Ancestral homes are an important part of our family history. We can research the home’s architecture and records, such as city directories, taxes, maps, newspapers, and more. For this 52 Ancestor blog post theme of “Home Sweet Home,” I researched and wrote about the Spanish Fork home of my great-grandparents, Charles Cannon Creer and Mary Margaret Peterson. Charles built the home for his bride to move into upon their marriage on 23 March 1892, and...
Lisa Fair, one of our Research Like a Pro graduates is sharing this guest post about her experience writing a family history book and formatting a bibliography. As she discusses, bibliographies usually get only a passing mention in citation lessons! She shares how she came up with her chosen format. I hope you enjoy her post. – Nicole I’ve decided that the bibliography for a family history book gets the short end of the...
When we read the stories of our ancestors, certain memorable instances can stay with us. One such instance from my own family history centers on my 2nd great-grandmother, Mariah (Brockhouse) Beddoes. I’ve always wondered at the story of how Mariah’s parents were so upset at her emigrating from their England home to the Utah Territory that they hid her little girl, Selina, in hopes that it would prevent the journey. I pictured myself as Selina...
We often think of our ancestors in isolation – focusing on just their immediate or extended family. But our ancestors were members of a broader community. They could have belonged to a church, a club, a fraternal organization, a service group, or a military unit. When we explore their membership in that group we gain more understanding of their lives. In this 52 ancestor’s post, I’ll highlight the life of Daniel Henrie, a member...
Have you been thinking about writing your life story but procrastinated because of not knowing how to start? What you might need is a beautiful journal with thoughtful prompts to make the recording of your memoirs an enjoyable and fulfilling project. My colleague, Lisa Lisson, has recently published a pair of journals titled My Life Story So Far: A Grandmother’s Journal and My Life Story So Far: A Grandfather’s Journal. Beautifully designed and illustrated, Lisa has...
Do you have a family story to tell? One that depicts a transformative era in an ancestor’s life or maybe a simple story of connection? You may be at a loss, not knowing where to begin. In Annette Gendler’s book, How to Write Compelling Stories from Family History, you will learn techniques to start you on the path of writing your own family stories. We are reading How to Write Compelling Stories from Family History as...
Do you have a goal to write a family history of an ancestor? Does the project seem overwhelming? If so, you can draw hope from today’s guest blog post. Lorna Gorringe Coombs shares the challenges and the triumphs she experienced in collecting and writing family stories of her grandmother. She overcame technology issues and a lack of starting material to produce a book complete with narrative, citations, and pictures. Lorna joined our Research Like a...
Are you staring at the facts about your family – gathered from a variety of sources – and wondered how to write this in a fashion someone would actually read? If so, you are not alone. As family historians, we want to leave a legacy, yet turning dry facts into a compelling story is no easy task. Author Carol Baxter provides an example we can learn from in her biography, The Fabulous Flying Mrs. Miller: An...
As family historians, we know the power of learning the stories of our ancestors. We’ve discovered how they overcame losing loved ones, economic struggles, mental and physical challenges, and more. We research from the comfort of our homes with many resources like computers, the internet, and access to records through online databases. What about the homeless, who are simply struggling for survival? Can learning their ancestor stories help them as well? In this guest post,...
Do you have Eastern European Jewish ancestry? Have you wondered about the historical events that might have affected your ancestors and how to discover their stories? Daniella Weiss Ashkenazy’s new book, Playing Detective with Family Lore: How plugging the holes in a family history unintentionally came to tell the saga of Jews in a microcosm showcases how a journalist set out to discover her family origins. The author provides the reader with informative footnotes on...
