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The Family History Can Be Literary, If You Try

© Julia Buitrago

Recently I’ve been working on typing several family history books. You’ve probably seen the type—A coffee table history book of a few hundred families, each with a tale to tell. In some cases, these stories provide fascinating reading material. I’ve learned about one family’s curse (8 family members died from “Acts of God” within six months with everything from being struck by lightning to falling off a tree). I’ve heard stories of the struggles faced by pioneer families battling malaria, famine, and unscrupulous buggy dealers. Some families take pride in the fact that all eight of their daughters all had rhyming names or fourteen sons whose names all started with “S”. But then, I’ve also had those articles that are begging for a smidge of personal interest. Here’s two samples. Which one would you rather read?

Josiah Springer worked in a coal mine for most of his life, starting at age six. He would crawl through small tunnels to put up support beams so the tunnels could be enlarged. For his twelve to fourteen hour workday, this enterprising six-year-old made nearly a dollar a day. Eventually the harsh conditions caught up with him. He died on June 3, 1901 at age 22 without the love of a wife or family.

Josiah Springer. Occupation: Coal miner from age 6 constructing support beams. Born: ?/1879. Died: 6/3/1901. Not married. No children.

Both articles convey the same information, but the previous article would be more likely to hold a reader’s attention. Granted, these articles are not being written for the sake of trying to find a publisher. With these family history books, you can have your family history included for a modest fee, so it doesn’t matter to the publisher if your family history is a riveting short story or a laundry list of birth and death dates.

While it may not matter from an aesthetic point of view, the family history book gives you the opportunity to share more than just dates. You probably have stories that have been told in your family so many times that just the words “do you remember” can bring a hearty round of groans. These are the PERFECT stories to include in a family history book. Your generation may have heard them all, but who can say what the next several generations will have heard about their wacky ancestors.

Another trend that I’ve seen when people submit their family histories is the tendency to cut words to try and save on money. While I’m all for removing redundancies and trimming the fat of articles, removing the small words that you don’t think are important might make your article unreadable. Let’s take that first example and remove all of the “unimportant” words: