I like the research aspect of doing genealogy, but I feel compelled to write. Maybe one of my ancestors is quietly whispering, "Tell my story."

I enter data into my genealogy program, but the reports that it generates are not what my children want to see. The "canned" phrases are stilted and artificial. They are boring!

I sit down at my computer or take a pencil and pad of paper and consider what to write. I don't have writer’s block. Rather, I need to think about what I've collected for the ancestor at hand. I usually have a strange collection of documents, some censuses, perhaps a family story, a few vital records, maybe a deed or two. For some ancestors, I have a piece of furniture or a photo or a book that belonged to them. How do I put all of this into a story without it being clumsy or boring?

I look at the newspapers for clues on how to make the stories interesting. They must sell tens of thousands of papers each day, and people will buy the paper if the articles are interesting. The online version of Columbian, www.columbian.com, has a "Top Story of the Week" section. Popular articles include human-interest stories and weird crimes.

Consistently, obituaries are winners in the Top Stories. Perhaps that is what I can write for my children — an obituary for my ancestors. I can include the vital information about birth, death, and marriage. Most importantly, I can include the human-interest accounts.

I should begin with the people that my children did not know. I can record my memories about them without too much difficulty. For instance, I have a mental image of Grandma Stariha with a freshly-ironed apron covering her cotton work-dress. It’s Christmas-time, and we are all gathered at her house. I'm about 13-years-old and am playing a board game with my cousins. Grandma is standing at the woodstove, and the dim light bulb is hanging down from the ceiling. She is reading a letter. Since she didn’t read much English, the letter had to be from a Slovenian relative. Oh, yes, I definitely need to get the stories out of my head and on to paper.

December is a month for writing. It is a time to get the stories out of our heads and onto a piece of paper that we can give to our relatives. This, too, is family history.

© 2000–2009

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.