Recently a friend reminded me how important it is to document my own history for genealogy purposes. It’s funny how I find it hard to write about myself when I’m so focused on researching other people. I would recommend that instead of worrying about writing a narrative about your life, try an outline with artifacts.<\/p>\n
Your genealogy story (autobiography) could include vital records, church records, school records\/diplomas, pictures by year, life changing events, community service, and occupations. Let\u2019s just focus on the basics: vital records, church records, and school records.<\/p>\n
Vital records<\/strong> could include birth, marriage, and divorce. You could include stories and pictures related to each event. Is there anyone else you could ask to include a story? Copies of your driver’s license or passport or other items of identification could be interesting and useful at some point.<\/p>\n Church records<\/strong> could include baptism, confirmation, marriage, etc. When I was baptized, I gave a speech and have a tape of it. I could include that. Do you have pictures to remember each event? A video tape? Do you have photographs from events that include others besides yourself or those directly involved?<\/p>\n School records<\/strong> remind us of teachers we had and stories of events that we might remember. Include your report cards<\/em> and your school pictur<\/em>e for each year. If you can\u2019t find a picture at home, you could go to the library and find one in your \u201cold\u201d yearbook<\/em>. Were you in any sports or other activities? Did you have an after school job? You can depict these by including short stories, interviews from your old friends or bosses, or pictures. If you don\u2019t have a picture of yourself, you can find a picture of something that depicts the era from the internet such as clothing or movies or hairstyles. If you were in sports or activities, you might have been in the newspaper<\/em>. Can you find any copies? Don\u2019t forget your diplomas and awards<\/em>. If you receive awards from the activities you were in, gather them and take a picture. Include the picture in your Genealogy Autobiography.<\/p>\n How many of these vital records, church records, and school records do you have? These will get you a great start in writing your Autobiographical Yearbook and Genealogy Story. If you don\u2019t want to start with yourself, try this with your spouse or parent or child.\u00a0 If you’re a parent there’s a good chance you’ve already collected lots of these things for them.\u00a0 Why not do it for yourself?<\/p>\n Weeks after hearing this suggestion from my friend I must say that this was a fun exercise!\u00a0 I’ve revived some great memories that members of my family took an interest in.\u00a0 After all, in the end nobody can tell YOUR story better than you, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"