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The Family Story Workbook

What if you’re not a “writer”?

“Writer” is a strange word. People are so hesitant to claim it. Sure, one might “write”, but to be a “writer” seems to be a more profound idea. But here’s the secret . . . If you are putting pen to paper or digital ink to your screen, using shapes and squiggles to capture your ideas, no matter how eloquent or simple, you are a writer. Own it. It’s absolutely true. You have a voice. You have opinions. You have ownership over your memories.

Writers write. It’s what writers do. It’s your turn to begin, writer.

#family-history #KindleBook

Bring Your Ancestors to Life There’s more to genealogy than birth, marriage and death records. The question is . . . . How do we learn more about our ancestors lives? You’ll be surprised to learn we have access to a broad range of stories, news items, legal documents and even photographs to add more detail about their lives. Places to Look . . . Family Bibles Letters Newspapers Photographs Portraits and paintings

Little Stories

While a large family history project can be quite daunting, it isn’t my only option. I’ve been quite successful telling “little stories”. They could be something as simple as the story behind a particular family heirloom, a special recipe or a family tradition. I was inspired by a book I read some time ago when we lived in Tampa. The book, Ybor City Chronicles, was written by Ferdie Pacheco. He grew up in Ybor City before going on to become known as the “fight doctor” taking care of boxing champ Mohammed Ali. Ferdie stated up front that these are his memories then pulls you into a collection of little stories about the people and cultures found in this diverse community. It’s a delightful book and hard to put down. Following his lead, my little stories are mostly about family and friends who have been part of my life. I’m focused more on describing their habits, foibles and interests. Most are based on my memories but are backed up with sources when I can find them. Other story options include the stories of things. Christmas ornaments and decorations are good places to start. I use my Day One journal to photograph each item and include a paragraph or two describing where it came from and what makes it so special. These little stories make great blog posts. Blogs are not only easy to use, they can even deliver your stories to your family. Blogs are also very search-friendly. They can attract cousins trying to discover more of their family history. What do I do with these little stories? Most of them are written using the Day One journal app. I have Day One on my iPhone and iPad. It allows me to publish selected stories to my personal blogs while maintaining copies in Day One. As my collection of little stories grows, Day One makes it easy to collect, arrange and publish them using Day One’s book printing service. While Day One is free to use, for my purposes, the premium version gives me even more tools to make capturing my stories even easier. Premium costs $35.00/year but it gives me unlimited journals, unlimited secure cloud backup, unlimited photos, videos, audio recordings, drawings and voice-to-text transcription. Premium also makes it possible to email content to my journal and scan documents to PDF using the app’s scan camera. The book printing feature also requires the premium version. Even better, I’m not restricted to just words. Day One on my mobile devices makes it easy to include photographs, video clips, dictation and even drawing. This is just a bit of the many useful Day One features just waiting to help you capture, document and share your stories to family and friends. Take a test drive and see for yourself.

Denise May Levenick is The Family Curator. She is focused on preserving and sharing our family treasures. She is also the author of How to Archive Family Photos and How to Archive Family Keepsakes. Stop by her website to see for yourself. You’ll find her at the family curator.com.

#photos #memories #keepsakes

Traveling Through Time

When you think of time travelers it’s usually in some form of science fiction. There is another kind of time traveling that has little to do with fiction . . . Family history research. Those of us who are fascinated with our family history don’t think of ourselves as time travelers, but we are. Our research takes us to some amazing places as they were many years ago. Often those trips are frustrating, but then we meet an ancestor who is very happy to introduce us to her family and friends.

Recently one such adventure happened to me. I was in Ancestry.com checking out the last batch of new leaves in my online tree. Following one leaf to another user’s tree brought me face-to-face with my third great grandmother, Frances Georgina Scott Barrett.

Delighted as I was to see Frances, I knew she had more to tell me and that I needed to introduce myself to her great great granddaughter, Kay. I was right. Kay has all kinds of information on this branch of the family. One very special treasure is the diary of Georgiana Barrett Devlin. Georgiana is Frances’ daughter and my great great grandfather’s sister.

Kay has transcribed the diary, added notes from her research and published it. Within seconds of learning about this treasure, I had a Kindle copy of the diary and soon found myself in 19th century Mississippi. Georgiana has introduced me to members of the family I never knew existed and helped me sort out family relationships that my research could not. Every time I open her diary, I take another trip back in time.

While Georgiana has given me lots of new directions for my own research. I’m even more indebted to Kay for her work to transcribe and share this wonderful treasure. It also is an inspiration to pay it forward. I have a collection of letters my maternal grandfather wrote my grandmother before they got married in 1913. He died in 1921 so these letters and a few pictures are all we have of him. I have been slowly scanning and transcribing those letters. Kay’s effort with Georgiana’s diary had inspired me to make this project a priority with the hope that it can help other family members with their research.

The Diary of a Southern Lady will keep me on the move between the 19th and 20th centuries for some time while Dolph’s Letters will help me learn more about my grandfather.

#journaling #memories

Journaling

How does a journal fit into storytelling? Today’s digital journals aren’t just for writing. A journal app on a mobile phone is always nearby, making it easy to capture special moments like a child’s first steps. Most of these journaling apps support capturing photos, videos and sounds. Even so, there’s still plenty of room to include text. The stories your journal captures can easily be saved to a writing app for editing and later adding to a storytelling project.

#journaling #memories #dayone

The Lifecards app is a delightful way to create your own cards to share or send to family and friends.

This graphic “story” was created using the Lifecards app. This was just a beginner's try with the app and it worked quite well. Lifecards takes a bit of practice to get started but as you learn, you will soon be creating delightful stories to capture your family's interest in their family's history. The Lifecards app is available in the Apple App Store at a cost of $1.99.

#Lifecard #Barrett

Journaling Your Family History Today’s journaling apps are impressive platforms for managing your research notes and capturing the stories that bring your research to life. Combine a journaling app with cloud storage and you will have access to your research and family stories just about anywhere.

The stories your journal captures can easily be saved to a writing app for editing and adding to a storytelling project. Diarium (PC & mobile devices – iOS & Android) is the most functional diary app for Windows 10. It lets you keep all your memories and notes in one place. With Diarium you can attach photos, drawings, audio recordings, files, tags and locations to your diary entries. Diarium also includes automatic integration to your social media activity (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook). Your diary data can be backed up by exporting and importing the database. The content of your diary entries can also be exported as .docx or .txt files. Diarium costs $19.99 but right now it’s on sale for $5.99. This sale is ending soon so you need to take a look now. Journalist (Windows 10 PC & mobile devices) is more a scrapbook than a diary with drawing tools as well as support for inserting images, audio clips and video clips to your journal pages. The larger screen of a tablet gives you more room for designing and creating journal pages. Journalist is a free Windows 10 app. DayOne (Mac, iOS & Android) is an amazing platform to support your personal journaling and manage your research notes. DayOne is a free app, but to take advantage of it’s premium features (real-time sync from one device to another, unlimited secure and automatic backup, audio recording – voice-to-text transcription, unlimited voice and videos per entry and scanning documents to PDF using the in-app scan camera) will cost $2.92/month billed annually. You can also use DayOne’s book printing feature to build a book from selected posts in your journal. There are many other journaling options so it would be a good idea to check them out to see which best suits you. #journaling

#journaling #storytelling #family history #dayone

The Family Story Workbook

What if you’re not a “writer”?

“Writer” is a strange word. People are so hesitant to claim it. Sure, one might “write,” but to be a “writer” seems to be a more profound idea. But here’s the secret: if you are putting pen to paper or digital ink to your screen, using shapes and squiggles to capture your ideas, no matter how eloquent or simple, you are a writer. Own it. It’s absolutely true. You have a voice. You have opinions. You have ownership over your memories.

Writers write. It’s what writers do.

#Writer #family-history

Journaling Your Family History Have you ever considered using a journaling app for your genealogy research notes and stories? The DayOne journaling app offers a number of features that make it easy to capture, organize and find the notes you add to your DayOne journals. Each note created with DayOne automatically includes the date, place and time it was created. You can also add hashtags - keywords describing the content of each note - by including a hash mark (#) immediately ahead of each keyword. For example - DayOne will automatically identify the #Gervais hashtag as a tag for that note. Later, when you want to find all the notes related to that hashtag, go to the Search box and enter the tag in the Search box. Yes, it’s that easy. Don’t be afraid to include screenshots in your DayOne journal entries. Upgrading to the premium plan gives you unlimited photo storage. Another useful feature is the sharesheet. Tap the share icon at the top right side of the note you are writing. Use it to email this entry to someone, post it to social media or your blog. I’ve tried it with MeWe, Twitter, WordPress and Tumblr and it works beautifully! DayOne is a free app and is available for the Mac desktop along with iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Android devices. There is a premium option ($34.99/year) giving you even more features.These include: • audio recording • voice-to-text transcription • unlimited photos • unlimited journals • cloud backup • all your notes are synced to all your devices • end-to-end encryption for privacy • 25% discount for book printing I have created two books using DayOne’s Book Printing service. It’s really quite simple ... select the journal entries you wish to include in the book, create your cover, choose the printing options and preview your book. Once everything is the way you want it, submit your book. The “cart” is displayed showing you the cost for your book. When everything is the way you want it, upload the book and make your payment (Apple Pay or credit/debit card). Your book should arrive about 7 to 12 business days after you’re submission. Take DayOne on a mobile phone with you to the research library. Use the phone’s camera to scan pages - saving you copy charges. Create a journal for your research, another for blogging and one for your personal journal. It’s one of the best organizing tools you can find. Last, but not least ... DayOne supports Markdown. This means that your notes will not suffer from bit rot. Years from now - when most of the apps you use today are no longer functional - your DayOne journal entries will still be readable.

An Introduction to Tumblr

Tumblr is part microblog and part social network. It is free, easy to use and a great way to share your family history. How can you put it to use? Here are a few ideas: Build a digital scrapbook full of text, photos, maps and other ephemera. Tell the stories your research discovers. Tell the stories of things like family heirlooms, antiques and paintings. Create an inventory of your household treasures - furniture, tools, books, etc. Take photos of these things and scan copies of important documents so you have something to send your insurance agent. Want to generate interest in your family’s history with members of your family? Tumblr is part blog and part social network. It won’t take long before they will follow the stories of your family.

Just a silver spoon? This one has a history. The back of the spoon is engraved with the words, "Flagler System". It has a simple, but elegant design and was manufactured at International Silver Company. It came into our family's possession in 1952 when our parents bought the house at 404 Young Avenue.

Adolph Bittner, the previous owner, had left most of the furnishings in the house when he sold it. Other than commenting on how odd it was to leave so much behind, no one seemed too concerned.

We didn't know much about Mr. Bittner. He was German and had turned the house into the Buccaneer Lodge - a dinner club of sorts. There isn't much describing the Lodge but a number of older members of our family remembered it for dining and parties.

A few years ago, I purchased a book about Marine Studios - the original name for what is now Marineland. In the book was a section on the grand opening celebration dinner held at the Ponce de Leon Hotel. What caught my eye was a mention of the magnificent dolphin ice sculpture decorating the buffet table.

Mr. Adolph Bittner, head waiter at the Ponce de Leon Hotel, had carved it.

#Buccaneer Lodge #Flagler System

Saving Memories

There's a lot more to our family history than just dates and places. That is why FamilySearch isn't just a family tree. FamilySearch Memories makes it possible to include photos and stories so they will be treasured for generations to come. Even better, it costs you nothing. All you need is a FamilySearch account - which also costs you nothing.

What you see here is a person card on the FamilySearch family tree. Not only do you see the ususal details and sources but there is also a link to the Memories section which includes six memories for this person - my mother. Right now there are six Memories included for her but you only see five of them - the photos.

Scroll down the Memories page and you will find sections for documents, stories and even audio.

FamilySearch Memories is an impressive and affordable way to capture and preserve the stories, photos and other memories your research collects. They also provide free mobile apps - for both iOS and Android devices. With these apps and your mobile phone it is easy to capture audio and video moments. Not only are you preserving and sharing those photos and memories with younger family members, you are also preserving them for future generations.

#FamilySearch #Memories

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#storytelling #family stories

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