How to write your family’s history as a story
Write one life at a time, and tell it through the people and places, not the dates. A family history that reads as a list of births and deaths will not be read. One that tells how a family came to live where it did, in the words of those who remember, will be read for generations.
Start small
Do not begin with the whole family. Begin with one person: a grandparent, or an ancestor whose story you half know. Gather what the records say about them and what the family remembers, and write that. A finished chapter about one life is worth more than a plan for the whole family.
What a good chapter has
- A place. Where they lived, and what it was like then. A census return gives the street and the neighbours.
- The work. What they did, and what it meant for the family.
- The turning points. A move, a marriage, a war, a death.
- Their own words, or the words of those who knew them. “She never sat down” says more than a paragraph about hard work.
- Honesty about what is not known. “We do not know why they left Cork” is better than a guess dressed as fact.
Keep the sources
Every date and place should say where it came from, even in a story. It can be a note at the end of the chapter or a line in brackets. It lets the next person in the family check it, and it keeps the family’s legends apart from what the records prove.
Be kind about the hard parts
Every family has them: a child who died young, a marriage that ended, a relative nobody spoke of. Tell them gently, without blame, and think about the living people they touch. Some things can wait until everyone concerned is ready.
How Heirstory writes it
On Heirstory, a family’s history is written in two kinds of words: the chapter of each family, and each relative’s own story.
- Gene, an AI genealogist, writes each family’s chapter. Gene searches the public records for the family’s people who have died. The chapter is written from what is found and what the family has added, with the source of every fact.
- The chapter grows with the family. When relatives add what they know, Gene can research what is new. The chapter changes only where the new material changes it, and every version is kept.
- Hard parts wait. Anything touching a living person’s health, separations, disputes or crimes is left out until the family’s keepers decide.
- Each relative tells their own story, written or spoken, in their own words. It shows only to those who see them, and everyone it names, in full.
To see how a chapter reads, the Heirstory Library keeps the trees and chapters of famous families, free for anyone to explore.
Questions
Do I have to write it myself?
No. Gene writes the family’s chapter from the record. Research uses credits, and you see what it will cost before it starts. You can still write your own part in your own words.
What if someone in the family does not want something written?
Anything about a living person’s health, separations, disputes or crimes waits for that person first. Each living person also decides what the rest of the family see of them, and of their own story.
Can it be printed?
Heirstory does not print books. You can download a copy of everything you may see, chapters included, whenever you like.
How long should a chapter be?
As long as the life has to tell. A short chapter that is true is better than a long one filled out with guesses.