Family Interview Questions

Writing Workshop

HIS STORY, HER STORY, YOUR STORY:

A Writing Workshop

©Vera Booksh Zimmerman 2019 <verazgenealogy.blogspot.com>

It's time to STOP researching and START writing.

Grounding Exercise

Write down 5 things you can SEE.

4 things you can TOUCH

3 things you can HEAR

2 things you can SMELL

1 thing you can TASTE

STEP 1 - Define the scope of your project.

His Story, Her Story or Your Story?

One person or one family or one branch?

One place?

One theme – Childhood, College, Job? Travel?

How you researched and solved a problem?

STEP 2 - Get a 3-ring notebook.

Every time you remember something write a quick summary on one page.

Put the year in upper right hand corner. Expand on each memory. Name your book.

STEP 3 – Make an outline

After you have accumulated enough pages of written memories, read through them. Do you see a theme developing? Make a general outline of your book. Timelines or Chronologies help in putting names, dates and places into narrative form. They also help break the job into manageable bites.

STEP 4 – Start editing your stories

Remember to use all your senses, to SHOW instead of just TELLING.

Find your voice. Be true to yourself. Edit for content first, then grammar and spelling.

Good book to help is Line by Line, Claire Kehrwald Cook (1985, Houghton Miflin, Boston MA)

STEP 5 – Make a deadline and tell someone about it, then DO IT!

BOOKS TO HELP YOU

History of Brevard County, Vol. 1 and 2 – Detailed History of a Place

History of Brevard County, Vol. 3 – Brief History of a Place and Families from that place

Rick Bragg's books – All Over But the Shouting – His story

Ava's Man – Her story and His story

Mama Said: The Mostly True Story of the Begue Family – My Mother's Family

Belle's Letters, A blog - I'm currently working on a blog about my Great Grandmother who left a trunk full of letters, papers and photos. My plan is to turn it into a book when I'm done. <belletisdale.blogspot.com>

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, Jill Lepore (2013, Random House, NY )

Good example of using social history to bring a narrative to life.

Memories to Manuscript: The Five Step Method of Writing Your Life Story

Joan Neubauer (2002, Ancestry Pub., Orem UT)

1- Research

2- Organization

3 – Writing

4 – Editing

5 – Printing and Publishing

We're going to concentrate on Organization and Writing and a little on Editing today.

Terry Armstrong will address Printing and Publishing on September 9.

Patricia Charpentier of Orlando has three books that can help.

Bringing Your Ancestor to Life (2010, LifeStory Pub., Orlando, FL)

A booklet with an outline of 21 steps on Organizing and Writing your story

Eating an Elephant: Writing Your Life One Bite at a Time (2011, LifeStory Pub., Orlando FL)

200 bites or short steps to completing your story (My favorite)

I Remember: 50 Prompts to Write Your Life Story (2011, LifeStory Pub., Orlando, FL)

Old Friend From Far Away, by Natalie Goldberg, (2007, Atria Paperback, Simon & Schuster, NY)

Another book of writing prompts.

Sharon DeBrtolo Carmack, You Can Write Your Family History

(2003, Reprinted 2008, Genealogy Pub. Baltimore, MD)

Her book covers defining the scope of your project and points out the importance of breaking the job into manageable pieces.

She describes 7 types of family history books. (pages 8 – 10)

1 – Reference Genealogies - A bare bones genealogy Who, When, Where

2 – Genealogical Narratives -- One step further, includes research strategies and analysis

3 – Life Story - Historical Biography, Memoir

4 – Family History Narrative - Creative, literary nonfiction

5 – Family History Memoir - Nonfiction story about the author's search for his ancestors

6 – Edited Letters and Diaries - Weaves together documents to tell the story of people's lives

7 - Fictional Family Sagas - Historical fiction based on author's family

She mentions helpful books for each type, one of which is Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking (1995, Betterway Books, Cincinnati Ohio). A good nuts-and-bolts book.

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, (2015, Harper Collins Pub. NY)

She is an award-winning author, a poet and professor of literature at Syracuse U.

How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: 7 Steps to Genius Every Day, by Michael Gelb (1998, Reprinted 2004. Bantam Dell, NY)

It has exercises and lessons on problem solving, creative thinking, enjoying the world around you, goal setting, life balance, and harmonizing body and mind.

Roots Magic has a program called Personal Historian which is available at:

www.rootsmagic.cotom/personal-historian

Amy Johnson Crow's web site and her 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program is very helpful:

www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/

Finding Your Roots

The first new episode of "Finding Your Roots" will air October 8. I want to share this quote by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research

Hosting “Finding Your Roots" is not only profoundly rewarding as a scholar, it's part of a larger mission to inspire us all to seek out the stories of our ancestors – to see history as something that we are all a part of, that we all have a stake in – and, in realizing this, to help us arrive at a deeper understanding of what it means to be part of the human family.

Our series strives to show how all Americans are related, despite our present divisive politics, at the most fundamental levels of all: through our families, through our immigrant experiences, whether forced or voluntary, and at the level of the genome.

Published in the Orlando Sentinel, Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Breaking Through Brick Walls

by Sharon Eller

1   Create a biography of your family.

2   Look at collateral family lines in addition to your direct family line.

3   Look at cluster genealogy.

4   Look at other possible marriages that may have changed names.

5   Look at possible documents that you have collected and not used.

6   Go to local historical societies where your families lived.

7   Review your notes for ideas.

8   Rethink your question that you are researching, have you gotten away from the research       question?

9   Look at the family line again, is it correct?

10  Start over, do a genealogy "do over." https://genealogydoover.com/

11  Go to 0n line Blogs for help /network .

12  Create a timeline for your brickwall person.

13  Is the name spelled correctly and have you looked at spelling variations?

14  Use Congregationalist/Quaker records or alternative records.

15  Review Cyndi's List for genealogy options.

16  Look at court records such as depositions for family information.

17  Watch U tube videos on how to do genealogy or genealogy tips.

      [Good place to start: https://www.thefhguide.com/ The Family History Guide]

18  Make an educated guess.

NARA photos

Here is the information provided by Sharon Eller on  obtaining photos of military personnel
from NARA:

It's really nice to obtain a photographic image of someone you are researching. 

For pre-1960 military personnel, try the National Archives, Still Picture Branch. 

The more information you have, the better. Name, Branch of Service, Military Grade (even if only officer or enlisted), Dates of Service (even if only by year), Military Organization (ie, 29th Infantry, USS Baltimore).

They can be contacted at: stillpix@nara.gov, phone 301-837-0561 or by mail at:

National Archives and Records Administration

Special Media Archives Services Division (RDSS) 

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

It takes about three weeks to get a response. If they have something, they send you a photocopy of the image, including the caption naming the individual(s). 

If you want an actual photo, you have to contract with a commercial provider who reproduces it and ships it to you. Total cost around $20. to $25.

My experience has shown that only around one in fifty names are found. Don't bother if the name is John Johnson.

Notes on Jamestown Rediscovery site

Jamestown Rediscovery:

Visitors Center has over 1,000 artifacts of the nearly 2 million discovered since the 1930s

World renowned Archaerium has over 4,000 artifacts on exhibit.

Jamestown Rediscovery website

https://historicjamestowne.org/archaeology/

Website has information on the Jamestown Biographies Project

has information on more than 1500 settlers available for download for $4.95/each. Free sample on Jeffrey Abbott.

Also mentioned are some useful books for documented lineages:

John Frederick Dorman – Adventurers of Purse and Person, 1607-1624, 3 volumes

Martha McCartney – Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, A Biographical Dictionary,1607-1635

Both are available at the Cocoa Library Genealogy Department.

Archaeologist William Kelso's book Jamestown: The Buried Truth

Intro – p. 4 - Kelso's first look at Jamestown in 1963

Chapter 1 – Review of documentary evidence

                     6 first person accounts and 2 maps, 1 Spanish & 1 Dutch

                        p.9 Quote by George Percy Lt. Gov. 1609

                        p. 10 paintings of Percy and John Smith

Chapter 2 – Rediscovery of James Fort 1994-2005

Chapter 3 – Discovery of Burials

Chapter 4 – Examination of Artifacts

Chapter 5 – Examination of places where representative government began

Book 2 by Kelso – Jamestown: The Truth Revealed

                               Out in paperback in April 2019

Also in a April 2019 – Opening of new exhibits at Jamestown in the 1906 church

Covers 5 burials found in the church:

Ferdanando Weyman d 1610 age 34, uncle of Gov Sir Thomas West

Capt. William West d 1610 killed by indians

Capt. Gabriel Archer, d 1609, age 34 Starving Time

Rev. Robert Hunt, d 1608 age c39

Most recently – Sir George Yeardley – died 1627, age 40

Deputy Governor of Virginia in 1616

Governor of Virginia in 1618

formed the first General Assembly which met in July 1619

Archaeology and genealogy came together in identification

DNA from descendants used

The church will be the site of new exhibits for

the American Evolution Commemoration

designed to describe the events of 1619 and

the beginning of representational government in the United States.

Also see:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/new-archaeological-research-jamestown-reveals-identities

Thinking about Aunt Teenie

Francis Bougere and Marie Ernestine Booksh, Spring 1944

Vera Begue Booksh with daughter Vera Booksh, Wilton Booksh Jr.
and his sister, Marie Ernestine Booksh, Spring 1944

I always think about Aunt Teenie (Marie Ernestine Booksh) on June 6. She and Uncle Bou were married on New Years Eve, 31 December 1943, and they only had a few months together before he left for England. She was only 24 years old when she died on 5 June 1944, the day before D-Day.

The family sent a telegram to her husband, but it wasn't delivered until after the invasion. Uncle Bou was a radioman in the Army Air Corps and they didn't want to distract him from his work on that important day. I was just 3 years old at the time, but I remember it well. It was my first experience of death and I missed her so much. I remember standing at the back door that night and seeing a shooting star. Mama said that meant someone's soul was going to heaven and I was sure it was Aunt Teenie. She was a dear, sweet loving person.