Are You Sharing Your Information?

Sort Your Story creator, Lorel Kapke recently posed a question. “What genealogical information do I have stored in my Sort Your Story folders that others may find important? Have I shared my research, family stories, photos with family, friends, on-line resources?” 

This is a question many of us should ask. What information do we have? Have we shared it? Where have we shared it? Have we shared the information online through resources like Ancestry.com or WikiTree? Have we written our family’s stories or even one ancestor’s story? Have you blogged about your ancestors and shared information that way?

Each of us should make an effort every week, month, or few months, to share what we know. Try to find a relative who is interested in the family history. Can’t find one? Write the stories anyway. You never know when someone will become interested or you will locate a new relative.

Are you sharing family photos, book lists, and other “research goodies?” If so, let us know what you are doing.

© 2013 Sort Your Story, Sonoma, California

Writing About Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History month and many are focusing on writing about their female ancestors. Are you? Need some ideas on what to write about? Lisa Alzo of the Accidental Genealogist has 31 prompts for the month to help get you started.

Need a few other ideas on ways to write your ancestors’ histories? Consider these!

• Create a scrapbook of photographs and stories about your female ancestors.
• Write a biography of one of your female ancestors.
• Pull out old family recipes then cook or bake something. Write about the experience and any memories you have of those recipes with ancestors.
• Gather your children together and make a poster board of photographs, quotes, and their stories about one or more female ancestors.
• For young children, make memory cards of female ancestors. Take a copy of a photograph and paste it to a playing card sized piece of construction paper. On the back write some information about that ancestor such as vital statistics, favorite hobby or quote, book, whatever you want.
• Start a blog! Blogging allows you to build a collection of stories over a period of time. Should you ever start writing your entire family’s history, you will already have a lot to work with!
• Write the stories in Sort Your Story and add photographs to bring them to life.

How will you celebrate Women’s History Month? What will you write about?

© 2013 Sort Your Story, Sonoma, CA

 

Follow Friday – Family History Writing

In keeping with the February theme of writing your family history, here are several blogs posts worth reading to help inspire you to begin or continue writing.

Lynn Palermo’s Write Your Family History Using the Tools of Creative Nonfiction

Stories to Tell Writing a Book: Plan Your Writing Time

Julie Cahill Tarr’s Family History Writing Challenge Week 2

And this is a fun one – Julie Cahill Tarr’s Family History Through the Alphabet – Find A Grave

Have you read other interesting blog posts or articles about writing your family history? Has something recently inspired you to start writing yours? Please share with us in the comments.

© 2013, Lorel Kapke, Sort Your Story

Wisdom Wednesday – Writing Your Story #2

As a follow-up to last week’s post about Lorel’s photograph and sketch of her grandfather, I was thinking of other ways photos and sketches could be used by kids to illustrate their family histories.

In most schools kids around 4th or 5th grade have to do some sort of family history project. Often these are oral reports that must be turned in as a written report, PowerPoint presentations, or tri-fold board presentations. Regardless of which medium is used, students have the opportunity to illustrate their presentation. We all know a picture is worth a thousand words.

Photographs can be added to a Word document that must be submitted to the teacher. Photographs, clip art or scanned sketches can be added to a PowerPoint presentation to add life to the words on the screen and the presentation given. Tri-fold boards can also include blocks of text and photos or scanned sketches or the student may draw directly on the board.

If a student uses Sort Your Story and has not included these photos or sketches into their ancestors’ profiles, they can do so when the project is in progress or complete. Adding text used in the project to an ancestors file allows students the opportunity to continue growing that individuals story over time.

Kids love to draw and use photographs, so why not encourage them to do so in conjunction with their family history writing?

How do your kids use photos or sketches in their research?

© 2013, Lorel Kapke, Sort Your Story