Writing a family history does not have to be an overwhelming task. This book outlines a simple process that will aid your research and create pages of information that can be read and understood by all family members. Your research will become faster and more accurate and your family can enjoy the family history. Remember, our writing should go beyond finding documents and filling in charts. Hopefully, the methods discussed in this book will show the reader a simple format that will make this task much easier. You may be reluctant to write down these stories because you do not consider yourself a writer. Our ancestors were ordinary people. Why should we write about them? All of our immigrant ancestors contributed to America’s history and their stories should be saved for our grandchildren. Our family histories should give clues of their roles and this will help us understand our roots.

Contains helpful instruction, examples, and ten sample family history essays by Dinty W. Moore, Rebecca McClanahan, Sonja Livingston, and more.

If you have stories to share with your family, whether you have been researching a short time or a long time, this book will: * take you through the four stages of publishing projects * show you how publishing works * help you pick a project to publish * lead you through a research review to see what you have and what you still need to tell the stories in a compelling way * give you the skills to become a good storyteller * lead you through the process of editing * instruct you how to prepare your manuscript to look like it was professionally published and * help you spread the word that you have a book available Everything you need to write and publish your family history. Keywords: family history, genealogy, write a family history, write a genealogy, publish your family history, how to self-publish, book publishing, storytelling, book marketing, designing a book

Ever wished to see your family history in print, or imagined future generations poring over old photographs and anecdotes in a book? Writing Your Family History helps family historians realize the full potential of the names, dates and facts that they have researched to compile a detailed family history that will be preserved for future generations. Topics covered include: Exploring sources for material; Gathering information; Recording family anecdotes; Making use of limited material; Using local and social history; Studying family dynamics; Planning your story; How to begin your story; Presenting and publishing your story.

Why Life Writing? How many times have you looked through the family album and wished there were more pictures of “the good old days”? William Hofmann’s message in Life Writing is that there are more pictures, thousands of them just waiting to be pulled from your memory and written down. Hofmann’s clear advice on how to get fresh ideas, how to write a rough draft, or how to use the basic principles of rewriting would be useful to any writer. But his book is specifically for those people who would like to use writing as a tool for preserving their past, for recording their own memories and the memories of their parents and grandparents. From the first sentence to the last page, Life Writing is at once supportive and practical, a comprehensive step-by-step guide to gathering your family’s folklore and keeping it alive.

Using examples from NEHGS's publications, this writing guide outlines how to write your family history clearly and accurately -- from building a genealogical sketch to adding images to indexing. An appendix on genealogical style covers alternate spellings of names, when and how to use lineage lines, how to include adopted children and stepchildren, aspects of double dating, and other issues faced by genealogical writers.