Writing Family History Made Very Easy: A Beginner's Guide

by Noeline Kyle

Offering practical and innovative suggestions, this no-nonsense guide to writing family histories helps aspiring genealogists beautifully preserve their legacies for centuries to come. Featured samples of writing by family historians illustrate the range, diversity, and styles of writing that effectively capture family traditions and memories. All aspects of the writing and researching process are explained, from choosing a format to publishing a family history. Presenting instructions and writing exercises, this innovative resource offers creative suggestions to help readers turn an amateur family tree into a well-written, publishable family history.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a bit frustrating to read for a variety of reasons, and there were a couple of things about this book that made it far less enjoyable to me than it would have been otherwise. For one, this book is written from a point of view of Australian history. The author wrote a book (and for some reason my library included) a work that has a rather narrow relevance to Australian history given the author's narrow expertise outside of the history of her country. This is a case where the book would have been far better with a far more limited focus and target audience. The second problem is a problem that the author shares with many books, and that is an irritating leftist history that tends to view patterns of generational failure in family relationships as something that is inspirational rather than something to be overcome and repented of. Although this book is not without value, it is not nearly as good as it cold have been had it been less myopically focused on Australia and written by someone who had a better political and religious worldview.

This book is a pretty average sized book at between 250 and 300 pages and it is divided into thirteen chapters. The book begins with a discussion about writing as a learned skill rather than an innate one (1). After that the author talks about how one becomes a writer through practice (2). This is followed by a discussion about how writing and research work together and encourage the other (3). The author then considers who one is writing for and looking at the intended audience for one's works (4). This is followed by an encouragement to the reader to ask questions and find ideas (5). After that the author talks about the importance of writing about origins and arrivals and how one finds that information and tackles such subjects (6). This is followed by a roadmap to writing from the author (7), who then tackles such subjects as characters (8) and that one could hardly cope as a writer of nonfiction novels without them (which is the author's apparent specialty). The author then looks at nostalgia and sentiment and how she tackles them (9), as well as the importance of historical context (10). The author then encourages the reader to share the writing journey (11), choose one's format (12), and get about publishing one's family history (13), after which there are notes, a bibliography and selection of resources, an appendix on genealogical software programs, and an index.

Despite the fact that there was a lot about this book that I did not greatly appreciate and a lot that I did not find to be particularly relevant to my own writing, there is at least some worth in a project like this so long as one reads it intelligently and critically enough. Writing about family history is not necessarily as difficult as people make it out to be, and this author's experience is demonstrative of the fact that someone who is not a very skilled writer who does not necessarily have an appealing point of view about history or politics can nonetheless have a successful published career writing about family history. This book's success can provide both a low bar to climb over as well as hope that one's own writing can reach a wide and appreciative audience with talents as modest as that of the author's own. Books like remind us that as there is a great demand for books on family history and a great many people who are interested in the subject that there will also be a great supply of works that are aimed at such an audience. While it is best to find a better one than this book is, if one does at least come across this book it can be read profitably.

[Rosemary Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is a basic guide for someone who wants to write a family history. It gives many practical suggestions and references to other books and websites that might be helpful.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is also more explaining and exercise, not enough help to get started or format. A little bit helpful but not enough to get book for future reference.

[Patsy McLaughlin]

Excellent reference book for writing family history

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many people who are interested in genealogy and family history begin with genealogy -- finding their ancestors and then trying to get back as far as they can. Sooner or later they reach a point when they can get back no further, because the information is not available, or cannot be found.

At that point, if not before, one should start to write a readable account of what one has managed to find. And that is where books like this one come in.

Research and writing are two different skills, and many researchers don't know how to write, and vice versa. This book has lots of useful advice about both. It is aimed at Australian readers, but most of the advice is fairly general, and is just as useful to people living in other countries.

I've read several books on writing, and several on genealogical research, and worked as an editor for several years, so a lot of the material in this one was not new to me. I nevertheless found it useful as a reminder of things that I know I should not overlook, but often do. There is the main text, and the book has summaries with reminders, and they are reminders I still need after 30 years -- for example, on page 38, unde the heading Developing notekeeping skills:

Whether you copy notes by hand or photocopy your documents, the source of your information should be noted accurately and ideally include the following details:
* Author names, including initials
* Book or journal article
* Year, publisher and place of publication
* Page numbers (for articles, newspaper reports, bulletin excerpts etc.)
* Name of the library or archive or any individual contact/s associated with your research of them
* File or catalogue number (if archive material)
* Folio number or record series (if archive material)

Elementary stuff? Of course. But yesterday I was in the archives and found I had handed back files after making notes from them, and then realised I had forgotten to record some of these essential details. I've found photocopies of archival documents, and years later realised I had not noted where they came from, and had to look them up all over again.

There are a couple of weak points, or at least I think so. In the section on indexing, there is no mention of using the indexing capabilities of word processing programs, and the author seems to assume that an index will be done by hand just before the book is printed. Since many family histories are self-published, and the final typesetting is done on a word processing program, this is a rather strange omission.

Another rather strange piece of advice is to use endnotes rather than footnotes. Endnotes were a cost saver in the days before computerised typesetting, but I find nothing more annoying than having to keep a finger in the endnotes page and another in the text, and to be constantly hopping backwards and forwards between them. This is history we are writing, and even in family history we sometimes want to know how the author knows something. Again, word processing software makes footnotes as easy and no more expensive than endnotes, so there is no excuse for not having footnotes.

What I found most useful about the book was the ideas it sparked off about things I could include in my own family history writing that might be useful to local and social historians later -- like cinemas, music and entertainment and so on.

[John Orman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Put all that collected family history into a compelling story that is interesting to readers both inside and outside your family.

The book has a useful appendix listing many helpful references and tools, including genealogical and publishing software.