Follow Friday – Writing Posts

Have you been writing your family history? Have you thought about the various ways to write it? Check out some of these writing posts and give it a try!

Get Writing, Know Your History

The Armchair Genealogist’s A 10 Step Plan For: Getting Sources & Citations Under Control 

While you are on The Armchair Genealogist, download Lynn’s free ebook The Complete Guide to the Family History Interview

Writing Your Way to the Past’s Mashable Highlighted 2 Storytelling Apps This Week

Need a way to organize your writing? Check out Scrivener.

© 2013, Sort Your Story, Sonoma, CA

 

They Just Want the Story!

Sort Your Story creator, Lorel Kapke recently related an experience with her family to me as we discussed family stories.

She said her family members are not interested in research. She meant they don’t care about the names, dates, and places. They wanted to know THE STORY!

She asked me, ‘what do you do with data family members have acquired when they just want “the story”?’ She went on to say that when she visited her sister  and brother-in-law DABBS in the spring of 2012, she “again” mentioned her interest in viewing her brother in-law’s “family trunk” stored “somewhere” in their cabin. She understood the trunk-contained data from both his paternal and maternal sides of the family, DABBS and SCHOTS. Lorel’s brother in-law offered a copy of his Dabbs descendant data and she copied the family pedigree. He mentioned he was interested in a book written by a DABBS cousin, DABBS Family Genealogy, by Jack Autry Dabbs copyright 1986. After returning home, Lorel found this book listed on Family Search website. She decided to find a copy of this book for her family.

Have you come across family members who have some information but really don’t care about the names, dates, and places and just want to know the story? How did you proceed? Did you collect all their information to merge into your own? Did you ask about the family stories? Did you collect or scan photographs?

Please share your experience with us.

Sort Your Story Backup Day

When was the last time you backed up your computer files? These could be music files, work files, photographs, or genealogy files. Have you done it recently? If not, consider backing your files up today and then join the Geneabloggers community the first day of every month which is Data Backup Day! If you subscribe to the Geneabloggers blog, you will be reminded the first of every month to do this important task.

Backing up your files ensures that in the event of a computer crash or virus, fire or flood, that you have another copy of your files. Creating two copies and keeping one off-site, meaning at someone else’s home or your safety deposit box, is also a good idea.

Not only can backing up your files create a safety net in case of an emergency, but it also allows you to go to a previous version of a file in the event you change something and did not intend to save the file that way. It is also a safety net in case you delete a file from your computer and cannot retrieve it because you already emptied your trash.

So remember to schedule a time daily, weekly, or monthly to backup your data. Once you begin to create all the Sort Your Story Profiles, you will not want to lose them.

© 2013 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413

Was She Just A Homemaker?

Sort Your Story creator Lorel Kapke was talking to me about women and the census recently. She had this to say, “This brought to mind the maternal side of families…. women listed in the census as “homemakers” …. were they creating quilts (worth big money today on Antiques Road Show,)  or recipes they created…enabling future generations to become famous “food network” chefs recreating their g-grandmothers recipes…. making money, how about taking care of the homestead…. from sunup to sundown… gathering herbs for remedies to help heal their children…possibly learned from the indigenous population.”

When you look at the history of the women in your family, what do you see? Only the homemaker listed in the census or much more than that? Women may have been listed as homemakers but they were, and still are today – MUCH more than that. They are…..

Business women; chefs; presidents of companies; attorneys; bankers; mothers; wives; friends; pastors; teachers; politicians; government worker; pilots; travelers; caretakers; cooks and bakers; doctors; construction workers; paramedics; police; firefighters; nurses; librarians; researchers; writers; photographers……..

The list goes on an on. How do you identify your female ancestors? WHO were they? WHAT did they do? WHEN did they do it? In a time when women weren’t doing “those” things like running a business when the majority were at home with children? What about attending the university when women were hardly ever admitted? WHY did your ancestor choose this path? WHERE was she living when she assume “this” role?

Answering these questions and looking at women as more than homemakers will open up a whole new world of story possibilities for your female ancestors. What are you waiting for? Start writing!

© 2013 Sort Your Story, Sonoma, California