{"id":6602,"date":"2017-05-10T08:27:44","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T12:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6602"},"modified":"2017-05-22T06:08:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T10:08:44","slug":"family-history-models-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6602","title":{"rendered":"Family History Models (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"tree\"

photo: bananaana 04, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

How you decide to tell your family story depends on your goals, the amount of time you have to spend, and what you\u2019re comfortable doing. I\u2019m a mystery writer, and I approach family history as if it were a mystery story\u2014conflicting clues, unreliable information, secrets\u2014but nevertheless enabling some sort of conclusion.<\/p>\n

As last Friday\u2019s general tips<\/a> for organizing and reporting your genealogical findings emphasized, there is no one \u201cright way\u201d to do this. Three ways to narrow the task<\/a> of presenting your data were described yesterday. Here are two more elaborate, but very different, options.<\/p>\n

Broad in Information, <\/strong><\/span>Simple in Execution
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My goal in exploring my family\u2019s story has been to understand better the context of my ancestors\u2019 lives, so my family history includes a lot of information about the places and times they lived in. In this, I\u2019ve had the great benefit of contributions from other family members and especially the partnership with a first cousin who lives many states away.<\/p>\n

Most of our research has been on the Edwards family. There\u2019s lots of information online about the Edwardses, much of it bogus. Here\u2019s why<\/a>, if you\u2019re interested (large amounts of money are involved).<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t taken the plunge of putting our family story online, though there would be many advantages of doing so. To date, it\u2019s still a Word document\u2014225 pages long, with 350 footnotes, photographs, charts, maps, and numerous appendixes. Coping with such a large and, in places, unwieldy document, I\u2019ve learned one overriding lesson: don\u2019t let your reader get lost!<\/p>\n

People can grasp graphical \u201cfamily tree\u201d<\/strong> information quicker than text. A whole family tree, which can include hundreds of names, is probably best created online in one of the sites developed for that purpose. However, using descendant software (some of which is free and open source; see this discussion<\/a>) to display a relevant portion of the tree keeps readers oriented.<\/p>\n

\"map,

New Haven, Conn., 1641<\/p><\/div>\n

Maps<\/strong> and timelines<\/strong> help your readers\u2014and you, too!\u2014 stay oriented. For example, I found an interactive map of old London on which I can approximate the location of an ancestor\u2019s shop in 1550. Maps can reveal relationships. The 1641 map of New Haven, Conn., shows the householders\u2019 names, including our ancestor\u2019s and that of their neighbor, a ship\u2019s captain active in the Chesapeake Bay. Thanks to him, the next generation of our family ended up in Tidewater Maryland.<\/p>\n

Graphics<\/strong> are helpful too. Charts, maps, illustrations, bulleted lists\u2014all those elements break up your text and enhance readability. Of course if you have family photos, that\u2019s great, but feel free to be creative. Some of the pictures in our Civil War chapter are historical photos of particular battle-sites. Look for images that are not copyright protected so that you are free to \u201cpublish\u201d your work to the Web. (Google Images > Tools > Usage Rights > labeled for reuse)<\/p>\n

Narrow-to-Broad in Information<\/span><\/strong>, Elaborate in Execution\u00a0<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s a true high-end way to go, with a self-published book. Find lots of information on those choices, including some pricing information, in this guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ancestry.com has a publishing partnership with MyCanvas<\/a>, for example, where you do most of the writing work. Another example is a company like Bind These Words<\/a>, which combines family interviews with photographs and graphic elements. The cost of such a project depends on the time involved and number of photos\/graphics. (I have not worked with either of them.)<\/p>\n

These are examples to explore. While working with a commercial publisher is expensive, it might be appropriate for some defined piece of your project or to commemorate a special wedding anniversary or other family milestone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How you decide to tell your family story depends on your goals, the amount of time you have to spend, and what you\u2019re comfortable doing. I\u2019m a mystery writer, and I approach family history as if it were a mystery … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Family History Models (Part 2) - conflicting clues, unreliable information, secrets - how to present your family's story","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41,266,104,29],"tags":[416],"class_list":["post-6602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy","category-history","category-the-morgue","category-writing","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Iu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6606,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6602\/revisions\/6606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}