Here I am at Rootstech 2014, spreading the gospel of storytelling.
We were thrilled to get a call from Deseret News reporter Trent Toone last month, who had seen us speak at Rootstech and wanted to interview us for an article on the "thriving business of family history." (You can see the resulting article here on the Deseret News site.)
Read more
Your first date -- you remember the crepe de chine; he remembers the Chevy.
Ask any couple to tell the story of how they met, and you'll usually hear two very different versions of the same story. She remembers what she wore, he remembers what car he was driving. (It may sound like gender stereotyping, but it is a common anecdotal refrain among our clients!)
Read more
When you describe your childhood home, can your reader picture it in his mind? Does he know what it was like for you to live there, what you did there, and how you felt? Create a mental snapshot with interesting detail.
When you describe your childhood home, can your reader picture it in his mind? Does he know what it was like for you to live there, what you did there, and how you felt? Create a mental snapshot with interesting detail.
Read more
Are your mementos bringing you joy or weighing you down? (Photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert)
Making decisions about our "family history assets" can leave even the neatest of the neatnicks among us paralyzed with fear.
What do we do with the accumulation of photos, objects, and other memorabilia that have been handed down to us or that we have collected ourselves? Keep it and burden yet another generation with boxes of stuff? Toss it and face the possibility of losing something of true sentimental or monetary value?
Read more
In this book we created for a client, we started with a couple about five generations back and included all their descendants to the present time. This chart shows the couple's eight children, each of whom are numbered. We used their birth order as the chapter order for the book.
In the last post we talked about creating a story book about your ancestors, starting with yourself (or your subject) as number one and going back in time.
You can also create a descendancy book: start with an ancestor a few generations back and movie into the present time, highlighting each of his/her descendants.
Read more
Want to create a book about your ancestors, but don't have a clue where to start? Start with a simple pedigree chart.
At Rootstech last month, a woman stopped me in the hall after my presentation and told me she wanted to create a book about her ancestors, but she didn't have any idea how to organize it. How many generations to include? What if she had more information about some ancestors and very little about others? What order should she put it in?
Read more
A tribute book can be a great way to honor your parents, grandparents, or other loved ones. You can put one together in a relatively short time.
I've been thinking about my grandmother lately, as March is the month of her birth. This amazing woman, born just after the turn of the last century, lived to celebrate her 100th birthday and passed away just a few months later in 2006.
As a birthday present for her milestone, I made a little book for her, which I brought with me when I went back East for her birthday party.
Read more
You want to write a life story book about a loved one, but he's not so hot on the idea. What to do?
You want to write a life story book about a loved one, but he's not so hot on the idea. What to do?
Read more
"Baby's Day Out," copyright 2003 Alison Armstrong
Here's an interesting link about memory: University of New Hampshire researchers discovered that the older adults they interviewed about their life stories invariably discussed their major life transitions.
Read more
When writing your life stories, should you include family skeletons?
I recently finished a small, lighthearted book of reminiscences from my early childhood in the late 1960s, as a gift for my daughter. Even though the book didn’t address any serious matters whatsoever (those I’ll save for another book), I did find myself wondering, as I wrote, what my father would think about my version of events.
Read moreHow do you get from dry genealogy facts to a compelling story? This presentation from RootsTech 2020 will hopefully inspire you as well as give you tools to write your ancestors’ stories. (Audio with slides) Join me on a fascinating journey as I find one of my ancestors and write her story.
We are so excited to be back at RootsTech live this year! Come by and see the Pictures and Stories booth (#1609) and see some of the many new books we’ve helped our clients create. Alison is giving two in-person classes: The Seven Deadly Sins of Building a Digital Archive, and Making a Genealogy Story Book. Hope to see you there!