Here are some thoughts on the nuts and bolts of putting your family history together.
Cast the Vision
Get at least some idea of what you want your finished product to be. This may look different depending on your age/time available/finances/geographic location, etc. If you are six years old, it would be delightful if you could decide to make a ten-page, stapled-together book out of extra printing paper with colored pencil illustrations by you and then carefully copying out a sentence or two for each page. Perhaps your title will be “Grandpa’s First Horse”, “Grandma’s Favorite Things”, or “How Great-Aunt Ilma Learned About Jesus”. We can honestly say we would love to read a book like that.
If you are older and have more resources available, you may choose to actually self-publish your volume using one of the many self-publishing companies accessible online. We have used several: Blurb, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Apple’s service that comes with iphoto. You may also want to check out local printing houses and FedExOffice. Those companies may be more cost-effective.
Yet another idea, if a book isn’t appealing or if you find you have such amazing stories to share they need a bigger audience, you could make a film. We actually know several young ladies who are doing this with their family legacy right now.
Lastly, it’s usually helpful to lay out a timeline (even if it’s highly flexible) to keep you on track and remind you that you don’t have all the time in the world.
Uncover the Treasures
Here are a few different techniques/tools you could use to uncover the treasures buried in your history:
- Ask your grandparents. This may take a while because grandparents sometimes like to say things like, “Oh, my life wasn’t really that interesting,” or “I don’t remember much. It was a long time ago you know.” Don’t be annoying but don’t give up either. If you can do nothing else, pray that they will tell you and that you will ask the right questions. For our one Grandma, it took Grandpa being in the hospital, her moving in with us and all of us sitting around the fireplace doing family devotions for her to start telling us. And, oh, what a shower of blessings (more like a deluge) poured forth after that. For our other Grandma, it took some encouragement from Grandpa.
- Seek out other relatives/friends, too. This is something we possibly could have done better in our projects. Does your Grandma have living siblings? Ask them to tell you stories they remember from growing up with her. Is Great-Aunt Emma’s memory still keen? Beg her to tell you all she knows.
- Read all the family history you can get your hands on. Many families are blessed with one or more individuals who took it upon themselves to compile at least a family tree. Collect all that, study it, organizing it, use it. And if the historians are living, thank them!
- Search online databases. Family history websites can be immensely helpful. We used Ancestry.com. There you can find things like military service records, birth certificates, ancestors’ names, etc. Of course, many of these sites require a membership to access certain records. It definitely could be worth the price. Also, if you’re willing to be patient and wait for holiday specials, you can gain access to a great deal for free for a limited time.
Record the stories
Of course, once your interviewees start answering your questions, you need to be able to record their tales for future use. We tried several techniques to capture our grandparents’ stories during our research phase. Maybe these will give you some ideas of what you can do!
- MP3 voice recorder. One of our grandma’s loved to just pour out a story for us, so we would carry around our MP3 players with recording capabilities whenever she was around. (We actually purchased our first MP3 players for this purpose, not to listen to music.) Later, Kristen transcribed the audio, crafting it into a story. We actually did this at varying levels with all of our grandparents.
- Mini autobiography. Our economics professor Grandpa wanted all the details to his liking so he personally wrote his short autobiography. We got to add in bits for “local color”.
- Tape recorder. Our other Grandpa had started an amazing program of walking about seven miles a day (in January in the North - quite the man, isn’t he?) right when he started telling us his stories in earnest. He ended up taking a tape recorder with him on his walks and telling his whole life story - in amazing chronological order with topic-sentences for his paragraphs - while he walked. Kristen then took those files, recorded them onto a laptop as MP3s and transcribed them . This can be a really time consuming method, but it works.
- Laura-Ingalls-Wilder style. Our other Grandma used a pen and loose-leaf paper to record her memories as she thought of topics like “Our Farm” or “What We Did For Fun”.
Wrap it up with a bow on top
After the research phase, you’re ready to move into production. Map out what you have into a book. Will you go chronologically or with the information you have would it be better to do a collection of short stories? Even if it’s just for planning purposes, make a table of contents. Such possibilities!Planning is key here, so that the things that really matter, the thoughts most precious to you, actually make it into the final product.
You will also want to have familiarized yourself with whatever software you are using to create your book, whether it’s Adobe-something or Blurb’s downloadable program. Knowing your tools - what your possibilities and limitations are will be extremely helpful!
As you are working on your project make sure you keep certain things in mind.
- This photo looks bright enough on my desktop screen, but will it be too dark printed out?
- Will this photo be big enough when it is in the book or will it look like a thumbprint?
- Are there certain price conditions that would make it much better to keep the book a certain length? Are the stories I’m putting in here actually helping to show who this person was/showing how God worked in our family/going to have generational impact?
We found the editing stage to be the hardest. if that’s the case for you, do it anyway - it will be worth it. Really. And get other people to help you. By the time you’ve heard/read a story 20 times, it all looks correct, even if it’s not, so an extra set or two of reading eyes really helps. Also, reading out loud helps you, well, hear how it sounds. When we were little, we heard that C.S. Lewis said that one should write for the ears. It’s really true when you think about it, especially when you’re writing a book that you might be reading to your grandchildren.
Another word of advice for this stage, back up your work every day or even every time you make a significant change. In fact, back it up a couple of different ways. Take it from the girls who lost twenty hours of work once. Learn from our pain, please.
Bundles of Blessings
Phew! Now that the production/editing is done, it’s time to go to press. What a glorious day it is when your little volumes arrive in the mail! We hope you remember to put your name on the cover because this really was a labor of love. When you’re ordering your copies, you may want to consider giving this book to others besides the people in your own family who participated. Perhaps your grandparents’ siblings would love a copy as a present? What about future generations - would it be wise to have a couple of copies for them? Either way, may the Lord turn your books into bundles of blessings for you and those around you.
In Part III, we will share a few FAQs and ideas of interview questions to help you in your ventures
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