Earlier in 2012 I became involved with the Ettalong beach Festival. Ettalong Beach is a small coastal community on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia, just north of Sydney. European exploration began with a 1788 visit of Governor Phillip to Ettalong Beach and surveying and settlement followed in the early 1800′s. If you would like to know more about this quaint seaside village click the Ettalong Beach Central Coast NSW, Australia link.

In January 2012 Ettalong Beach Festival comenced the “Ettalong Beach Then & Now” oral history documetary project of which I became one of the team as an oral historian working with videographer Bob FitzGerald of VideoSpark and other team members. We interviewed over 14 people about their recollections of the early days of Ettalong Beach and their impressions of it now.

A 45 minute oral history video documentary was produced and this is just a short extract.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Copies may possibly still be available via the Ettalong Beach Festival facebook page.

What is their life story?

How many times has somebody said to me “But my life is so ordinary, it’s boring, they won’t be interested”?

Having just spent a weekend talking with people from all walks of life at a baby boomers and retiree’s expo the subject of an ordinary life of no interest to descendents was raised numerous times. It is true, some people have had what appears to be a more interesting life, more excitement, done more ‘things”, experienced more and have stories to tell. Lives like that are the raw materials for many a documentary and I love hearing about them myself.

Just as certainly I enjoy hearing family stories shared that seemingly are about the minutiae of life. Why? It is all very well to know through genealogical research that John was born in Dubbo (a regional town in country NSW Australia), lived from X date to Y date and was a plumber. But what was John like as a person? Where did he grow up? What was the house and family life like? What changes did John see in his life? What was his philosophy on life? What did he enjoy doing and was he particularly good at anything like sports or perhaps music or some other pastime?

At some stage in our lives most people ask the question “where do I come from”? This is the key question for the popular TV program “Who Do You Think You Are”. What makes me who I am? In asking those questions of ourselves a part of it is discovering more about those ancestors of ours who have come before. And, unless your particular family has been good at record keeping, been wealthy and well documented, had individuals who have been written about in newspapers or otherwise had significant actions recorded, then you are lucky to get more than a few snippets about the lives of those who have come before. Your descendents will be interested in your story. They will want to know about you and your life. Whether you sit down in a quiet moment and write the chapters of your life out long hand, sit at a computer and type or commission an Oral Historian such as myself to record your life story or that of a significant loved one in your family the thanks of your descendents will wring long and loud.

Each of us has a story or stories to pass on, the stories from our own life and the stories of our elders, both personally known or stories that have been passed on to us. Due to timing, those around you right now may not outwardly show interest in your story or give the impression that they already know your story. I bet they don’t but that is a subject for another time. It may not be your children, however, it may be your grandchildren or great grandchildren that go seeking to know more about you and the circumstances in which you lived.

With knowledge comes understanding, you can give a great personal gift to your descendents no matter how you preserve your story. It’s worth preserving and I can assure you it will not be boring to those who come after you.

For tips on how to make it easier to preserve your life story you may wish to view a series of free videos I have prepared. Just click on the link on “How to Write Your Personal Memoirs” to see the first in the series.

Pick a theme a subject or a scene and just start. This is sometimes called “stream of consciousness writing”. If you would like some tips on structuring your personal memoir writing project then this earlier post has the information on structuring your personal memoirs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As Sean Connery’s character in the movie “Finding Forrester” advises the young “want to be writer”:

“Write the first draft from your heart, the second from your head.” “No thinking – that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think!”

I believe that this quote sums the act of writing up very well.

Pick a place, person or event and just start writing and use any notes that you have made as reference. Simply keep writing until you have exhausted that subject and when you have finished one section, sit back and give yourself a round of applause because congratulations are in order.

You don’t have to write in any particular order. If something else springs to mind whilst writing, jot it down in a notepad for later and come back to it next. Often inspiration for the next section to write will strike you whilst writing the first and the actual order you write in doesn’t matter.

In this video I outline some very useful basics in how to approach actually writing your personal memoir.  I have previously written about the importance of a story plan. Use your story structure plan when you are writing and tick off the sections as you go.

Just write until you have finished your story.

Do You Know Where Your Important Family Documents Are?

As an Oral Historian I am interested in the preservation of peoples’ stories.

I’ve now lost count of the number of times people have come up to me after I’ve given a talk on preserving family stories or after they have seen a family story book I have produced and said to me “I wish we had done that for Mum, Dad, Grandpa etc”. They never really thought about the preservation of their family stories until their loved one had passed on and were sorting through the family estate. It was too late, that particular story had been lost in all its rich detail.

Preserving stories, family history, historic photos and documents is important to me both professionally and personally so when I hear of a new service that helps preserve important family records my interest is captured. When I first met Guy Thornycroft and heard about “NowSorted” I instantly saw how valuable and how relevant this service is to preserving what is really important to families and I invited Guy into the studio for this podcast so he can tell you about it.

List to the podcast about how to safeguard your family documents.

“NowSorted” helps members of a family to bring together and document all of the important documentary records and papers that make up a family estate. It helps make sure the right information is in the right hands, at the right time. Important personal papers; wills, share certificates, insurance policies, passports, family letters, the core documents of life that are so necessary for an individual or family during their life especially when working with a family estate.

I think once you listen to the interview I have done with Guy you too will see the value of organising your family estate matters with “NowSorted”. So I really recommend taking the 15 minutes or so to listen to today’s podcast because I believe it will have valuable information for you and may just help you and your loved ones save a lot of worry at a crucial time in your family’s life.

Guy Thornycroft is a “NowSorted” facilitator based on the Central Coast of NSW Australia.
You can contact Guy to find out more about how the service can help you and your family:
Phone: 02 4322 7686
Web: NowSorted family estate organising

Pvt. Robert Lawrence

This is the story of how a young man’s life was wasted in the futility of war. World War I. It is also a story of why you should record your family’s oral history whilst those with the living memory are still available to you.

My story is not an impressive story but it is a story of one of my own ancestors whose personal story has bothered me for a long time. It’s a story of search many famil historians embark on. You see I grew up with a brass plaque hanging in the lounge room of my home. It commemorated the life of a young New Zealand soldier from Auckland who served in the 6th Hauraki Company, 1st Auckland Infantry Battalion. A man who went to Europe as a part of the A Company 14th reinforcements and who was captured and died of wounds in a German Hospital in Douai, France two months after arriving.

This man was Robert Lawrence, 30 years old, a plumber from Newmarket in Auckland, New Zealand, my Great Uncle and the relative whom my father and my cousin were named after which is probably why I wanted to find out his story such as I could.

As a boy I grew up seeing the plaque practically every other day which later, as a young man, prompted me to enquire of relatives who this Robert Lawrence was. I was simply told he was your Great Uncle who died in the First World War, nothing else. Today I very much regret I didn’t ask the correct people the right questions, my great aunts, “Aunt Tot” and “Aunt Lizzie”, both still living at the time of my initial enquiries and now passed on, were regular visitors to my home and Robert’s sisters.

When you are young you don’t pursue the family stories with enough vigour and you don’t necessarily have the interview skills to negotiate the difficult subjects and elicit more complete answers. This is why my interview with relationship expert Kim Leatherdale on asking family history questions
asking family history questions is an important one for all those interested in family history. In the course of the interview Kim and I provide great tips on how to ask family history questions that will provide the answers you seek?

Robert’s Lawrence’s Military Story

Robert Lawrence's Grave Douai Communal Cemetery

The Cross Douai Communal Cemetery

Douai Cemetery Memorial

No one in our family had visited Robert’s grave in France, our family is of modest means and nobody had been able to visit. And so when I visited France in 2006 I made it my pilgrimage for the family. I visited Douai Communal Cemetery where he is buried. Douai is a town in the Nord department in northern France. It’s right in the heart of the coal belt, the richest in northern France, a transport hub and today seemingly now in a depressed economic condition.  No doubt the coal and the transport hub made it a strategic site in World War I.

Robert Lawrence was born in 1885 and in 1916 he enlisted on the 7th of March. He was 30 years old, worked as a plumber and lived with his widowed mother Sophia in Newmarket, Auckland. He was short in stature, some 5ft 6 inches as many in our family are.

HMNZT 57 Tahiti

After enlistment Robert was moved to Trentham military camp for training, just outside Wellington, New Zealand and spent 111 days there before being embarked on HMNZT 57 (Transport 57), the ship “Tahiti”. The crossing from NewZealand to the United Kingdom took 58 days. The 14th reinforcements consisted of just over 2,200 men and sailed on two ships the HMNZT 56 the “Maunganui” and the “Tahiti” which Robert was on.

Robert arrived in Devonport, England on the 22nd of August 1916 and disembarked on the 23rd being transferred to Sling Camp PR II 3, a World War I camp occupied by New Zealand soldiers beside the then military town of Bulford on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.

The Bulford Kiwi

A Note of interest: After the war was over, the New Zealand troops were eager to return home, but no troop ships were available. In the wake of riots by disaffected New Zealanders at the Sling camp, officers decided that the troops should be kept busy carving an enormous Kiwi into the chalk of the hill. This was done in February and March 1919, by the Canterbury and Otago Engineers Battalion.

On 18th September 1916 Robert embarked for France. His most likely destination was Etaples. During the First World War the town became a vast Allied military camp and then a giant ‘hospital city’.  Many medical facilities were established by the Australians, New Zealanders and British. Wounded soldiers were consequently often sent to Etaples to recover or en route for Britain.

Auckland Infantry Brigade after the Somme

Pvt. Robert Lawrence was lucky in that he just missed out on serving at the Somme. The 1st Auckland Battalion War Diary records that over the Somme period they received reinforcements on the 24th of August (this was the 12 and 13th reinforcements) and the next batch of reinforcements was on the 10th of October (14th reinforcements). This is the reinforcements that Robert was a part of and he joined his active Battalion at Estaires on the 3rd of October 1916. The New Zealand Infantry had withdrawn from the Somme battlefield on the 3rd-4th October 1916.

On the 14th of October 1916 the 1st Auckland battalion were once again in the line.

“The line was very quiet, and the sector seemed to have relapsed right back to its old peaceful state. There was very little to complain of, except the rather flooded condition of some of the trenches. In the first few days after the return from the Somme, the Battalion had the misfortune to lose Lieutenant Ancell, a very promising young officer, who was hit by a stray bullet while on patrol. A few other casualties occurred and there were also a certain number of evacuations for sickness, brought on by the wet and cold.” ORMOND BURTON – author the“Auckland Regiment History”

It seems that Robert Lawrence must have been one of the “few other casualties” as there were a number of cross trench raids. By 2nd November 1916 Robert was reported to have been wounded and a prisoner in German Hands, and on 16th January 1917 he was reported officially by the Germans to have died on the 10th of December 1916 at St Clothilde Hospital, Douai, France.

German medics at Douai

An Australian prisoner of war in the Douai area after the war made the following statement:

“Douai, the conditions were absolutely rotten — bad food and no medical attention, our wounds often remaining forover a week without being touched. I was here for ten days, and only had my wound dressed once. The doctor was a “butcher” and gave me a very rough handling. ….” Australian Prisoner of War statement.

And that is the story I have. It is quite common to have many unfinished stories from family histories. This is just one of mine. His military life was eight short months, from signing up in New Zealand to dying in France as a soldier, and no real personal details of his life except for his profession, age and a photo.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them,

Lest we forget.”

New Zealand lost 18,166 service men and women, out of a population of approximately 1,089,825, in World War I. Nearly all those killed were buried overseas – 5325 New Zealanders have no known grave.  I paid to have Pvt. Robert Lawrence’s New Zealand Defence Force Personnel Records record digitised by Archives New Zealand and have received support in the Great War Forums on the internet, many thanks to those in the Great War Forums particularly Andy MacDonald.

Casualty Details

Name: LAWRENCE, ROBERT
Initials: R
Nationality: New Zealand
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Auckland Regiment, N.Z.E.F.
Unit Text: 1st Bn.
Date of Death: 10/12/1916
Service No: 14441
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: A. 29.
Cemetery: DOUAI COMMUNAL CEMETERY

Douai Communal Cemetery

Service Record Summary

• Enlisted, posted to Trentham 7/3/1916 (111 days training)
• Transport (57) ship Tahiti 26/6/16
• Arrived England, Devonport 22/8/1916
• Embarked for Sling Camp PR II 3
  Salisbury Plains in the UK 23/8/1916
• Embarked for France 18/9/1916
• Joined Unit Estaires 03/10/1916
• Wounded, prisoner in German hands 02/11/1916
• Died, St Clothilde Hospital, Douai 10/12/1916

Deciding how to structure your personal memoirs so that it captures and retains the interest of your reader, whilst telling your story, is perhaps one of the hardest tasks a writer of personal memoirs will face. The video Personal Memoirs Writing – Structuring Your Story, will help you get a head start and hopefully make it easier for you.

In order to write your personal memoirs, life story or family history you will initially spend time resurfacing memories and gathering the source materials to use in your written story.   This process will inevitably result in a lot of material, whether written notes, photographs or other source documents. Just looking at the volume of the materials can be off putting when trying to decide what to include and how to structure your personal memoirs.

Regardless of whether your intention is to tell your story in a lineal progression, perhaps covering a certain event or period of your life, or whether you have a more extensive time period in mind, bringing order to your notes will assist you in your actual writing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this video oral historian Greg Lawrence provides you with some easy to use tools that will make structuring your memoirs easier. There are tools to help you discover your emerging themes and get to the real essence of the story you wish to tell and other techniques to assist you in discovering the gaps where you will need to do further research before commencing your actual writing.

If you are just embarking on your personal memoirs project you may wish to review the other videos in the Personal Memoirs Writing Series:

Personal Memoirs | Motivation is Everything

Personal Memoirs | Writing Lists and Stories about Places

Personal Memoirs | Writing about People

Personal Memoirs | Writing about Events

As you set out to write your personal memoirs or life story most likely it is the events in your memoir which willtake a great deal of your focus.

It is at this point you will need to re-evaluate your purpose for writing and you may wish to read an earlier poston why motivation is everything for Personal memoir Writing Just what is the story you wish to tell? What are the events which have had the most influence on your life storyand what part did those events have to play in your overall development or the personal memoir you wish to tell?

In this personal memoirs training video Oral Historian Greg Lawrence outlines ways you can begin to recall the events in your life story that you may wish to include in your memoir. He discusses the inclusion of life events, thoughts and beliefs and how to use memory prompts to recall events.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you are preparing your thoughts write down as many events as possible which played a part in the story you wish to tell.  Who was present at the time and what was their involvement in the event? One of the earlier videos in this series, Personal memoirs – Stories About People will help you formulate your thoughts on the people who played a part in the events you wish to write about.

Note down the really important events in your story but don’t forget the little ones either. The little events that will add colour to your personal memoir and add depth and context for your reader. Keep in mind that your reader has a different set of experiences to your own and it is often the little things providing the context which will allow them to relate more quickly of in more depth to the life story you are telling.

What were your feelings about the important events of your life story?

When you are preparing to write the notes that you are making can be considered ‘fuelling up”. You are adding gas to your writing tank and it is at this stage it’s your outline notes, the raw fuel, which you are interested in.  The more “fuel” you can add to your tank at this point the easier it will become when you actually sit down to write your story. Don’t worry about the details in the early stages, those can come later.

A list of 10 life event prompts you might find useful:

• An event in or about a place you lived in?
• Something involving a favourite Aunt or Uncle, your Mother or Father?
• Something from your working life?
• A remembrance about a child?
• A sporting or cultural achievement.
• Your personal triumphs and tragedies.
• A major crisis.
• A travel experience.
• A turning point in your personal life philosophy.
• When a climatic event impacted on you or your family.

Think about the major events that occurred during your life and what surrounded them. What was happening at the time in the wider community, locally, nationally and internationally? Did these events impact on you in any way? What did you think about them?
Anything can trigger a memory and once you start you will find that one thought leads to another.
The Importance of Thoughts & Beliefs

In your personal memoirs what were the major issues of the time? Did they have any particular impact on you oryour story?

If you find that you can easily remember a major issue or event then it probably is worth examining it for an impact or an influence on your own personal belief system and considering its relevance to the story you are telling.  Your readers would like to know you on more than a surface level and therefore any strong beliefs or influences on your development are likely to be of interest.

For example do you hold strong religious beliefs? How did they develop and come about?

Were you influenced by any international conflicts? Either as a person directly involved or as a person who developed a strong belief either for or against your nation’s involvement. What influence did these events have on developing your personal philosophy? How you came to have the belief system you have is often of great relevance to the personal memoir you are telling.

Memory Prompts

When writing personal memoirs or a life story the memory prompts you can use can include anything and everything. The most important thing you can do is to constantly keep a small notebook with you just to jot down the memory fragments as they surface. Think of your memory as a filing cabinet. A filing cabinet where, as you progress  through life, you keep adding things to the front and where your older memories are constantly being pushed to the back. It’s difficult to see everything when you first open the cabinet.

Your memories are still there it’s just they have over time become clouded with the sheer volume of them and you need a way of systematic rediscovery. The mind is a wonderful thing and connects memories in ways which constantly surprise us. In order to tap into those memories you can use a series of memory prompts to help you.
Useful Memory Prompts you can use include:

• Photos.
• Diaries or Journals.
• Family Treasures.
• Old Letters & Papers.
• A reunion with family, old friends or past work colleagues.
• A recipe book.
• An old résumé or CVs can prompt memories.
• Talk with friends or family about an event, person or place you want to include.

Keep your notebook with you and as you look through a selection or old photos or talk with family or friends make a note of any memory that resurfaces so that you can later come back to it and use that memory as a starting point in your own memory filing cabinet. You will find that once you can grasp the edge of an old memory other ways of teasing that memory out into full light will readily present themselves to you.

Keep your Father's Stories

One of the most special gifts any of us can give our fathers is the gift of listening.

“My father took me to school every single day from middle school until the end of high school. On the ride to school, he told me stories. On the way back home, he told me stories. I never really listened to the morning stories because I was too sleepy. I never listened to the afternoon stories because Iwas usually thinking about drama with friends or boys. During high school I felt too cool to hear his stories about how things were back in his day. -Maha”

That’s what I mean about the gift of listening. Maha is acknowledging, after her father had passed away, that she did not listen to the stories he told and by implication has missed out on a richness he was sharing with her. I am sure all of us have been guilty of the same actions as Maha but if you still have the opportunity to rectify it then do so. Now is the time to take action, so ask your father for his stories.

Stories about how he lived when he grew up, stories about your ancestors that your father knew andhad direct contact with or whose stories were passed on to him. Every single person has interesting stories to tell and those stories from your father are a part of your heritage and deserve appreciation. Your father’s stories about his work, the life and times he lived in, his experiences and what he thought about things, people and the events that were important to him.

Do not pass up the opportunity to have a dialogue with your father and preserve his stories so that you can pass them on to your children.

Lifetime Memories and Stories has put together a concise Free eGuide on How to Record a Life Story Interview with your Father. It provides short practical how to do it advice on recording your father’s story with a video camera or digital audio.

Why not make a start on recording your father’s story ? You might life to watch the Lifetime Memories and Stories video on Personal Memoir Writing which provides easy to follow practical advice on organising your thoughts when preparing personal memoirs and the How to Ask Questions for Family History podcast with Kim Leatherdale is a good resource when planning your approach to your father and handling any emotional charges that may exist.

Don’t wait till Father’s Day to celebrate fatherhood and male parenting, although this special day is set aside to honour and commemorate fathers and our forefathers. Father’s Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, and family-oriented activities.

There are records going back almost 4,000 years to Babylonian times where a young boy called Elmesu carved a Father’s Day message on a card made out of clay wishing his father good health and a long life. The modern Father’s Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother’s Day and actually took place in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. The special day was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongah, West Virginia, on December 6, 1907.

Many of our parents come from an age where the oral history tradition of passing on stories was an everyday part of family life. I am sure that by taking the time to listen to your own father’s life story your own life will be enriched.

The Trigger for Your Fathers' Stories Can Be Many

Men and seemingly fathers in particular, are often reluctant to share their stories.  Perhaps it’s an experience they don’t want to remember or an event in their life that they deem to be nothing special.  After all many of them are from the time when it’s been drummed into them “not to blow your own trumpet”.
Nevertheless you may be richly rewarded by perseverance and patience in seeking your own father’s stories. 

Most Dads have interesting stories; it’s just that you need to find a respectful way to ask them to share them with you.

My Father’s Story – The Flood of ‘56

With Fathers’ Day in Australia rapidly approaching I have been reflecting on fathers’ day and fathers’ stories and a story my own father told me sprang to mind and I thought I would share it.

Dad always wore this particular watch, a pocket watch.  It wasn’t fancy but had a nice face.  I can’t remember now what made me ask about it but one day I asked him where he got it from.  He told me he had been given the watch by Mr & Mrs Clarke, the two “old people” who lived down the end of the shared right-of-way (driveway) that our family house was on.

A few minutes went by and I wondered why they had given him the watch.  After all a watch was a pretty significant thing, especially so to a young boy as I was at the time.

Mr & Mrs Clarke had originally owned the land that my family home was built on and lived in the farm house across the creek.  Their garage was an old broken down shed at the end of the drive and a foot path ran from it across a foot bridge and up a deeply over grown path to their house.  They had sold the land to my parents around 1954 and as the first young couple to build on one of the five blocks that were carved out of the original land my parents knew them well.

But this still didn’t explain to me the gift of a watch.  The naivety of the questions from a young son probably got me past my father’s reluctance to tell the story.  I was old enough to realise he was reluctant to tell it and can still remember that feeling about it.

The story my father told me was that late in one afternoon in the winter of 1956 my parents were placing me in a basinet for my afternoon sleep whilst outside a huge storm raged.  It had been raining for hours and the flood waters were rising and surrounding our house.

The flood had crept up during the afternoon and my parents were keeping watch on them because they were concerned with the nearby creek breaking its banks.  Dad decided that he needed to go and check on the creek level so off he went.  Turning the corner of the Clarke’s garage, at the end of the driveway, he was walking in water that firstly covered his ankles but which got much deeper very quickly.

As he got closer to the footbridge over the creek he could see in the dim light that much of it had broken away.  Right in the middle of the now raging creek Mr Clarke was clinging to one of the remaining uprights of the bridge and calling faintly for help above the sound of the raging water.  Dad called out to him and he responded.  Looking around quickly for something to hold onto he bent a stalk of the tall bamboo that grew nearby and using that as a lifeline he waded out into the torrent.  Struggling to keep his footing on the slippery rocks of the creek bed he reached out and the two men linked arms.

Just as Dad pulled Mr Clarke towards him and they were inching their way back to the creek bank, by this time the water up to their chests, a large log came down and crashed into the remaining upright, sweeping the remainder of the bridge away in the torrent. A miraculous escape!

Supporting a very battered and bruised Mr Clarke my father then brought him to our home where they both dried off and got into dry clothes before settling down in front of the fire to warm up.

My father had saved Mr Clarke’s life!

Some weeks later Mr Clarke presented Dad with a watch in recognition of him saving his life.  No other fuss was made and I have only ever heard one other oblique reference to the event by a neighbour during a flood many years later.  Although that watch itself wasn’t that expensive it is a real connection between the two men, the man whose life my father saved in 1956.

People are interested in people.  Why do you think magazines about people are so popular?  Go into any news store and just look at the breadth of magazines that are covering the goings on of people.  Oh look!  Here is a celebrity behaving well or badly, oh another one wearing the latest fashion and yet another at a film launch or opening something or other.  The fact is that as humans we often live through the lives of others and have a deep and complex interest in what people do.  And that’s just those we know through the media!

When writing your personal memoirs you will need to develop your cast of characters that help you to illustrate your story.  This doesn’t just mean a list of who is who but a rounder, fuller description of who they are, what they looked like, what they sounded like and what they did.  Your readers, just like the magazine readers, want to find out the details of the people in your life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this video Oral Historian Greg Lawrence details some of the things you should be looking at when it comes to looking at the people involved in your story. Did they have any special mannerisms, things such as tapping the side of their nose when telling you something of particular importance? Did they have a special way of saying things or special sayings that they repeated and peppered their conversation with? What relationship did you have with the people in your story? The free video training is full of tips on how to organise your thoughts about the people in your story.

What about when you are writing your own family history, personal memoirs or autobiography?

Ask anybody who has embarked on genealogical or family history research and you will find that they get a real “Hey this is neat” moment when they discover letters, descriptions or an event in a person of interest’s life.  It is those facts and descriptions which add colour and depth to any family history story and draw and hold your reader’s interest and bring you or your ancestor to life.

The fun and enjoyment for readers of life stories and family stories is getting a real sense of who your characters are.  You have the advantage as a the writer of a family history, personal memoir or your autobiography in that you are able to provide that description and depth right now, as you create it for your own and others enjoyment.