Writing a Family History – The Nitty-gritty

The book Guide to Genealogical Writing by Penelope L. Stratton and Henry B. Hoff was mentioned in a couple of sessions I attended at NERGC. I decided to purchase a copy and am glad I did!

This book gets down to the nitty-gritty of producing a written family history. The first chapter sets the stage: “Shifting Mental Gears.” In other words, you have to stop thinking like a researcher and get into the mindset of a writer. Now, this is the heart of the matter and what I struggle with for my September presentation - how to encourage genealogists who love the chase, but feel they have no writing skills.

Some suggestions: After deciding the scope of your project, one ancestral line or several, determine your audience and time frame. Those decisions will narrow down your focus. From the research you have completed, develop a table of contents. This is not set in stone, but will serve as a guide to keep you on track.

Chapter two explains the genealogical numbering systems, and I admit I have not followed either in my previous monographs. That is something I have on my to-do list.

Chapter three explains how to make a style sheet, and this is something I have done. It is necessary to ensure consistency in your writing. I also use it for citation styles I use the most – utilizing the formats in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

The above is a sample of the wonderful information contained in this book, taking the genealogist from the very start right through publication. I encourage anyone thinking about writing up family stories to purchase this book. It even gets down to the detail that there is only ONE space after a period! Not what our generation was taught.

A Worlds Collide Moment - I was surprised to see their example of a narrative geographic setting on page 48. The narrative, “On the Coast of Ireland,” starts by saying “… among the markers in St. Rose Cemetery in Sandy Hook, CT … “ That information, I believe, they got from the Irish Tombstone Transcription project I did in 2005!!!  My transcription of the Irish tombstones was published in Connecticut Ancestry (November 2005 Vol. 48, No2), and also resides on the Genealogy Club of Newtown’s website. It proves once again genealogy is a small world. After completing the transcriptions in St. Rose Cemetery, I then did the Irish tombstones in Old St. Peter's Cemetery, Danbury, CT, with the help of Harlan Jessup. Harlan took our project to the board of Connecticut Ancestry, who assembled volunteers to record the rest of Fairfield County's Irish tombstones.

NERGC 2017 – Writing a Family History

I looked forward to this session, since I am to give a Writing Your Family History presentation to our genealogical society at its September meeting. There is no better person to learn about writing from than Warren Bittner.

It’s important to know the concept of your story. Are you using information from diaries, letters, or first hand accounts? To fill out your ancestors, search all the records: Military, court, probate, contemporary letters and diaries. Analyze each document and understand it in its historical context. Read local histories and family histories. Know the law at the time your ancestor lived. Understand their ethnic and religious background. How did those affect your family? What was the educational philosophy of the time? Know their medical history.

When you have completed an exhaustive search following the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS), according to the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), you can then start writing.

Hook the reader from the first sentence. This applies to all writing, but might not be so apparent when writing family history. Choose a significant event or an interesting ancestor. Start with action, and begin the story in the middle or near the end. Get the reader hooked, define the story’s theme, and add context to your ancestor’s lives.

Use active voice, strong verbs (Warren included an extensive list), and make every word work. Make every sentence advance the story. Describe (if you can) your ancestors and the places they lived. Did your ancestor (s) change over the years? If so, how?

There are a number of ways to present your family story. Find what works best for your family, and enjoy the writing journey.

P.S. The writing process will show you what details you are missing.

Writing your Family History

It wasn’t until I was asked to write a 600 word newsletter article about how to write a genealogy monograph that I realized how difficult that particular assignment was going to be. There are so many details to share that I didn’t know if I could accomplish it in only 600 words. But I did!

Our genealogical society recently sent out an opinion survey asking members what topics they would like presented at future meetings. The top subject in the returns was – Writing a Family History.

The challenge is breaking down this process step-by-step so those who are uncomfortable with writing, or have absolutely no idea where to start, are given that confidence. Over the winter I’ll work on a Keynote presentation about the different forms of sharing family histories. In the meantime, here is what I wrote for our society’s newsletter:

As genealogists we know that genealogy is more than names and dates. It’s about your ancestor’s lives. It’s about family stories that might or might not be true. It’s about social history and how your ancestor was affected by what was happening around them. In your research you will discover what they did for a living, their religion, what social organizations they belonged to and even health history.

At one conference we attended the speaker urged his audience to write up their family history now. Concentrate on one ancestral line; share it with family and repositories.  We are never done, but the information you have now (carefully cited) could help others in their research. An important benefit of writing your family history is that process will quickly tell you where the holes are in your research.

A monograph is a “written account of a single thing.” A monograph is similar to writing a book - to capture the reader’s interest, start with some interesting fact, character or event. I began my Hardenbrook monograph with a photo of my great-grandmother, Laura (Wortman) Hardenbrook and a quote I remembered her saying, “I will never give up the Hardenbrook name!”

Harry and Mary Nunn

I began my Nunn monograph with an “I imagine” prologue of what my grandfather, Harry Nunn, might have felt when he learned of his sister’s death:

“He sat down and closed his eyes as flashbacks of his childhood overtook him. They had survived, most of them, because of Lizzie. The acrid smell of unwashed bodies, dirty diapers, overcooked onions and cabbage in that small crowded Manhattan tenement came back to him like it was yesterday. Eleven babies had arrived; some didn’t survive.  Despite all this Lizzie cared for them when their mother couldn’t. Harry never mentioned his childhood. He didn’t remember much about his parents, but he never forgot the day the authorities arrived.”[1]

We learn later in the monograph that the “authorities” was New York City’s Department of Public Charities Out-Door Poor. Harry and his siblings, except Lizzie, were scooped up and sent to St. Joseph’s Home in Peekskill, NY. The story is tragic and it took me nine years to uncover it.

Once your readers are hooked, you then fill in the back-story, and write about what happened to each of the family members.

I develop a descendant line, and then research each family member, adding as much social history as I can find. Where they went to church, what organizations they belonged to, their occupation, and any other interesting facts.

Writing my Hardenbrook monograph I learned about the Willard Psychiatric Hospital (originally intended to be the location of Cornell University), and the Seneca Ordnance — that land was taken by the government at the start of WWII in a similar fashion as Quantico. Writing my Nunn monograph I learned about the number of children orphaned during the late 1800s, the orphan trains, and St. Joseph’s Home. In 2010 I was able to stand on the land where my grandfather and his siblings once walked and played. Was it coincidental that our visit to Peekskill was on All Saints Day?

A table of contents will help you stay on track. When you’re done, develop an index. If this is something you don’t know how to do, find someone who can help.

If you aren’t sure about a fact or what your ancestor might have done in a situation, you can always use the words probably, or I imagine …

Good resources are Producing a Quality Family History by Patricia Law Hatcher and You Can Write Your Family History by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack.

I am happy to help anyone wanting to write a monograph and with indexing.

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[1] I imagine this scenario happened when Elizabeth died 2 January 1947.  Harry (Pop) kept his growing up years carefully concealed. The passing of Elizabeth must have affected him deeply.

Organizing and Writing your Family History – Start Small

One of the continuing issues in our genealogy club meetings is how to organize research material. Once material is organized, then it becomes easier to write up a family history, something many people are afraid to do.

We are having our annual round table discussion this evening, so I will use my three minutes to show the different ways I have used to keep my research organized, which becomes a natural springboard to writing. I will also volunteer to work one-on-one with anyone needing help writing their family history.

This blog came to mind this morning after I received Penny Stratton’s NEHGS blog, “Writing Family History: Start Small.” From an article she read, one quote by John Bond caught her eye, and I think it is worth repeating here: “You are doing a service by leaving a legacy, no matter how small or large.”

Every genealogy conference we attend there is a session on the importance of writing your family history. Genealogy research is never complete, but it is important for segments of your research to be made available for other researchers. Therein is the value of monographs.

Write up what you have. Tell the story of your ancestors. The process will become easier the more you do it. And writing provides another benefit. Through that process you will immediately know the holes in your research.

Monographs – A way to share

We like to produce monographs of our research.  According to Merriam-Webster, a monograph is, “a learned treatise on a small area of learning.”  In other words, take one family line, follow it, include photos, social, cultural, religious, geographic information about that particular family, and write up that research in a way that makes interesting reading. 

It is not as hard as you might think, and it is a perfect way to share your research to date.  Everyone knows genealogy research is never done. So publish now what you have!

As I ready my next monograph for publication, I came across a handout I received from Patricia Law Hatcher, CG, FASG in 2004 titled, Monographs: Reviving a Respected Publishing Format.

In a nutshell, she advises to keep the topic focused. Not easy when you have lots of branches on that family tree. But your monograph could be: “extended biographies, documentary transcriptions of diaries, limited pedigrees, family that turn out to not be attached to your family tree, and research-in-progress.” 

There is a number of genealogical self-publishing printing companies sprouting up. If you decide to go this route, research these carefully. We like to print an original ourselves on 28 or 30 pound paper. We then take it to the local PostNet or Staples, and give them our 28 or 30 pound paper on which to run the copies.  We usually run any pages with color photos ourselves since sometimes copy centers don’t have the best color cartridges installed.  Another option is we remove the pages with the color photos and pay to have them run separately.  But we always supply our own paper.  After checking each set one page at a time, we then have the copy center bind them. 

Check the pages:  When I was producing Voices of our Past, the oral history project for the Ulysses Historical Society, I had Staples make the copies.  I brought the six sets of 334 pages each home and proceeded to look at every page. On the third set, a quarter the way through, something had gotten onto the drum, and the bottom half of all the pages were blank. I had to go back over and have those copies rerun. Not a fun time.

The title: If you want researchers to find your family, don’t title it something like, The Branches on my Family Tree.  A better title includes the family name and geographic place.  One of my monographs has the title: The Tuckers of Enfield, New York. Include all major surnames on the title page. 

The Devil is in the Details: Develop a table of contents and an index.  When developing your index think like a researcher. If your family had a business, or you talked about a number of farms, index those. Geographic areas in your monograph should also be indexed.

How Many? Before going to print think about the number of copies you will need. How many family members will want a copy of your research? Is there an historical society or library that would want one or more copies?  And there is the Family History Library, the Library of Congress and the DAR Library. Do check their submission guidelines. Some accept only unbound works.

Once the finished product is in your hands, you will have such a feeling of accomplishment.  And it is rewarding to receive all those heartfelt thank you notes from the repositories to which you sent your finished product.

Would love to hear success stories!!

Tips for Writing an Interesting Family History

Thanks to F. Warren Bittner’s presentation at NGS earlier this month, “Writing to Engage Your Reader,” I learned that writing a family history and genealogy writing are different.  Specifically, writing a family history that will engage your readers from start to finish.

I tend to march to a different drummer much of the time, so while most genealogists are busy capturing names and dates on scraps of paper and then entering into the database of their choice, I am interested in immediately writing about the names, dates, and whatever social and cultural history I can pull together. Entering names and dates into my Reunion software is mostly an afterthought.

I am a genealogy writer, which means I stick right to the facts. I now struggle with turning that writing style into a more relaxed, creative style that my readers will be hooked from the start, and will read through to the end.

Research has to come first. Mr. Bittner stressed to search all available records and then analyze them.  Some he listed were military, probate, court, contemporary journals, histories and diaries.  Look at every jurisdiction. Read between the lines. What isn’t being communicated?  Scour social histories – regional, educational, medical, gender, micro, ethnic, economic and vocations.

Start your family history with action, a moment of decision or high point, an interesting person, or an unusual situation. Catch your readers’ attention, give them a reason to keep reading.  Then add context.  “Arrange facts and details for impact, not chronology.” Stay true to the story.

What makes your ancestor unique? What makes them tick?  Your story should be emotion based; appeal to the senses.

Use clear language, action verbs, active voice.  “Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action,” states Mr. Bittner.

On a sobering endnote, Mr. Bittner says, “Nine tenths of good writing is re-writing.”

Carry on.

Society Saturday - Fredericksburg VA Spring Lecture Series March 22, 2014

Fredericksburg Regional Genealogical Society

Spring Lecture Series

In Conjunction with the Central Rappahannock Regional Library

Come join us and learn how to collect and share your family stories!

Saturday March 22, 2014

Lectures will be held in the Auditorium of the CRRL

1201 Caroline Street
Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Doors open at 8:30 am

Program is from 9 am – 1 pm

Light refreshments will be provided by FRGS

For more information please call the CRRL at 540-372-1144 

Or email FRGS at FRGSVA@gmail.com | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vafrgs/

Lecture 1: Writing Genealogy: Using the Elements of Narrative to Tell Your Family's Story

Genealogy is more than just names and dates in a lineage-linked database or on a pedigree chart . . . it's about people, places, and events in historical context. The building blocks of genealogy are similar to the narrative elements that writers use to craft memorable stories: character, plot, setting, and motivation. Learn how to make your family's story unforgettable!

Presenter: Madaleine J. Laird

Madaleine spent last summer pulling records at the National Archives for the Genealogy Roadshow research team. She serves as copy editor for Casefile Clues, an electronic publication written by Michael John Neill. She has attended Samford University's Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research several times, even earning her survival badge for the Advanced Methodology and Evidence Analysis course taught by Elizabeth Shown Mills. In 2012 Madaleine was awarded the Kansas Historical Society's Edward N. Tihen Historical Research Grant. She used the funds to record 360 names inscribed on a quilt in the Society's Kansas Memory collection.

Lecture 2: Gathering Family Stories: Conducting an Interview

Documents and records only tell part of the family story.  Family members can tell the rest of the story that is not in the documents and records.  What is the best method to obtain that information and what should be done with it once it has been gathered?

Presenter: Charles S. “Chuck” Mason, Jr., CG

Charles S. “Chuck” Mason, Jr. is a Certified Genealogist, specializing in Southern New Jersey and 19th and 20th Century Death Records.  He is a Past President of both the Fairfax and the Mount Vernon Genealogical Societies and the NIGR Alumni Association.  Chuck is a grader for the National Genealogical Society's home study course and serves as the NGS Awards Chair.  In addition to his many volunteer activities, he teaches genealogy classes for the Fairfax County Parks and Recreation. Chuck is a co-host of Tracing Your Family Roots at Fairfax Cable Television Channel 10.  Rebroadcasts of the show can be viewed at their website at tracingroots.nova.org.  

Tuesday's Tip - Developing a Personal Style Sheet

Because I thought I was close to the production stage with the Hardenbrooks of Seneca County monograph, I pulled from the bookshelf my copy of Producing a Quality Family History, by Patricia Law Hatcher, CG. 

I first learned that my title was inadequate.  Ms. Hatcher advises that family histories should include: who, when and where in the title. My title is missing dates. Reflecting on that, I realized my title is also misleading, since I track the Hardenbrook family through Seneca, Cayuga, Tompkins and Steuben Counties. Back to the drawing board on that one. 

Although I have my Chicago Manual of Style close at hand to guide me on the use of en dashes, etc. Ms. Hatcher points out there are genealogy related writing issues in which personal decisions have to be made.  Consequently, I should have developed a Personal Style Sheet much earlier since I write my family history as I research.  I now have to go back and make sure I am consistent with such things as: date format (June 1, 1830 or 1 June 1830), page formatting and layout, name spelling (sometimes your ancestor was called Mary, other times Polly), abbreviations (do you use “birth” or “b:”? does “prob” mean probably or probate?), and women’s names (how to refer to the women in your book – by maiden name or married name, or both? Should you put maiden names in parenthesis?).

The first decision a writer has to make:  Who is the audience?  This decision will help answer some of the questions for developing your style sheet.  Will your audience be professional genealogists or “cousins” and others interested in reading a good story?  Ms. Hatcher suggests you spell out as many terms as possible as it makes for much easier reading.

And before I "publish" I shall have to acquire a copy of Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. 

I prefer to write up my research findings as I go because it helps me identify missing information.  Either way, it is a good idea to develop your own style sheet sooner rather than later.

Writing Your Family History

Turning research into an interesting and readable format is possibly the most difficult part of the process for genealogists.  At a Connecticut Society of Genealogists seminar in North Haven, CT on Oct. 16, we had the opportunity to hear Leslie Albrecht Huber speak on just that. Leslie’s new book, The Journey Takers is an enjoyable read. Leslie is a gifted writer and determined researcher.  We encourage you to visit her website, www.understandingyourancestors.com


By nature I am a very organized person. But, when it comes to genealogy, keeping information and family lines organized has been the biggest challenge. I now keep my information in three formats: a three ring binder that has all my family lines that have been researched and written up; a binder for each family line, with research material in plastic sleeves for easy on-the-go research trips for that particular line, and then names and dates in the Apple Reunion database file.  I have always felt that genealogy was much more than names and dates. You will never hear me exclaim that I have this many names in my database. That is not important to me. What is important is to fully flesh out my ancestors to learn more about them and what their lives were like. And this is where the Fulton County History website has been so important. By reading newspapers of our ancestors' time, researchers can find out the social and political history that impacted their lives.


I begin each family line with a descendant chart, giving parents names and birth dates, followed by the children with their birth and death dates as known. My direct ancestor is indicated in bold. Each family member is featured with as much information as I can gather for where they lived, who they married, their occupation, etc.
For one line of the Hardenbrook family it looks like this:

Descendants of John Hardenbrook b: 1820 (NY) and Anna E. Crisfield Hardenbrook b: 1824; m: 19 June 1847

Washington Hardenbrook b: 1848 (Lodi, NY) d: 14 Jan 1904 (Willard, NY)

Enoch H. Hardenbrook b: 4 May 1852; d: 2 December 1905[1]

Frank Hardenbrook b: 1853; d: 1932 

John Hardenbrook was a farmer, whose property bordered the Crisfields in the Town of Lodi, Seneca County, New York, and is how he met Anna E. Crisfield. They married on June 19, 1847 at the Dutch Reformed Church in Ovid, NY by Reverend John Liddell.  Their witnesses were Mr. and Mrs. Hunt.[2] John and Anna Hardenbrook had three sons, Washington, Enoch, and Frank.[3] 

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[1] For purposes of this genealogy, I will use the name “Enoch’ born 1851 and will call his son,” Enos,” born 1882.  Death date from Interlaken Index compiled by Diane Nelson.

[2] Ulysses Historical Society

[3] 1860 and 1870 Census of Seneca County, NY.  (HeritageQuest)