Any story needs a structure. Often readers will only be aware of the structure if it is missing and the book lacks shape. They’ll know there’s something wrong and the story is boring, but they won’t necessarily know why.
Structure depends upon a backbone or skeleton of ideas that help shape the words. If the reader feels confident that the writer’s thoughts are structured, and the material is well organised and leading somewhere, then he or she relaxes and follows the author’s logic.
To shape your story, choose an idea, or an approach that enables you to group ‘bits’ of information under logical steps or stages. Use the chapter headings and sub-headings as indicators of the ‘shape’ of the idea linking together parts of your book. This linking of ideas is the ‘theme’ or ‘themes’ of the book, which are the idea threads running through the history.
Theme and plot are the not the same thing. The plot is the ‘what-happens-next’ and refers to the actual events which you include in the form of facts, anecdotes and descriptions.
Histories can take the shape of a journey or a quest to find a truth or goal. Chapter headings might stress the reasons for the quest, the aims, problems to overcome along the way, and the outcome, evaluating whether or not the original goals were fulfilled.
One ‘quest’ format would be to follow the route taken by one migrating ancestor and compare the present day conditions to his or her times. It would help the reader to trace the journey by displaying maps on the endpapers of the book.
Seeking for a place to settle, inventing, initiating or discovering might provide the ‘quest’ structure for your history. Perhaps your family faced a particular challenge for which one member provided a solution? Did an ancestor invent a plough to be used on stony or arid ground? Did someone in the family form a political association? Discover a path through formerly impenetrable mountains? Start a school? Discover a formula? Invent a machine? Patent an invention?
Another ‘quest’ could be written from your perspective as the historian-seeker of truth and the frustrations and triumphs of your search to find the facts of your ancestors.
For medical reasons I needed to know about my natural family’s genetic history. I had been adopted as a baby. At 25, I discovered I had a genetically inherited disease.
Writing personally may give the story an immediacy, but it may be more subjective and reveal more of yourself than you intended. The goal would be to present the facts but in the order you discovered them, rather than the order in which they happened historically. Emphasis would be upon your research methods and your feelings about the quest. What emerges would be close in style to autobiography or a literary detective story rather than being a ‘report’ of family affairs.
Shaping your history chronologically may mean starting with the first ancestor’s birth date and travelling on to yourself or your children in the present day. This is the easiest way to order the material, but it tends to end up as a list of names and dates of births, marriages, children and deaths. Chronological boredom is something to avoid.
Even if each chapter covers a decade, the information does not have to be only lists of marital data. Ancestors’ stories can be presented more dramatically by choosing anecdotes or mini stories to start the chapters. To ensure the readers’ interest, you could include interpretations of the significance of the short time between birth and death dates, or the importance of politico-social events affecting the family growth or decline.
For instance, you could perhaps start with a wander through a family cemetery using the gravestones as chapter themes. Why were so many called John or Mary Jane Jones? Then flash back to earlier times.
Do you notice any pattern in the choice of occupations of descendants following the transportation of the convict ancestor? When you research the descendants, be aware of their occupations. Did they tend to remain in the same skills area as the ancestors? (For example, builders? Talkers? Or ‘con’ men?)
Maps can be an asset in any history, as appendices, endpapers, or strategically positioned in the text. Endpaper maps may be helpful in indicating the distances travelled.
Often there is a natural history association with a place. It might be a country town, a mountain or a seaside resort. What has the family contributed to this area and in what ways have they been influenced by the location?
For the history of an emigrant family it may be easy to split the book into three sections: ‘The Old Country’, ‘The Journey Out’ and ‘The New Country’.
Another possible contrast in the locale can be drawn by using ‘then’ and ‘now’ photographs, pamphlets and even newspaper clippings.
If you had to describe your extended family to an outsider, what would you include as the dominant motive driving most of their actions, and how is this shown in their history? Was it a desire to make money? A work ethic? A desire for adventure? An inspiration for respectability through conformity? A political philosophy? The wish to serve? Or to overcome a ‘transported convict’ label? Perhaps there are several ‘threads’?
You could structure your family story around a common historical theme:
family matriarchs
inventors
entrepreneurs
religion as a motivation for change
political rebels
gamblers, risk-takers and conservatives
significant decisions and consequences
war and peace time
rebels
community service
‘black sheep’ and weaknesses
family phrases, quotes or mottoes
genetic inheritances: health and illnesses
Compiling a family history requires the skills of a detective since much of genealogy is concerned with searching for historical clues to create ‘the big picture’. You may like to structure your book around the ‘process’ of searching:
Why did you start researching?
How did you organise your project?
How did you progress from the known to the unknown?
What were your hypotheses? What questions were posed? What emerged as certainties? Probabilities? Possibilities?
What did you find? Facts? Documentary evidence? Misunderstandings with long-term implications?
What were the frustrations?
What went wrong?
Were there any unexpected finds? (For example, one woman discovered that her great-grandmother had been married for a short time to a notorious bushranger.)
What emerged as fascinations or developed as passions?
How did you feel about the search? Frustrated? Elated? Satisfied? Surprised?
Which characters appealed? Repelled?
How did other relatives react to your inquiries?
In what form was the final material presented and why?
Were there any unsolved or undiscovered areas for
future research?
Has your research led to any follow-up projects, such as doing another branch of the family?
My father died in the war, when I was just a few months old. Recently I discovered that my blood grouping is B negative and my mother is O positive. I was curious to find out my father’s blood grouping and whether it was negative. It was suggested to me that since he had been in the armed services, his blood type would be on his medical records. I am now checking that out.
Many families inherit boxes or bundles of letters which occasionally give a ‘flavour’ of another world, especially that of the ordinary person facing difficulties. Since some letters tend to be a bit formal or repetitive, or the correspondence may be one-sided, it is more effective to edit a collection of letters or group them with a commentary about the significance of the extracts. Often the frustration in structuring a family history around letters is that replies to the letters you possess are not always available.
Some questions to ask yourself as you go through the letters:
What is it possible to guess from the clues in the existing letters?
Is there a common theme?
Are all the letters written to or from one person?
Do they provide a personal view of a public event? (For example, a civil war? The Depression? Elections?)
Who owns each letter?
Is the writing indecipherable in places and a typed copy needed?
Is any translation needed or are they all
in English?
WARNING! Confidentiality may be an issue if family business, trade secrets or even government information is included in the letters which you are contemplating publishing. Breach of confidence can occur even if the writer is now dead and the descendant owns the copyright in the letters. If any of the subject matter was at all secretive, check before you include it.
Photographs are often difficult to label, especially when there is an elusive face or place. Display these at family reunions, and ask for help in labelling. Or post enlarged copies with request for identification by elderly relatives.
Memorabilia is material that has sentimental value for the original owner and may be considered ‘insightful of a lifestyle’. It brings back memories. At the same time it may be considered ‘rubbish’ or ‘clutter’ by descendants. If there’s been a hoarder in the family, memorabilia may include caps, badges, souvenir items, signed programs or posters, or even jewellery which has sentimental value. A signed bat that cricketer Don Bradman used would be valued as memorabilia by collectors. An autograph collection of ‘famous people’ might be highly valuable.
Some memorabilia is difficult to include in a book of family history. Photographs of the actual memorabilia is one way.
A young fiancé brought back a South African coin from the Boer War and had it mounted as a brooch for his prospective bride with her initials engraved on it. This brooch was passed down the family and has sentimental value for them. A photograph of it with a caption is included in the family album.
Options include taking photographs and including these with captions about the sentimental significance of the objects and forming a ‘photographic collage’, or simply acknowledging them by a ‘listing’ in the text.
A pastiche of newspaper clippings, documents, photos, letters and programs may give a flavour of a life. Occasionally family historians prepare a short ‘This Is Your Life’ collage or multi-media presentation for a significant birthday, anniversary or ritual. A calendar of significant family dates or quotes by family ‘characters’ can make a useful gift.
As a child, when you read books did you skip over the blocks of solid description to get to the ‘talking bits’ (the dialogue) where something was happening? If so, then you’re aware of the importance of the appearance of the paragraphs on the page. If the type looks dense, most people ‘skip lines’. How can you make your description effective?
Make it multi-purpose (describe a character in a place doing something which is significant or a place or ritual that has symbolic significance for the family, such as beachside holiday camp activities as a contrast to daily hard work on the farm).
Blend description with the dialogue.
Make it short (choose just one excellent example and leave out the other two).
When describing a person, choose traits, characteristics or habits that personalise quickly. (For example, ‘Grandpa’s gladstone bag was finger-stained around the clips from years of opening with print-inky fingers.’ This indicates he was associated with printing, kept things a long time and was a character of habit.)
Here are some instances of multi-purpose description:
You can describe a place at the same time as evoking a sense of the community.
Mechanics’ Hall’ was a sign that hung over the only public building, apart from the church, in most small towns. Sometimes it said Mechanics’ Institute Hall. Basically it was an all-purpose hall where footy dances, wedding receptions, concerts and elections were held. Ballet, self-defence, gym and debutante ball practice classes would be held there. Visiting nurses would store their medical records in the locked drawer in the back room. The CWA (Country Women’s Association) members would be familiar with the vagaries of the temperamental oven for ‘heating up the pies’. Catering was a local industry, with familiar dishes donated by ‘good cooks’, with the proceeds going to different charities.
Those ‘rostered’ to sweep, clean and ‘set up’ the hall would be drawn from various community groups. The ones who belonged simultaneously to Red Cross, Rotary, the Football Club and the Fire Brigade, tended to ‘do’ the hall more than once.
Trestle tables would be stacked and folded away behind the stage. At least a couple of the trestles would be wobbly when opened out. There were never enough ‘reliable’ chairs. Midweek, the Scouts and Guides would take their turn. Usually there were some basic toilets ‘out the back’ and often the men would ‘gather around the keg, out the back’ at some social occasion. Often the wooden floor was waxed for dancing, and pre-ball, small children would be permitted to slide on their backsides to ‘polish’ the floorboards.
The Mexican Hat dance was an energetic dance that required all the dancers to land together. One mechanics’ hall couldn’t take the strain. As the dancers landed in time to the beat of the music, the floorboards gave way. Dancers struggled out from jagged, splintered wood and the earth beneath the floor was revealed.
In the next passage, the focus is on one person — grandfather — but the passage also describes the family dynamic indirectly.
The only thing Pa liked more than fishing was showing someone else how to fish. He showed his son Robert, who was my father. Dad hated fishing. Pa made him a rod and all the extras, but it didn’t work.
Then, once I turned six, Pa started on me. I loved fishing beside the river as long as he would let me read at the same time. He was patient about anything to do with fish. It was only people with whom he got impatient. Like Gran, when she used to cook the fish her way. Eating fish was all right with me, whoever cooked it. But for the next ten years, every present Pa gave me had something to do with fish. Rods. Flies. Books. Subscriptions to angling magazines.
The only good thing about Pa’s passion for fish was that we knew what to give him. Apart from new fishing tackle, he just needed an audience for his fishing tales.
He died when I was sixteen, and I can still remember him lying in the hospital. We made a date to go fishing together at Christmas. But it didn’t happen. I went on my own.
In what follows, a process such as taking part in the CFA (country fire authority or community fire brigade) reveals the life of a small town.
In summer, if the fire siren went, everybody dropped their work, climbed on the slow-moving truck and went to fight the fire. There was no sentimentality about fire. Bushfire destroyed fences, animals, homes and lives. Fire was respected. Taking part in the fire brigade was a local initiation for youth. You were expected to help and you did, partly because it could be your place that was threatened next. Often the volunteer fire chief would be a footballer of status and he was respected. Women fire-fighters would be tolerated, especially if their properties were involved, but they weren’t given the high-status jobs.
The CFA met weekly to check the equipment and do a few drills, mostly on a Sunday morning. The antiquated truck would be driven out onto the grass and everything cleaned up. Hoses would be checked and then volunteers would have a beer. In between, the fire hall was used for a weekly game of cards, which was also a fundraiser for a ‘new pumper’. Supper was a bring-your-own donation.
During ‘fires’ the general store owner would donate food and drinks for the fire-fighters. St John’s would ‘patch them up’ afterwards. All the community was involved.
This description reveals ‘abstractions’ of loyalty, patriotism and conscientious objection to war-service.
Staunch Baptists, this family did not agree with war service which required killing others. The compromise was to volunteer for humanitarian wartime service and so there were a disproportionate number of ambulance drivers, orderlies and doctors involved in all wars as a way of ameliorating the damage done by others. Not surprisingly, medical or nursing skills already existed as many family members had been trained or were contemplating service as medical missionaries to Fiji, India and China.
Although conscientious objectors, in one sense, they were also volunteers.
There are various ways to improve a piece of description:
include all the senses (what could be smelled, tasted, touched, seen or heard)
include the character’s reaction to the place, person or process
reduce adjectives
cut out any ‘gush’
shorten the sentences
show rather than tell.
For example, it’s likely that you will need to describe a building of significance in your family history. The main building of significance to your family may have been the farm, the house, the factory, the shop, the ship, the mill, the hospital, the asylum, the hotel, the church, the camp or the parliament.
What did it look like? What was its size, shape and colour? Initial impression upon a newcomer or child?
What was the major smell associated with the place? Food cooking? Manure? Burning? Herbs? Sweat? The sea?
What was the main taste associated with the place? Fresh bread? Dust? New milk?
What sounds dominated? Machinery? Voices? Music? Animals? Trees falling? Trolleys rattling? Seasickness? Arguments?
What did the building and its fixtures feel like? Splintered wood? Hand-smooth counters? Gritty surfaces? Overwhelming?
What do people specifically remember about
the place?
In interviews with the relatives, ask questions that direct their answers to include all the senses. Sample formats for questions might be:
Were there any particular smells you remember about the dairy?
How would you describe the taste of homemade farm bread?
On the voyage out, during the storm, what were the most memorable noises?
From within your current research, choose a building from your past. Describe it in less than five lines. Involve as many senses as possible. Set a character within the description of that place.
Decide upon the viewpoint — I? (first person), he/she (third person) from which to present the description. Which of these descriptions below is the more effective? Why?
1 Dave had a shed in the backyard which he built himself from scrap materials. Sometimes he mended shoes or built furniture in there. He inherited a hand-made violin from his father which he played occasionally and kept permanently in the shed.
2 Dave’s shed was his last refuge from a fussing wife. Sawdust. Curls of wood shavings. A dangling bulb whose swinging light cast moving shadows. Making-do was a Depression legacy, but any electrician would quake at that naked globe and meandering flex. A rough-hewn bench with splinters, tools hanging from wall nails and a smell of glue dominated. New leather soles were stuck on worn shoes perched on two of the three upright ‘feet’ of an old boot salvaged from the tip. Tobacco smoke from the permanent roll-your-own curled from his stained lip. A grey dust-jacket with a torn pocket hung on a nail, just inside the gate-door. He put it on as soon as he entered ‘the shed’.
None of the walls was standard. Recycled corrugated iron. Second-hand glass. Unorthodox shapes. Painted white from a job-lot of paint. But on the bench was a ruby violin perfectly varnished. When open, the violin case was dustless and the bow was carefully positioned. Dave’s father had been a master violin maker, as a hobby. The violin was a legacy.
Occasionally strains of ‘Largo’ or bits of arias would float from ‘the shed’ as he played ‘his fiddle’. In between was the frenetic race-caller’s voice on the dusty radio on the window ledge. For a man who ‘made-do’ and loved mathematical challenges, Dave gambled and lost a lot ‘on the horses’.
The second description is more effective and not because it is longer. Although this description covers most of the senses, and describes the building or ‘place’, it is simultaneously characterising the man. It is a dual purpose description. The underlying contrast in the description is between the ‘making-do’ and the care for the violin.
The first description concentrates just on the facts, without the other suggestions of the personality beneath.
It’s not always possible to check exactly how someone might have spoken in bygone times. Many people were illiterate. Even newspapers tended to report in a more stilted and formal fashion than is usual in an actual conversation. Some words were part of the local dialect or were occupationally based.
Some diarists tended to be very formal and understated even for highly significant occasions. Imagine the shipboard scene which resulted in this short diary entry by Joseph Wilson.
Monday Dec 22nd 1845
This day at about 10 a.m. Mrs W. presented me with another Son and through mercy is doing exceedingly well. Name, William Henry.
A little dramatic licence in ‘re-creating’ is possible.
Create a scene between two people. (More than two is too difficult to manage.) Suggest their relationship: husband/wife, employer/employee, opposing political activists. Did either have an accent or a dialect? Was one in a more powerful position than the other? (The more powerful will tend to ask more questions and control the conversation.)
Using written dialect make difficulties for the reader. Hint at an accent with an occasional word. The same problem arises when writing about an incessant swearer. Technically the repetition becomes too boring for the reader, so the writer must be selective.
Suggest why your two speakers are together at this time. What are their major concerns and worries? Is there any conflict between them? Is this conflict open or covert?
Now read the passage aloud. Does it sound realistic? Often you will need to cut out words for greater realism. Most ‘real’ people do not speak in complete sentences. The occasional use of a common word (for example, ‘Thee’) or phrase of the time or place will suggest an accent. You may need to describe local usage.
An exercise
Consider if you had to create a dialogue between Matilda, a midwife and a storyteller, and the woman who had just had her baby delivered, what might they say? Many women of the time were illiterate and paid great attention to Matilda’s stories. In her tales she also taught herbal lore and how the women could look after their babies’ health. How would you indicate that Matilda’s knowledge put her in a position of authority and yet she might be compassionate to the woman who had just given birth?
Let’s say your research had revealed that two gold miners in the Depression had ‘struck it rich’ and intended going to town to celebrate. The more cautious of the two decided to bury fifty pounds in a sealed tin under a tree, near their campsite in the bush, just in case they come back broke. Here is how you could use dialogue to enliven these facts.
‘Let’s go now.’ Dick dampened down the campfire. He rolled his swag.
‘Just let me bury this first,’ said Andy putting some oilcloth around the pound notes and ramming them in the old tin with the tight lid. Picking up a spade, he dug in the hard soil beneath the tree that was beside the creek. Glancing around, as if to paint the scene on his memory, he said, ‘Just in case .We might come back broke. Like last time.’
‘Last time we didn’t hit a seam as rich as this,’ said Dick.
This conversation is all made up, but the scene is based on the facts supported by a letter and a mining claim document. And the fact of the ‘return to dig up the tin twenty years later’ story told to descendants. Unfortunately the creek had changed its course, but he found the tree because of the iron hook they used in the branches to hold the boiling billy. And the money was still there. When he took it into the bank, the teller joked, ‘Anyone would think you’d buried these!’
Quite often the only information you have about a minor character is a name on a shipping list. That’s a challenge. However, it may be possible to ‘fill in’ further details by conjecture and reading about the period in which the voyage took place. Consider these questions:
What was the name of the ship?
Where was the port of embarkation?
What date did the ship leave? Was the timing particularly relevant? Did this relate to any famines, rural uprisings or political purges?
How many people were on board?
What was the most common status of the passengers? Convicts? Free passengers?
What was the likely fate of a passenger of this age and situation on arrival in Australia or New Zealand?
Did anyone else in the family later comment upon or write about this person?
Was the person literate? Would they sign a cross for their name?
Are there any diaries around from other families of that period describing the voyage or arrival activities?
When describing, touch on the weaknesses as well as the strengths of your ancestors, so the characters appear ‘rounded’ rather than ‘flat’. Often it is a matter of interpretation. What could be admired as ‘steadfastness’ and ‘strength of purpose’ could also be seen as ‘stubbornness’ and ‘narrow-mindedness’. Maybe it is relevant to point out the duality.
Some regarded Rose as ‘narrow-minded’ and ‘stingy’, while others admired her attempts to live within the confines of her beliefs, by eating simply and living modestly. All scraps were recycled into garden compost, ends of cheese were grated and she expected others to live as she did. When she was given an expensive washing machine, she continued to hand-wash her clothes because the machine would use too much electricity.
‘Gush’ or over-praise is one of the problems when faced with describing a character or an organisation that you admire. Try to be even-handed in your descriptions and include the ‘weaknesses’ or the ‘down side’. Here is an example of over-praise or ‘gush’ typified by the adjectives ‘brilliant’ and ‘foresighted.’
Joe Smith was a brilliant, foresighted and charismatic leader. After being an active sportsman in his youth, starting his own sports goods chain and establishing Sportsworks, he was elected as a local government councillor. He then became chairman of every local committee he joined: Buildings and General Works, Finance, Special Projects, Arts & Festivals, Parklands and Sport. In Smithville, the fact that most of the major public parks and buildings bore his name was a testament to his energy. He also donated large blocks of land to the council for community use. Nominated for parliamentary pre-selection, he just missed out by a few votes.
To deepen the description it might be worth investigating why he missed out on pre-selection. Why did he appear to be achievement orientated? What was his motive? Ego? Ambition? A belief in using his talents for the community? Wealth? How did he feel about his name on the buildings? Did he instigate this? Try to suggest more depth to the personality.
In one sense, an organisation may have a character too, and the character can have strengths and weaknesses, depending upon how it is viewed. Here is an example of a ‘positive’ description of an organisation, but notice how there is an attempt to anticipate and answer criticisms of superficiality.
The Country Women’s Association was responsible for educating a whole generation of rural women. Superficially recognised for the cake-making and jam-bottling shows, the CWA was really a rural survival line, providing regular social contact and access to the wider world. Speakers came from ‘outside’ bringing ideas as well as role models. Meetings provided opportunities to learn management skills such as meeting procedure, being a delegate, or writing up minutes. In a country town, ‘belonging to the CWA’ meant being part of a social network which catered for weddings, funerals and every significant function in the community.
One way of writing about a ‘good’ character is to ask a question and then compare the past and the present.
How many young women today would cope with the demands made on great-grandmothers like Elizabeth?
Energetic and resourceful, Elizabeth managed to write in her diary most days, despite looking after thirteen children, helping clear and plant the small selection and delivering others’ babies in her role as midwife. She also made her own bread and preserves and kept a small vegetable garden going.
But she also had a bad temper, or so her nieces remember.
This last characteristic makes Elizabeth sound more believable. However, it would have been both more diplomatic and effective dramatically to include an example of a scene which one of the nieces remembers, and allow the reader to deduce that Elizabeth was occasionally bad tempered.
Why is it that we enjoy talking about the ‘rogues’ discovered during research than talking about the ‘virtuous’? Why do we enjoy having a ‘bushranger’ or a convict buried in our family history? ‘Rogues’ and ‘villains’ are much more interesting to write about because there is more potential conflict in their lives and this provides the necessary drama. They appear more ‘dramatic’ because there is this conflict in their lives.
What often attracts a reader to a character is conflict. This ‘conflict’ doesn’t have to be violent. It may be conflict within the character, which could be a matter of conscience, whether the person should go one way or the other. It may be conflict between characters, such as brothers in a civil war, within a family after the reading of the will, or due to philosophical differences. Alternatively, the conflict might be between the individual and the surrounding environment. This environment might present a physical challenge (a desert or mountains to cross) or could be a social challenge. The individual might feel at odds with the values or practices of the society in which he or she lives. An extreme version would be a criminal in conflict with the rules or laws of society. Other individuals at odds with their community or workplace might include protesters, activists, eccentrics or non-conformists.
Here is a description of a slightly eccentric character. Note the first word of each sentence has been italicised.
Behind the narrow door at the side of the haberdashery counter was a chair. That was Perce’s reading place. Perce, or I.P. Abbott as he was called, was a constant reader. He read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire constantly. When he finished, Perce returned to the beginning and started again. So, a private lending library which doubled as a small haberdashery shop was a logical business for him to run. Unfortunately, he read all the time when he was supposed to be looking after customers and the shop barely made a living. While the customers loved chatting to him, his wife and daughters did the actual selling.
One technique for checking the interest level of your writing style is to mark the first word of each sentence in a sample paragraph as has been done above.
Check to see in your writing if you are using the same word frequently. Often there is a tendency to start each sentence with ‘He’ or the character’s name.
Are the marked words equidistant? If so, you are writing the same length sentence all the time. Vary the lengths to maintain interest. Occasionally use an unexpectedly short sentence.
Start each sentence with a word which ‘advances’ the story (for example, ‘When’, ‘So’ and ‘Unfortunately’).
If you do have some facts available on your researched character, you may find a dossier a good way to organise the material and develop the character. The following headings will help you to organise your research information about a particular ancestor.
Name: This would include nicknames, maiden names, anglicised versions and perhaps roles; for example, Grandmother.
Age span: Date of birth and death. Cause of death. Unusual or typical lifespan for that historical period?
Appearance: If the period is pre-photo, there may be sketches, cameos or a physical description in diaries.
Hair: Colour? Ornaments? Styles? Baldness? Moustaches? Beard? Wig?
Eyes: Colour? Wearer of glasses? Monacle? False eye? Poor sight? Blindness?
Clothes: Was the person a careful and/or fashionable dresser, or did they wear only practical work clothes? Appropriate for the period, price and place? Any idiosyncratic clothes; for example, cape, glasses’ chain, boots, bag? Made-do with recycling others’ clothes? Wealthy? Vain about appearance? Slovenly? Any jewellery as family heirlooms? Watches?
Job or skills: Occupations may have changed several times. Perhaps write up this aspect of your character like a curriculum vitae? Education? Literate? Apprenticeship? Trade? Any war service? Any periods of unemployment? Lived during a Depression or any other time? Circumstances?
Attitude? Word record? References? Any periods of self-employment or employing others? Any family businesses? Unusual abilities or liabilities?
Motivation: What moved, inspired, motivated this character? What were their strongly held beliefs or goals? Religious? Spiritual? Political? Charitable? Philanthropic? Superstitious? Economic?
Hobbies: Were these extensions of daily life skills, alternatives or luxuries? Was there no time for hobbies? Were their interests atypical or typical of the period, family and location?
Strengths: What was this person good at? Personal traits such as leadership, support or keeping people in touch with each other. Strategic planning skills? Making money? Community building? Sharing medical or herbal care? Living frugally? Playing music? Debating? Working hard physically? Losing at gambling? Making friends? Singlemindedness? Physically very strong?
Weaknesses: What was this person not good at? Keeping temper under control? Making money? Supporting a family? Choosing the right business ventures at the right time? Ladies’ man? Stubbornness? Alcohol? Betting? Not keeping a job? Poor judge of character? Physical or mental disability?
Friends: Were they of similar occupation, religion, age, race and/or political outlook? Same sex? Of the extended family? Was marital partner also closest friend?
Family: What was this person’s role within their family? Peacemaker? Matriarch or patriarch? Initiator? Troublemaker? Gossip? Breadwinner? Spiritual adviser? Black sheep? Where did this person fit within the extended family? Any alliances through marriages?
Partner: Marital? Business? Family business? What were the benefits of this partnership? Any problems? Children: Acknowledged? Illegitimate? Fathered by?
Born to?
Adversaries/competitors/enemies?: Sporting? Business? Family? Other?
Aspirations: If they had three wishes (mid-life) they would be
1 .......................................................................................
2 .......................................................................................
3 .......................................................................................
(This enables you to ‘get inside’ the head of the character and see the story from their point of view.)
Greatest problem and how it got worse? This actually provides the drama (the source of conflict) of the person’s story. The problem might be related to a personal trait such as ‘indecisiveness’, ‘gambling’, ‘stubbornness, or ‘poor judgment of character’. When external pressures exacerbate existing tendencies, dramatic situations occur.
Were there any physical disabilities, illnesses or accidents? Financial misfortunes? Crops failing? Shipwrecks? Famine? Flood? Bushfire? Plague? Depression? Bad marriage? Difficulty supporting an extended and quarrelsome family? Loss of faith? Financial crash? Bankruptcy? Civil war? Political disillusionment? Imprisonment?
Once identified this ‘raw material’ of character and collected it in a dossier, the next step is to shape it into a readable story.
Unfortunately the greatest challenge for a writer is to make an ‘ordinary’ person interesting. If the person has been law-abiding and followed the conventional roles of his or her society, it’s difficult to create the ‘drama’ to retain the reader’s interest. There may also be little material outside immediate family sources if this person has no public profile.
One approach is to stress a physical challenge in the history. Luckily, most of the pioneers faced the physical challenges of flood, fire and often famine. By stressing their ‘daily’ courage in the nitty-gritty details of their lives as they fought the physical dangers and struggled to provide enough food and shelter for their growing family, you may be able to keep the reader involved and ‘identifying’ with the major character.
A character who pursues a goal despite significant setbacks will intrigue readers, whether or not they would choose a similar goal. In the eyes of the world, a setback such as losing an election for the leadership of a local organisation may seem small, but it may be significant for the individual, and the historian needs to acknowledge this in the way the material is presented. How a teetotalling family’s ginger beer recipe became the basis of a contemporary soft-drink enterprise succeeding against the beer industry competition can make intriguing reading.
By including ‘daily life details’ and comparing then and now, you enable the reader to sympathise with the ancestors’ courage. Caring for a disabled child, lifelong, may be a quieter form of courage. But if this is presented as sentimentalised ‘goodness’ rather than a matter-of-fact accumulation of the detail of challenges and solutions, then the reader may lose interest. Just as many people enjoy watching documentaries based on occupations or lifestyle in other cultures, many people enjoy reading about how ancestors lived and what they did in their daily working lives. How families survived during wartime and what they ate and wore would interest others. Much depends upon the way the material is presented.
Including humorous anecdotes is another way of retaining the reader and revealing more of the protagonists in the history. Often humour depends upon incongruity or the unexpected response or twist at the end of the tale. Admittedly some of the tales grow across the generations, and verge on ‘tall stories’, but this can be acknowledged by the historian.
‘Bushie’ Uncle John’s prowess as an axeman was accepted, but if he felled that many trees in his lifetime, he would have started well before his sixth birthday.
‘Blandising’ means to make the writing sound bland or boring. It is to be avoided at all costs. Often this happens when a superficial description of the characters is provided rather than examining the motives for the actions. A ‘bland’ history just lists where the family went and what they did without analysing the motivation for their actions.
The style in which it is conveyed may be repetitive, overusing certain ‘neutral’ words, and having consistently long and similarly structured sentences.
Avoid blandising:
Research and analyse the motives for the character’s action. Why did they do that?
For example, why did the want-to-be preacher take on a role of Baptist home missionary when he had thirteen children and a wife to keep? Until then, they had run a moderately successful grocery shop. It folded when he went on his preaching travels. They lost the income from that and the family lost his presence while he was ‘saving souls’ elsewhere. Is it sufficient for the biographer to say, ‘he believed it was God’s will’? If the man did honestly believe that God’s will was sufficient motivation for him to go, then he must have been a man of more complex motives than the biographer suggests. Since there were thirteen living children, perhaps the older ones helped the mother support the younger ones?
Here is another instance. Why was it necessary for the Salvation Army’s Missing Person’s service to be used to locate the missing son on the other side of the world? Had he done anything wrong? Or did the family fear that he might have done something? Had he just decided to break off contact? Did they fear he had been killed fighting in the war? Why had he not told them that he had married and had a child? Was he ashamed about not making his fortune, as he had boasted he would do?
Even if it is not possible to find the answers to all the historian’s questions, just posing them gives the reader more insight and perspectives on the character.
Avoid overuse of ‘neutral’ words such as ‘generally’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, ‘very’ and ‘nice’.
Hint at the dramatic by the use of opening words such as ‘Despite’, ‘In spite of’, ‘Unfortunately’, ‘Fortunately’, ‘Luckily’, ‘Unluckily’, ‘Nevertheless’, ‘Meanwhile’.
Is this to be a retrospective ‘autobiography’ that features your ancestors or is it to be an objective history of your extended family? Will you even use the word ‘I’? Will ‘you’ be mentioned in the story at all?
In one way, ‘you’ will be in the story as you make choices about inclusion and emphasis. As the person doing the work, the decision is up to you. As the researcher, you need to make a decision on viewpoint that is more a matter of technique than ego. What are the options?
First person: ‘I’ or ‘we’ viewpoint All material is seen through the eyes of the compiler. It is a subjective account. The benefits are that the reader tends to be ‘on your side’ and to empathise. However, the ‘I’ viewpoint can be a little overwhelming if the material is tragic or very sentimentalised. Relatives will tend to be described in terms of their relationship to you (for example, Grandma, not Agnes) and others may not necessarily agree with your interpretation.
First person assumed ‘I’ viewpoint This is when you ‘take-on’ an assumed personality and write from this persona’s viewpoint. It may be someone of a different age or sex from you. Not very relevant as a technique for a family history.
Second person ‘You’ This is a very awkward angle. The only benefit is that ‘you’ may be singular or plural.
Third person he/she or ‘they’ This is a more objective or ‘outside’ viewpoint and enables the compiler to cover a wider range of unrelated ideas, issues, people, periods and places. The danger lies in ending up with a list rather than personalising the characters through cameos or anecdotes.
A mixture of viewpoints You may decide to include several ‘first person’ accounts in an anthology style. Your choice of viewpoint and whether the style is subjective or objective will affect certain conventions within the book. Consider:
How will you refer to people? By their relationship to you? Position in the family? By their formal names? By their nicknames? (For example, will it be Great-grandfather William or Willie Smith Snr or just ‘William’?)
If most of the females in your family are called Elizabeth or Mary, how will you distinguish between the generations? Will you use their nicknames, ‘pet’ family names, maiden surnames or their married names?
To what extent will ‘I’ really be you, if it is written from the first person viewpoint? And to what extent might it be an assumed personality or ‘persona’ of the narrator to give coherence to the story?
As narrator will you have an authorial presence and make comments or pronouncements on the significance of the event? Or will you remain neutral?
This is an example of a first person viewpoint (the relatives are referred to as ‘our’ and ‘my’) but there is some authorial comment in discussing the possible significance of the anecdote.
As an Australian Jewish family with few surviving relatives after World War II concentration Nazi camps, our attitude towards collaborators was mixed. Anguished by the amount of death and deprivation, there was also some understanding of the circumstances in which a person might have been pressured to collaborate. So when I discovered that a great-uncle had survived the camps, I couldn’t understand the barely suppressed anger of my mother (his niece) when she visited him in a flat in Vienna in the 1950s when I was a child. I remember a cold, dark flat, animosity and an argument terminating a short visit.
Only later, in the 1970s, when I visited the spirited but elderly great-aunt in London who had survived the camps, and who had been married to him, did I discover that the family had kept secret from her the fact of his survival. She thought he had died, along with their child, in the concentration camp. But he had lived, by collaborating, and for some reason, the family had decided to keep the knowledge of his presence from her. By the time I spoke to her, he had already died in the mid-1960s.
Questions remain unanswered. Had the family wished to save her anguish? Did he want to keep his existence secret from her? Did he fear her reaction to his collaboration? Did he know what happened to their child? Is it fair that a husband and wife be kept apart and even unaware of the other’s existence because of a decision others have made? All these questions remain unanswered.
A good suggestion is to write the first draft. You may decide to change the viewpoint after this. Alternatively, you may leave in ‘first person subjective accounts’ and link these with more objective ‘third person’ commentary.
How would you include yourself?
As a character in the last (that is, the most historically recent) chapter?
As the ‘teller’ of a quest to find the truth about inheritance?
In photos?
In the family tree diagram?
In the choice and arrangement of words (style of writing)?
What if the relatives disagree? What if there are three versions of that event?
Sometimes it is possible to check relatives’ differing versions of people, places or dates against records such as documents or certificates or even newspaper clippings. Other times, it is a matter of judging one version against the others or including all.
The following paragraph is an attempt to introduce, in a balanced way, a variety of individually written family accounts of the same period. It is a diplomatic opening to a chapter which contains differing points of view of the same event.
Wartime caused special problems. Several versions exist of what happened within the family on the eve of World War II. Being Italian-born, some were fearful of being interned as aliens, others wanted to enlist with the Allied forces, and others wanted to remain neutral. It was a difficult time for a migrant family that contained people of differing political views.
After you’ve written the first draft of your history, send copies of the relevant chapters to the appropriate contributors or descendants and ask them if there’s anything they’d like to add. At least they’ve then seen the copy if they complain later. If errors of fact are pointed out, and evidence provided, then of course, you will rewrite. But if the queries are about matters of interpretation, then you must make the final decision as to what is to be included and why.
An apt title is vital. An effective title should give an indication of the content of a book and the style in which it is written. A humorous ‘romp’ through family history would have a different style of title from a more serious military history.
Make the title work for you as an advertisement. It should be easy to say aloud. Chapter headings and even subheadings help order your writerly thoughts, as well as indicate the content to a prospective reader.
Frequently author-historians tend to label their stories in predictable ways by family name, time or locations: The McGarvie Family History 1844–1994, The Chapples: From Exeter to the Goldfields, The Collas Chronicles, Voyage to Australia Log Book Sept 1st 1841.
John Low’s Pictorial Memories: Blue Mountains starts with a most effective chapter entitled ‘Why Are the Blue Mountains Blue?’ By starting with the sort of question most people tend to ask, he attracts attention immediately.
You could take the ten most commonly asked questions about your period of history and use them as the basis of chapter headings. ‘Why?’, ‘Where?’, ‘How?’, ‘When?’ and ‘What?’ are good starting points. These might take the form of rough chapter headings such as ‘Why did they leave?’, ‘Where did they go?’, ‘How did they manage to build their first home?’ Once you have the content organised, you might revamp the chapter headings to make them more enticing (for example, ‘Choosing to Migrate or Being Forced?’).
Inevitably some titles are linked to a location or time. Perhaps some alliteration or repetition of sounds can make the title sound more attractive and memorable (for example, Merilyn Ramsay’s Steam to Strzelecki: The Koo-wee-rup to McDonald’s Railway Track. Reece and Pascoe’s A Place of Consequence: A Pictorial History of Fremantle contains an effective and poetic opening chapter entitled ‘The Skin of the Past’ which gives the ‘warts and all’ rationale for writing the book.
A School in the Marsh: 125 Years at No 28 by the students of Bacchus Marsh Primary School, assisted by writer Jill Morris and illustrator Ann James, contains endpaper collages of pens, books and ‘schoolish’ memorabilia. A chapter called ‘High Flyers’ lists famous old girls and boys. Because of the approachable scrapbook layout, the book is very reader-friendly, but the emphasis in the title is upon identifying information.
Some more effective titles may be provocative, ambiguous or witty. Consider your title as a working title only and one which can be improved upon.
Perhaps your can use:
A common family saying?
A question?
An ambiguous phrase where multiple meanings apply?
A quote from someone interviewed in the book?
A contrast or suggested conflict? (For example, The Sound and the Fury.)
An oxymoron (apparently self-contradictory) title (Courageous Fools, Unbelievably Believable or Wills Won’t, referring to inherited property disputes).
A listing of three characteristics but with an unusual, thought-provoking third one (such as, Wool, Wheat and Whingers).
A phrase that an interviewee has used, or a quote you find in an ancestor’s letters. ‘A goal is a dream with a deadline’ was a phrase often used in one family and typified their attitude but it was too long for the title. Deadline for a Dream became their shortened working title.
A factual subtitle to explain the experience to which it refers. Historicars was the working title for an automotive family who also collected cars. Composing a book is like orchestrating music. Motifs or recurring themes need to be included.
A play on words to produce witty titles like The Ghost of Honour or The Grogfather, but they need to be relevant to the history inside.
Don’t adopt an existing title. This is not illegal but it is confusing.
Avoid calling it The X (surname) Family. You can do better than this.
Dramatising simply means writing some ‘drama’, ‘conflict’ or ‘contrast’ into a scene. Then a story will become more ‘dramatic’. Conflict does not necessarily mean violence. It can mean juxtaposing contrasts, or putting in the unexpected.
Often by including the unexpected hobbies, habits or actions of ancestors which sound almost out of character, you provide a surprising insight into the contrasting ‘colour’ of their lives. These unexpected insights may be found by asking: What did they do to relax? What was acceptable on holidays or during rituals such as funerals or weddings? Are there any unusual mementos that indicate what the person valued? Are there any ‘unexpected’ or ‘atypical’ actions which cause you as the researcher to say to friends, ‘Hey, I found out this really unusual fact about my ancestor’?
The reader is expecting one attitude and then you insert an unexpected reaction, characteristic or event. For example, the revelation that a rough bushman had a passion for operatic arias: the unexpected event of a religiously segregated town suddenly coming together at the wedding of a bride and groom drawn from opposite sides. This is the type of material from which drama is created in a story.
Thinking in ‘scenes’ is one way of making the telling more dramatic. Imagine that a film or TV mini-series is going to be made from your book. What happens in this scene? Where is it shot? Which characters are involved? Why are they there? Can they be easily distinguished by the way they appear, speak or act? What do we learn about the characters from what they say or do? Or what they don’t say? What is the plot point or purpose of the scene? (To show how they coped bravely/stupidly with danger? That they were resourceful or lacked foresight?) What underlying or obvious conflicts exist between the characters?
Ordering the material by starting with the most dramatic helps to attract and retain reader interest. So ask yourself, what is the most interesting incident you have researched? Start the first chapter with this.
An anecdote is a mini story. This is more inclined to grab the attention of the reader than a list of dates and names. Below is an instance of an interesting anecdote used as the opening to a chapter.
It was after the funeral of Jack’s mother that he discovered she wasn’t his natural mother. ‘Mum’, the woman who was being buried, and who had brought him up, was his grandmother. His ‘real’ or ‘birth’ mother was Bessie, whom he had thought was his sister.
It was only during the family discussion about what should go on Mum’s headstone that Jack found his name was not to be included as her son.
Imagine this ‘gravestone discussion’ as a dramatic opening scene for a film.
Basic information can also be rewritten in a slightly more dramatic way by suggesting future conflict. So a relatively boring opening — ‘In 1843, from England, a young carpenter sailed with his wife and baby as “assisted migrants” to Australia’ — can be rewritten to open up dramatic possibilities and hint at future developments to encourage the readers to continue reading: ‘When Joseph sailed from England, he took everything with him: his wife, baby, carpentry skills and a spirited naïveté. His descendants were spirited too, but in a different way.’
‘Subtext’ refers to what is going on beneath, or is suggested by, the most obvious message of the writing. Subtext may be suggested through the character, the setting or the actions.
There are different ways of writing up a character to hint at more subtle motivations underneath. For example, the character of Agnes is portrayed in three different ways, but using the same raw information. Which of these three descriptions of the character works the most effectively?
1 Intelligent, handsome and strong-willed, Agnes worked hard at keeping her extended family together.
2 Agnes was an intelligent, strong-minded, physically attractive woman who had helped her family lift themselves above their Gorbals slums upbringing. She also kept them ‘under her thumb’.
3 Matriarch Agnes asked questions in a broad Glaswegian accent and expected answers. ‘D’you drink? Are y’ religious? What work do you do?’ Her grey hair was coiled aristocratically on top of her head. Her navy ‘best’ dress had fitted that category for years. The hazel eyes controlled the roomful of relatives. The inquisition of her favourite brother’s newly found descendants continued.
Dramatising the scene through dialogue and carefully selected description is more effective than simply listing. She is commanding (domineering), frugal (same dress) and the questions she poses give an indication of her values.
Consider the subtext of this diary entry:
Our house now being in a habitable condition, we this day moved into it after residing with the family of our friend Mr Mourity nearly eleven weeks, during which time we had experienced unabated kindness and the fullest proof of Christian affection.
Given there were three extra children and two adults in a small household for eleven weeks, it would be reasonable to assume there had been some friction. However it would not have been considered appropriate for the male diarist to mention that. But the narrator might deduce something from the facts.
Actions too can have a subtext or something going on underneath:
Going to the goldfields, he considered an adventure. Even riding to Ballarat on the coach was exciting to a young man just out of school. But when he was knee-deep in mud, hungry and running out of money, the adventure began to sour.
Within each chapter, try to begin with one of the most interesting anecdotes. Include the more mundane information in the middle or put it in a chart or diagram. Consider how the layout might contribute to a more interesting portrayal of the facts.
Within your book, put the more interesting material in the earlier chapters and ‘bury’ the other material in the middle. Save the second most interesting material for the last chapter.
A theme is an idea thread that runs through your book. The best way to explain it would be to imagine a large and colourful tapestry hanging in a gallery. All visitors agree that there are blue, red, yellow, black and green colours in the work of art, but one visitor feels the red dominates. Another acknowledges all the colours but feels the green is most powerful. A third visitor argues for the importance of the yellow. Idea themes are like colour threads through the fabric of the story. All contribute to the story, but often it is a matter of personal interpretation as to the relative importance of the themes. So it would be possible to have several themes, but probably one would dominate.
A reader of a family history might agree that there are themes of passionate rebellion versus realistic acceptance, or extravagance versus economical struggling as major themes which run in the family. Another reader of the same history might interpret the theme as passionate struggle. Yet another acknowledges the passion as being present, but may label the theme of tolerance as being dominant in this family’s history. Interpretations vary.
Basically, what would you say in answer to the question, ‘What is your book about?’ If you just say, ‘It is about the Brown family,’ you are not saying which themes are threaded through the book.
Struggle against the elements, a romantic exploration, the questing individual against the conservative community, passionate love or hate, struggling pioneers in a new land or the dangers of impetuousness — all could be themes.
Often the theme will be picked up in the book’s subtitle, such as ‘Spirited Adventurers’, ‘Strugglers’ or ‘Strength in Adversity’. Quite often there is an inherent conflict or opposites being put together in the themes, such as ‘sound and fury’ or ‘conservative entrepreneurs’ or ‘the strength of the weaklings’. How the family works out a compromise between opposing forces, and romance overcomes reason or vice versa, will provide a linking theme in the book.
Sometimes the writer starts with a dominant theme and this influences the naming of the chapters. At other times, the theme develops naturally from the content of the research.
It’s likely that your theme will be mentioned early in your blurb, written to go on the back of your book. Space permitting, you may be able to mention minor themes or less important idea threads too. Being able to talk of the dominant themes in your story is an economical way of explaining the major forces motivating your ancestors’ actions and reactions.
Do you think in pictures, words or some other way? Imagine each chapter of a book as a graph which opens on the flat, rises quickly, drops a few times, peaks for a climax and then finishes on a higher note than the opening.
Just as sentences and paragraphs need to be structured, so do chapters. The reader’s attention must be grabbed within the first paragraph. Suppose you start with a question or even an anecdote. Perhaps you could begin with an unexpected statement. That’s fine. But then you need to retain that interest. Sometimes this can be helped by varying the length or composition of the sentence. Select details that will personify quickly. Don’t put in every example just because you’ve done all that research. Try inserting some dialogue, so characters are actually talking to each other or even to the reader. That also breaks up the page. The simple answer is to put the most intriguing material first, whether within the sentence, within the paragraph or within the chapter.
The second paragraph needs to be an orientating one when the reader is told the facts. Answer the where, what, how, when and why questions which provide a perspective on the subject. Although the following example sounds like a ‘chatty personality piece’ there are facts such as the ancestor’s name, his wife’s name, types of sales, companies he worked for and an indication of how he felt about his work.
‘Let me tell you about where I’ve worked. I’ve been in all the big stores.’
A good talker, Ken Jacka worked in sales for forty years since reluctantly leaving school aged fourteen. He’d sold furniture, electrical goods, books and even children’s toys with most of the major departmental stores including Myer, David Jones and Foy until it closed. He wasn’t pushy, just talkative and he tended to believe in what he sold. Often he kept talking, even after the sale could be made. Talking was his occupation and his hobby.
‘Sarah, my wife, says I could talk the hind leg off a donkey,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘I’ve never sold them; donkeys, I mean.’
Some orientating paragraphs or sentences would need to be more formal, supplying dates, places and names such as:
In 1950 Albert Smith gratefully moved his growing family of five into the allocated three bedroom Housing Commission house in the Melbourne suburb of Alamein. Post-war, rental accommodation was in short supply and the opportunity to buy his first home with a small down payment was a step up from earlier rootlessness.
It’s wise to have chapters of roughly the same length. For example, if you’re going to have approximately 2000 words per chapter, that comes to roughly eight pages per chapter. Make sure there are some illustrations, charts or diagrams to break up the print on pages likely to look heavy going for the reader. Allow characters to talk in direct speech.
In the middle, arrange the least interesting material in as well written a fashion as possible. Avoid long sentences. Pose authorial questions such as, ‘Was it the isolation of working in the lighthouse which attracted the taciturn Jones, or the fact that they were not skilled sailors in a seaside town?’ or ‘Why were so many of the Taylors’ daughters married to others working within the family funeral directing business?’ Then follow with several hypotheses or possible answers.
A ‘hook’ at the end of a chapter is an intriguing statement or question that teases the reader to turn the page and continue reading the next chapter. It is a link, but it also tantalises by arousing curiosity. Some examples might include:
Pre-war, Sylvia trained as a nurse, but it wasn’t until she enlisted that some of her formerly unappreciated talents were in demand. Wartime made a massive difference to all levels of society, and suddenly Sylvia was in the midst of it.
What else might happen to a hungry, Polish-speaking boy lost in an occupied zone?
Unlike the rest of her gambling family, Genevieve suddenly began making serious money, but not from the clothing business that she had originally started.
At the end of your last chapter, it is appropriate to have an emotionally satisfying conclusion. Try to ensure you have answered all the questions raised earlier in your writing about the historical research. It may even be valid to explain why some questions were unanswerable. Perhaps reiterate what you consider are the major themes which have developed during the writing of this family history. Leave the reader with hope.
Most readers like to know about ‘personalities’ and relate to the character’s motivations and awkward moments from history rather than just read lists of duties and locations. However, there is a danger in some stories to get ‘over-dramatised’ in tellings over the generations. Some anecdotes will prove difficult to check. If you are uncertain of the validity of some stories and can’t check through documentary evidence, you might still include them, but with a proviso.
Family tradition claims that great-great-grandmother was married to the notorious bushranger, but it’s difficult to find documentary evidence. Certainly the family did live in that area during the period of the bushranging gang’s greatest activity but no marriage certificate can be found. Possibly they lived together as common-law husband and wife during his periodic ‘stays’ in the district and when he wasn’t in prison. Nonetheless, family members enjoy claiming the notorious connection.
Allow relatives to read early drafts of the book for diplomatic reasons. While they may feel obliged to ‘fiddle’ with grammar or spelling and make editorial suggestions which create more work for you, it is also insurance. If they’ve seen the draft, they’ve had a chance to check the content and voice any disapproval. They may also pick up on any errors of fact or interpretation. Psychologically, they also feel more ‘ownership’ of the project if they have been involved in an earlier stage.
Attach a cover letter or questionnaire to the relevant photocopied or scanned sections. It might look like this.
Your address
The date
Dear …
Thank you for offering to read the second draft manuscript of Our Family History which has taken two years to research and write. The final book will be launched at the family picnic to celebrate the 100th birthday of Amelia in September this year. If you have any comments or corrections to make, please do this on the manuscript as it makes it easier and quicker for me to alter on the disc.
The manuscript has question marks in the margin of the paragraphs that I would particularly like you to check. My concerns are the ‘lost years’ after 1837 and if you have any specific information to add. I’m also seeking further information on ‘Uncle Gergio’ who seemed to vanish during WWI.
Could you also help with identifying who is in the photo on page 44?
Thank you for your help and I look forward to meeting you at the picnic. Copies will be on sale that day at cost price to family members.
Yours,
Reading the story onto an audio device can be a way of checking the style and readability of your work. It also makes it available for checking by family members whose eyesight is poor or those who prefer to listen while they drive.
Checking that the captions identifying people in photographs are accurate is another way of involving relatives. It may be necessary to have some photos blown up so faces can be seen more clearly.
Experienced genealogists agree that most families have ‘secrets’ and the challenge is how to present the facts tactfully. If material is on public record, and is freely available in public records such as institutional files of inmates, or in registers of births, marriages or deaths, then it should be included.
However, the way the material is ‘featured’ in the family history is another decision to be made. Often something considered controversial in earlier days, such as mental illness or illegitimacy, may no longer be viewed in that way.
Including the illegitimate offspring or children of incestuous relationships on family tree diagrams is no longer seen as a problem and are usually indicated by a line or an ‘and’ connecting the parents.
Often the issue comes down to the fact that an ‘older’ member or particular branch of the family may be ‘hurt’ by the inclusion of what they would have considered ‘shocking’ information. Some historians hold publication until after the death of the ‘older’ generation, some use small print and others treat the issue in a matter-of-fact way and don’t draw attention by the placement, print size or position in the book. Some believe that all ‘facts’ must be included because later generations will rely on these resources. Others ‘leave out’ material or include the document or data but don’t draw any conclusions about the significance, leaving it to the readers to deduce for themselves.
Some fundamentalist religious groups would not regard it as acceptable to include those who have left their group on grounds of religious differences. So sometimes it is the ‘gaps’ which can be revealing.
As mentioned earlier, copyright in love letters belong to the descendants of the letter writer, not the recipient.
Clarify these issues in your own mind before you start. Interviews can be very pleasurable experiences for both participants or they can be a strain if not well organised.
Why do you want to interview this person? Because of their former lifestyle? What they know about others? Because of their role in the family? To clarify events, interpretations or facts? Because this person is the oldest surviving family member? Because they have requested the interview?
How are they likely to react to a request for an interview? Pleased at the compliment? Hostile? Apprehensive of the technology? Able to enjoy the social diversion of talking to a willing listener?
Will you audio record, take notes or do both? Battery or mains-powered recorder? (New batteries save fussing around looking for a convenient power point.)
How long will the interview take? An hour? Shorter? Longer? No idea?
Will the interview be held ‘on location’ in the person’s home or work? If not, where will you meet? Halfway? Any likely interruptions?
Any anticipated problems? (Deafness of interviewee? Wary of being asked to talk about a controversial family issue? Difficulty in keeping a known ‘talker’ on track?)
Will you send the questions ahead of time? (This tends to formalise the meeting but also enables them to prepare and to ‘look up’ and ‘think about’ more obscure topics.)
Will you interview individuals or a group? Why? Group interviews often help jog the memory of participants, but they can get out of hand. Perhaps interview individually first, and then have a group session at the end?
Are you ‘doing a favour’ by interviewing someone who loves to talk, or is a busy person doing you a favour by making time for your interview? Always send a note of thanks after the session and acknowledge their contribution in the book
Make sure you keep contact details of the interviewee’s full name, address and phone number. You may need to cross-check information later.
Confidentiality may be an issue. If you are told something ‘off the record’ then you must respect this and not reveal the information in public. But it may help you frame another question which elicits an ‘on the record’ answer.
There’s a difference between conducting an effective interview and just having a chat. An interview means collecting answers to specific questions. A chat might meander anywhere.
Often it is more difficult to interview someone you know even slightly, than to interview a stranger. The chances are that the majority of your interviewees will be related to you or at least know something about you. This makes it harder to focus the interview on the topics that you want covered.
An hour is about the optimum length for an effective interview. Use every minute.
Have a list of at least ten questions prepared. Make sure each question is ‘open ended’, allowing the interviewee to say more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’. (For example, don’t ask, ‘Did you like working in the bush as a young man?’ Instead ask, ‘What did you like most/ least about working in the bush as a young man?’)
Direct your interviewee. (For example, ask ‘What do you remember about the wakes held after family funerals?’ rather than ‘Do you remember anything about family wakes after funerals?)
Keep to the questions. A good reason for sticking to the questions or at least pulling the interviewee back to the main issue is that for each hour of recording, it will probably take you at least a day to transcribe and even longer to write up the hour-long interview selectively.
Interviews can be conducted in person, on the phone, on web-cam, e-mail or in the form of letters replying to specific questions. Another possibility is to post an audio tape for the subject to speak into and return. Always include a self-addressed padded bag with appropriate postage.
E-mail or web chat requests are a possibility for the hi-tech, but most elderly relatives tend to favour snail mail.
Phone interviews are not as personal, but may be quicker than face-to-face sessions. You may need to check whether it is permissible for you to attach the microphone of a recorder, even when you have the permission of the person speaking. You are not supposed to do this if the person doesn’t know they are being recorded. Remember that the person’s stories do actually belong to them, not to you.
There’s a tremendous advantage in seeing people in their own surroundings. Often the decorations or even the appliances will indicate much about the person’s values and lifestyle. (For example, an elderly cricket coach had photos of ‘all my girls’ on the TV set which they had given her. She also had a massive THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign on the wall of her living room. That sign did reveal something of her values.)
Being able to see how a machine works in a factory which is relevant to the family business, is more use to the writer than photographs or descriptions.
Often family members may live kilometres away from each other, interstate or even overseas. So this means that interviews have to be planned over a considerable period. To save time and money, it may be necessary to interview a relative when you are in that place for another reason.
Another alternative is to arrange a ‘reunion’ or central gathering and have the ‘subjects’ come to you. Informally, this often tends to happen around funerals when family gossip is exchanged and the house of the deceased has to be ‘cleaned out’ revealing historic documents, photos and memorabilia. However, it might be more appropriate to arrange a ‘festive’ occasion when relatives meet at a central location and bring requested photographs. If the interviewer is prepared to work hard, and plan a tight schedule, it may be possible to conduct six to ten interviews over a weekend.
Even if you haven’t used a computer before, storing material electronically is a fast and efficient way of working. When you start writing it is also possible to change the order of the material without retyping.
Prepare a standard list of questions, but be prepared to deviate if an interesting but unanticipated issue comes up. Obviously the type of question will be affected by the focus of your book, but some all-purpose ones include:
Did any funny (humorous) incidents occur during your schooldays/childhood/workdays?
In what ways are conditions different now?
What is your strongest memory of X?
Could you describe what you would have done on a typical day? What time would you get up? How would you get to work? What would you do there? What would you eat?
What was your favourite meal/activity/time of the day/ year?
Often interviewees ramble. Bring them back to your major issues by using phrases such as: ‘Yes, wartime rations were limited. But I’m very interested in how food was allocated. And whether those who lived in the country ate better?’
That is, agree. Repeat part of what they have said and then pull the topic back to what you need to know.
Keep a running list of contacts they mention during the interview and follow up on them too.
Keep duplicates of audio and manuscripts, preferably in different locations.
I store backups in my sister’s house. After a fire at our previous home, I’m really careful about the original documents and always keep duplicates elsewhere.
A variety of software programs, such as Relatively Yours, exist that may be of help to the historian trying to structure their family history. Prices range enormously and some are in the public domain and free.
Apart from the differences in price, the programs can also vary in approach. Some are suited to historians who want to compile a mainly pictorial record, others are suited to those with many letters and documentary extracts to include.
So the choice of program may be determined mainly by the format of the data you have already accumulated. Often local historical societies will have demonstration discs of various programs, so you can try before you buy.