Family History
Thursday, December 8th, 2011Genealogy research interesting, and in the process we collect a lot of documents, files, photos and notes. But I sometimes wonder what good has all this information unless we have some way to tell the story, “what happened”, which will interest and inspire future generations. How are you going to research your family history to write a family story?
Most of us have looked beyond the details of births, marriages and deaths based outside of the census, and try to find life stories “best” of our ancestors. ” However, we all know that this is not always possible. With the best intentions, sometimes all we have some dates and places, occupation, and not much else.
How can you build a life history of basic information like this? If you write your family history, perhaps for your children, or as a gift for your family, how can you make healthy life interesting ancestors when all you know is the birth, marriage and death details? As the preparation of the puzzle, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Learn a little historical background and things start to fall into place.
Take my own family as an example. I do not have much information about most except baptism usual, the details of the census, marriage and death. However, gathering the facts are known, and seeking the history and use of pictorial resources, I wrote a biography of my ancestor John Walker Bott.
The key is to know when your ancestor lived in. A book I found very useful is the Chronicle of England and Ireland, which details all the major news items each year in British history. Internet is also full of useful information, maps and pictorial images that you can use to illustrate your article (beware of copyright on the image and when in doubt, ask the permission of the webmaster if you want to public your work). Museums, libraries and churches are also good sources for the history of the local parish.