and author a short story about the event, person, or place. And remember…as family historians we think every document we’ve ever found is interesting but sometime our family just likes the “cliff notes”—too much can be overwhelming!

 
If you’re not someone who likes to write but loves to retell stories, have you thought about using programs like Microsoft Word? You can dictate the tale you would like to tell. I’ve evaluated it and it worked quite well. You can proofread afterward and fine-tune as you wish. At least you will have a start with a first draft. I also urge you to focus more on capturing the story than worrying about your grammar or editing. You can have someone help you with that part after you’ve written down the story for your family.
 
There isn’t a right or wrong way to capture our family history. The most important thing is to actually sit down and do it! I hope this has given you a few ideas on how you can get organized and start writing that story. Happy writing.