New term and new start for my family history writing group; I started this group in about April/May time, and after lots of people being interested it dwindled down to just two people and me… very nice people, but not enough for a writing group! There was an open day for the organisation which runs these interest groups in early September, and following that I have had more interest, and today six lovely people met here and we had a very pleasant and interesting afternoon!
I had a few suggestions:
- some ideas of how to tell your family history:
- a family newsletter
- stories told through recipes in a cookbook
- memoir/narrative: story and personal experiences, specific episodes or times
- scrapbook or album, including family photos and memorabilia
- family trees
- stories told via the family tree
- single line of a particular surname.
- all descendants of
- the story of a single person and his/her line
- my story
- plots and themes
- immigration/migration
- rags to riches
- village/town/city life
- war story
- the starting point
- begin at the beginning? Or not?
- tell it like a story
- using what you know
- bring them to life – use your imagination! Be creative! You can make things up!
- make it personal
- index and sources
My new friends had plenty of ideas already; one lady, a wonderful writer, is writing about her family life, starting with her parents stories. Another lady has a collection of her uncle’s letters from when he was serving in the war… she read us a couple and I can’t wait to find out how she is going to tackle working on them! One chap has a fascinating family, a hawker who ended up owning a travelling menagerie who proclaimed himself Emperor of a town in Cornwall! Another chap and his wife were tracking down a fascinating great-aunt with seemingly a rags to riches life story, from a wheel wright’s daughter, to a woman of substance who married three times. The sixth lady is fascinated by a Victorian lady artist, has written about her, gives talks about her, and has visited many of the local places the artist visited too.
I think we are going to have some interesting stories being written in the months to come! i certainly had lots of inspiration from what I heard and learned about today!
Lois Elsden 