Writing a family history book is an excellent way of strengthening the bond in the family, preserving the family’s heritage, and passing on relevant information about the family tradition to future generations.
In the family history book, the achievements and struggles of your ancestors are recorded so they will not be forgotten.
The stories and lessons you learn from reading the family history book tend to create memories and moments that bind family members together and further educate the future generations about their roots and the values and morals that make the family what it is.
However, despite all the nice benefits one would achieve from writing a family history book, doing so is not a walk in the park. It requires hours of research, brainstorming, asking questions, collaborating with other family members, and above all, the zeal to complete what you started.
Knowing all of these, I have decided to share with you the easy steps to take when writing your family history book so the process will be super easy for you.
Key Takeaways
- Creating a family history book is an excellent way of preserving your family’s heritage and passing down family traditions to the younger generations.
- To make the process seamless and easy, use tools like Meminto.
Writing a Family History Book
Step 1: Have a Plan
Before setting out to write a family history book, it is important to have a plan of how you intend to start and hit your set goal of writing and finishing the book. Ask yourself simple questions like, What do I want to achieve from writing this family history book?
That way, you know the book will be for only members of your family or for the entire public. Another thing having a plan would help you do is know the scope of your book.
For instance, if your goal is to write a family history book from the past seven generations, you may likely not have enough stories to tell about your ancestors, and vital documents like photos will be fewer as well. In fact, the information you will gather will be limited compared to when you want to write for the nearer generations, say the third or second. You will more likely have an abundance of stories, photos, and facts to use in your history book.
Apart from the scope or period of time you are starting your family history book from, another thing to consider is if you are writing in a storytelling style or just a basic narrative and facts about your family kind of style. If you choose the storytelling style, you would have a much bigger history book like a novel than the latter, and it would take a longer time before completion.
Lastly, the length of time you want to start and finish your history book should be something you should consider and plan about before writing. If your goal is to start and finish in a month, you would want to ask for collaboration from family members or hire the services of professional ghostwriters to assist you in writing.
However, this depends on how large your family is and if you are using the storytelling method. But if you are using a brief narrative style of straight-to-the point information about each member of the family, then a month should be enough.
Step 2: Gather Information
After you know how you want to write your family history book and the goal you intend to achieve in the end, the next step to take is to gather all the necessary information you need to successfully write your family history book.
To do this, you will have to conduct some intensive research about your family to collect relevant data and information about every member of the family that you would feature in your history book.
The research can be in the form of an interview where you prepare a list of questions to ask family members about themselves and relatives. While they are answering your questions, you can take notes of detailed and specific information or simply record their response on camera or a voice recorder.
Apart from your family members, you can also gather information about your family by conducting genealogy research by reading genealogical resources and checking the records of your ancestry for things like birth certificates. You can also go through family archives and libraries to read as much information as you can about your ancestry.
Also document the stories, memories, information, and facts you know and remember about members of your family and ancestry. The thing is, you know a lot about them and would be surprised when you start writing and realize how much you know about your family.
So start with relatives and direct family members you grew up with and have known all your life. Once you are done with this step, you are halfway through writing your family history book.
Step 3: Section Your Research
Now that you have gathered detailed information about your family ancestry, the third step should be organising your research into sections. This is where you decide how many chapters, parts, or sections your family history book should be made up of.
You can decide to section your research into nuclear and extended families or direct and indirect ancestry. You can also do something like organizing your research into parts like fifth generation to present-day generation, or part one for the present generation while part two is for the second to fifth generation, and so on.
This is not a finite suggestion, so you need to be creative and do whatever works for your family history book. The important thing is to have a structure that would make it easier for your audience to read and not miss out on important information, facts, stories, or memories you intend to share.
It would also be nice if you looked up other family history books on the internet to draw inspiration on how they structured their research so you have an idea of how to go about yours.
Step 4: Create Your Story
This is the most important step, as the format you use in writing your family history book will determine how well your audience would appreciate the book and how much of a success it would be.
If you ask me, I would say when creating your story, you should start with a captivating intro. The type that would draw the reader into the story and compel him or her to read every word in the book.
To achieve this, think about an interesting historical or present day fiction story you have read and study how the introduction and storyline were written. Watch online videos and read text on storytelling before commencing your writing.
Also, one thing I think should stand your family history book out is if you try to write in the language of the era of each ancestors or generation, when you include dialogues between relatives and the stories different family members told from their perspective. Doing this will add a lot of twist and fun to your story.
Furthermore, while writing your story, you can decide to start in a chronological order from the earliest generation or ancestry to the present day generation, use thematic format where you get to focus on important aspects of your family like their careers and center your story around it or write from a personal viewpoint of stories you were told and know about.
Whichever method you intend to use when creating your story, make it an interesting read.
Step 5: Edit
Now that you have written the first draft of your story, you should read through every line and edit where necessary. When doing this, you could hire a professional editor or do it yourself.
Editing is as important as writing the story itself because there is every certainty that you will omit important stories and information that needs to make the book perfect, or you may spill out too much information that is not necessary and useful to the reader.
Furthermore, you need to edit your book to check for things like correctness of grammar, punctuation, and spellings before publishing. You can also send the draft to family members to read through and send in their feedback.
The feedback will not only help you make necessary revisions and corrections but would also help you gain fresh and additional insights on how to better write your story.
Step 6: Design and Add Visuals
After all editing and revision have been made, and you are satisfied with the final draft, you can now move to the sixth step, which involves designing and adding visuals. Those photos, documents, and important visuals you collected from the information gathering stage in step two will be needed in this step.
You can make copies of the photos, documents and affix them where necessary in your book.
You can also include charts and diagrams of your family tree where necessary and then add any other designs, like book covers and page designs, that would make your family history book more colorful and interesting to read.
I have to say at this stage, remember to make use of high resolution photos and visuals and ensure to place the right photos, labels, and captions in the right place.
Step 7: Share
You have come to the final step of writing your family history book. After following through with all the steps above, it is time to share this wonderful storybook you have written about your family with your family members and the world if you choose to.
How you intend to share our book is totally dependent on you. You could share it in a hardcover, paperback, or digital version format. You can also choose to distribute your book with only your family members and not publish it, upload the book on self publishing platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, or promote it via social media.
How to Create a Family History Book on Meminto
Now that you have an idea of how to write a family history book, you can make the entire process seamless by using Meminto.
With Meminto, you can easily use already-made templates to create your family history book and any other type of customization you would need throughout the book writing process. The steps involved are pretty simple, and you receive your customized products on time.
Here’s how you can use Meminto create a family history book using Meminto:
- Go to https://meminto.com/product/life-book/ and click “Get Started.”
- Decide if you are making the book for yourself (“I will”) or as a gift for someone else (“Someone else will”).
- Choose the number of pages you want and specify if you need extra copies or prefer digital versions. Then, click “Add to Cart.”
- Enter your shipping details, choose your payment method, and apply any available promo codes.
- Review your order details and track its status on the checkout page.
- Check your email for a confirmation containing an activation code. Copy the code and visit https://memin.to/register.
- Fill out the personal information of the person you are writing about, enter the activation code, and create a password. Click “Sign up for Meminto” to start writing your story.
- Select your language preference (German or English) and choose the day you want to receive weekly writing prompts. Click “Save Changes.”
- Customize the family history book by choosing the alignment of text and how sections are organized.
- You can further personalize the family history book to match your preferences.
- Watch the instructional video below so you can get better guidance on how you can use the Meminto app.
Conclusion
Writing a family history book is a great way of preserving your family’s heritage for future generations to learn and know about their roots. There are no rules about how it should be written or what it should look like; the most important thing is that you are sharing vital information for present and future generations to learn about.
To make your family history book more interesting to read, you need to apply some storytelling techniques and write from a personal and relatable manner so your audience can connect with your story and enjoy it.
Furthermore, understand that while writing there would be minor challenges along the way like conflicting stories and missing and incomplete records. When this happens, note them down and use alternative stories or information to fill up the gaps.
Regardless, follow the steps in this guide and set realistic goals for your project so you do not lose focus and interest in the process.
