Writing Your Genealogical Research

Episode #19

It was a dark and stormy night when a rider all in black approached the house. That is a grabber eh? How do the stories of your ancestors begin? Most start out like this, Grace Curtiss was born on December 27, 1874, at 6am on a rainy day. (I know that last fact from my Grandmother). What if we embellish it just a bit. What if it was a dark and stormy night when the doctor showed up on his horse and in the wee hours of the morning Grace was born with a loud cry ready to begin her extraordinary life.

Make your writing just a little bit more exciting and readable for future generations. If you don’t feel comfortable adding the extra, let your computer program do it for you. I personally use Roots Magic and it does this for you in paragraph form from the facts and notes you want to add. From there you can adjust it as you like to make it your own.

Don’t forget to cite your sources at the end of your tale. Nothing is worse than to have someone ask you how you know all this information and you can’t prove it. By using the book Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, you will have no trouble creating those citations.

Give it a shot. Start with one fact and write a short story.