This is early for the holiday weekend.

If you have been reading this blog, perhaps you are beginning hear some patterns. I am a reader and a learner. I am an educator at heart whether it is sharing what I learn or teaching my grandson how to play with a ball or car or read a book or how to be gentle with the dog (that one goes from the dog to the child as well).

So, what does all of that have to do with this week’s blog?

One of the latest books I picked up is Storytelling for Genealogists by Doug Tattershall. It is a simple little book that at first, I was disappointed in getting and then I started reading. Right away the author talks about the difference between genealogy and family history and that to tell our family history, history should be put to service of biography. Isn’t that the definition of family history? Genealogy plus history plus biography.

That got me thinking and I continued to read, and boy did that start my mind going. Tattershall said, that to “tell a good story” you need to understand the characters, the plot, and the theme. Now I am back to thinking about family research and about my opening to this week’s blog.  Finding patterns that can tell us about our family characters help us determine the plot of the stories we are telling and find an overarching theme.

I need to keep those things in mind when I do research. I can’t tell the stories if I don’t know the characters, plot and theme! I must research with them in mind so that I can find the patterns whether in personalities, occupations, community contributions, adventures, etc.

When I find those all-important death, marriage, birth dates and locations and begin looking for the details of their lives, it is this narrative building that I should focus on. What was happening in the area at the time that might have been directing both physical moves and decisions? How was my family affected by those events? How was my family involved with the events themselves? Maybe, I won’t find direct statements that give me the answers but by putting the facts together I may be able to draw some conclusions. As Tattershall said, in a family history story those are ok if it is clear to the reader when your statements represent facts and when they are educated guesses based on your findings.

Whether I am going to write a narrative or not, this is how I will refocus my search for the answers to what life was like for my family in a time before I was around. “History in service of biography.” Does this change the way you look at the research? What happens if you ask these questions before looking for the facts? Will it direct where you look or what you look for?

OOOOOOOH! Our next speaker! She has a PhD in folklore and hosts a podcast on social history. Her presentation is a case study in which she applies her philosophy of using more than one pathway to find your family story and look deeper into the locations, occupations, economics, etc and the siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, --You know—FAN Club. Sign up and get your friends to sign up!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com