Recording Your Family History Part I

As our first series of posts on IndustriousDaughters, we want to share about something that is near and dear to our hearts and with which we have firsthand experience: compiling our family legacies into books. This will be a three-part series covering the why, how, what and where of some ideas to get you started. We also hope to share with you some books and resources that inspired us in our own adventure.

WANTED:

SKILLED WORDSMITH 

TO CRAFT COMPELLiNG STORY.

POTENTIAL FOR MULTIGENERATIONAL,

WORLD-CHANGING IMPACT.

REMUNERATION POSSIBLE, 

LIKELY IN THE FORM OF 

ETERNAL REWARDS.

ONLY THE INTREPID NEED APPLY.

Maybe you’re like us. For years we wished we had a story that could fit the above description. Then, with inspiration from The League of Grateful Sons and a little book called Coming In On A Wing and A Prayer, we realized we had a wealth of stories like that right under our proverbial noses.

OR

Did the above ad make your heart skip a beat? Did you think, I wish there really were an ad like that? 

If you did, have we got news for you! That ad is real and there are enough positions available for all of you, if you are intrepid enough, that is. (There’s a reason the above ad reads a bit like Shackleford’s seeking men to venture into the unknown Antarctic...)

You see, each of you, as a daughter is part of a story that has been unfolding for generations. It is the story of your family, how the Lord has been working. 

What if your great-grandmother was a Swedish immigrant who came to America as a young bride and helped settle the wilderness? Perhaps your grandfather was on the Titanic or maybe he stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Maybe your grandmother was part of a large family on a rural farm during the Depression and learned the value of people over things. Or could it be that your great-great-great-great, etc. grand-uncle fought with George Washington at Princeton? Just as interestingly, maybe your great aunt was a loving homemaker on the frontier and watched with interest as the American landscape and culture changed during the decades of her life.

Whatever the case may be, these are stories that could be worth telling, and they are practically handed to you! You could have a treasure chest awaiting your discovery. You have the opportunity to capture a story about what you know - or what you can know.

But why?

-Truth is stranger than fiction 

This saying is so overused we may not believe it, but, well, it’s true! 

    

-You are the only one

More importantly, you are uniquely fitted to tell these stories because they     are yours. Susie Jones didn’t grow up in your family. The story of how God has worked in her family is different from yours. In fact, no one’s story can be just like yours. How’s that for originality?

-God’s Word

Now whenever we consider a project, our first concern should be, what does God’s Word have to say about this? As far as writing our family histories goes, there is actually quite a lot about this in Scripture:

-Impact

    The promise that follows honor leads us into the third reason to record the legacies of God’s work in our families: the potential impact. In our varied experiences, we have noticed something: honor does not go unnoticed. If you take the time to sacrifice the blood, sweat and tears to secure your family’s story, people will stop to ask why. People will want to know how. And perhaps most importantly you will be erecting an ebenezer for future generations, saying, “Here is what God did in our family. Remember the Providences of God. See how Jesus Christ has put together the details.” This will give you, your immediate family and future generations connections to past and present, context for the present, and courage to conquer whatever comes as they find comfort in Christ Who has crafted their course. In a world of general disconnection, purposelessness, and fear, such a gift of connection, context and courage is undeniably beautiful and powerful.

In Part II, we will explore some ideas to take the concept of recording our family stories to reality. 

¹ Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. I, pg. 673. Hendrickson Publishers, 1991.