Category: Get Started
For our grandchildren's children
Get personal (but keep your distance) Document, document, document I've been tossing around a thought in the last week. I've wondered if there is anyone still alive that I know personally who lived through a pandemic. There is no one. My 91 year old mother did not live through anything like what we are now ...
Storytelling: Use vintage greeting cards
Hello. I've been gone for quite a while. Some of you know that my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer a while back. He passed in December. It's a journey I never dreamed either one of us would experience, me as caregiver or he with such a diagnosis. As he often said, "It just happened. ...
The Art of Successful Letter Writing
A Letter from an Ancestor By Susan Phelps “In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people’s lives.” ~ Anatole Broyard On May 9, 1887, the Reverend Charles Smith sat down in his home in Plover, Wisconsin, to write a ...
Storytelling: Grandma and grandpa’s cabin
Stories of a family vacation spot Location, location, location After talking with my cousin Miltie, it occurred to me that another way to tell a family story is through memories of a shared vacation spot. From the time I was a little girl, I heard stories about "the cabin," or "hood canal," or just "the ...
Family history: Storytelling using grandma’s cookbook
Creating an ancestor profile using a book Tell a story with grandma's cookbook I began collecting cookbooks years ago, a habit for which my husband prefers I receive therapy. Or was that for hoarding fabric? Never mind! The point is, while I can say I have too many cookbooks, a few in my collection are ...
Family history: Storytelling with a theme or topic
Choosing a subject or topic to tell a story Day-to-day aspects of life 100 years ago or more When trying to capture what life was like 100+ years ago, it is difficult to know a person's personality or character from a photo. While photos may not reveal an ancestor's personality, we can come away with ...
Family history: Understanding relationships
Telling a story through family relationships One example: When cousins marry cousins Not allowed in every state these days, in our not-so-distant-past it wasn't uncommon for a cousin to marry a cousin. A look at populations and geography and one can better understand the reasons. How does this effect our understanding of family when, through research, ...
Ancestor profiling using memory
Moments in time One memory leads to another It has happened to us all. You walk into someone's home and you see something familiar, perhaps a jacket draped over a chair. You do a double take. It's very similar to the one grandpa wore on that special day long ago. As you approach to take ...
Storytelling: Let me count the ways
Think outside the box Start with communication When my children went to college, I soon discovered I would be contacted in one of three ways: my oldest called, my middle emailed, and the youngest sent texts. To this day, these are their preferred methods to communicate with me. Think about this: Maybe the oldest is ...
Document and photo preservation
Preserving old documents and photos Documents, papers, photos and more I wrote about preserving photos and other old documents in IN A PREVIOUS POST. This one, however, takes a closer look at materials currently recommended. Take a look at Susan's article to read tips and tricks for preserving your documents. While it can be expensive ...
The Malevolent Matriarch 