Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
You want your kids to know the story behind a family heirloom. Where it came from. Who owned it before you. Why it matters to you and your family.
For me, it’s our dining room chandelier.
My husband’s grandfather, Papa Maxi, bought it for his New York City apartment. He was from Galicia and earned money by boxing on the Lower East Side, the same neighborhood where two of my sons live now.
Later, it hung in my in-laws’ dining room, where my Hungarian father-in-law shared stories about surviving the Holocaust.
Now it’s in our dining room.
The chandelier isn’t particularly valuable. My kids could easily decide it’s not their style. But they are the fourth generation to have meals in its light. Their kids will be the fifth. I want them to know this.
Time and again, when I ask clients to write about a family heirloom, I see how objects naturally draw out family stories. People start by writing about something that relates to their family—a photo, a music box, a suitcase, a sweater, a doll, a wartime ID card—and words begin to land on the page.
Family heirlooms hold stories. In a few minutes, you can jot down why yours matters to you and share it with your kids. What a meaningful gift.
And if you decide to write your family story, you will have already begun.
This post is part of the First Timer Storykeeping Series, designed to help you start writing your family story using the Storykeeping® method.
Get Ready to Write
Capture First, Craft Your Story Second
A family heirloom is a tangible object that can be a physical connection to family memory. When you write about a family heirloom, you are turning what you know, remember, and feel about the object into words on the page.
Your first step is to decide where you will write. I suggest you have two writing spots.
If you’ve already set up your two writing spots, skip to the next section.
Why two writing spots? Because you’ll want to do two different kinds of writing about your heirloom.
- Capture is writing down the family heirlooms you’d like to write about. It also includes writing down other things you know about your family, like names, places, and events, as well as your questions.
- Craft is writing about one heirloom.
Set up one place to capture and another to craft.
#1 – Your Home Base for Capturing
When writing about a family heirloom, your mind may flood with things you know about your family. People, places, and events that mattered.
So having a dedicated place to capture this information is useful. Like a Home Base for all the things you know about your family’s past.
I designed the Writing Family History Template, available as a printable PDF or a Google Sheet, to make it easy for you to set up a Home Base.
The template includes space for the kinds of family details people often want to preserve: NAMES, PLACES, OBJECTS, EVENTS, TIMELINE. It also has a place for QUESTIONS.
Your Home Base will help you write about your heirloom because it gives you some order. You won’t lose what you’ve written down, and you’ll know where it is when you need it.
Your Home Base is also something lasting. It’s a meaningful family history document you can share with your kids.
But you don’t have to use the template. You can set up your Home Base in any way that works for you.
#2 – Your Notebook for Crafting
Choose one Notebook for writing about your heirloom. I suggest writing by hand because many people find it easier to get a few words down with a pen than with a keyboard.
Pick a notebook that feels comfortable to you. This is your private space to get messy and explore. Here, you’ll take one heirloom from your Home Base and jot a few words about it.
Later, you can move to your computer and continue building on the words you wrote in your Notebook.
If writing by hand isn’t for you, a Word document or Google Doc can serve as your Notebook. Again, choose one spot and stick with it.
If you need more help setting up your writing spots, see How to Write Your Family Story: A Simpler Way to Start.
3 Reasons Why
Writing About Family Heirlooms Matters
A family heirloom is an object handed down from one generation to another because it holds special value. That value may come from its market price, but more often, it comes from what it means to your family.
Writing this down matters. Here are three reasons why.
1. Writing Preserves What You Know
Perhaps your parents and grandparents told you things about your family’s past, but when you try to repeat them, the details are hard to recall. Even things they’ve told you fairly recently can quickly become fuzzy.
Writing about a family heirloom helps you preserve what you know about your family through the lens of a single object. Things like names, places, dates, and events.
Your kids won’t have to rely on memory alone. They’ll have your words to return to whenever they like.
2. Writing Shapes What You Know Into a Story
Your heirloom matters for reasons that make sense to you. But when you try to share that, it comes out in fragmented bits and pieces instead of something people can understand and follow.
Research has found that coherent personal stories are linked to more effective communication, stronger identity, and closer family relationships. In other words, clear stories matter.
When you write before you share, you can put the pieces in order. You can add the background and context your kids need. You can decide what to leave out and focus on sharing what matters most.
3. Writing Helps The Story Travel Through Generations
A family heirloom from your parents or grandparents can connect more generations than you may realize.
When I give my daughter a book my grandmother gave to me, it connects four generations of our family. If my daughter shares the book with her children someday, it will connect five.
But an old book can’t explain why it matters. However, a story about the book can give my daughter a feeling of connection to her great-grandmother and to me.
Research from Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke at Emory has shown that family stories create a shared history that strengthens emotional bonds. Their work has also found that kids who know intergenerational family stories are better adjusted, have lower anxiety, and show greater resilience.
A story about an heirloom can give your kids a feeling of connection to the family members who came before them. Writing it down helps that feeling travel alongside the heirloom. And sometimes, the story may last longer than the heirloom itself.
Before You Begin Writing
What Counts as a Family Heirloom?
For our purposes, I use “family heirloom” broadly. It can be any family object you can experience with your senses, something you can see, taste, touch, smell, or hear.
Family heirlooms can be valuable in the open market, like a vintage comic book collection, or priceless only within your family, like your mom’s chipped college mug.
Researchers who study cherished possessions have found that ordinary objects can become family heirlooms when families see them as irreplaceable and meaningful enough to keep.
But you don’t even need to hold the heirloom in your hands. You can write about something you can picture, like the ball your father always talked about playing with as a boy.
The real value of an heirloom is the family knowledge it carries.
Examples of family heirlooms and objects include:
- recipes or food
- photos or videos
- clothing, jewelry, or personal items
- art, decor, furniture, or everyday household items
- music and songs
- letters, journals, passports, or documents
- ritual or religious items
- objects related to your family’s country of origin or heritage
Let’s Write Your Story
Start With Family Heirlooms
Let’s capture some family heirlooms and jot down a few words about one of them.
Step 1: Capture Family Heirlooms in Your Home Base (5 min)
Write in the OBJECTS section of your Home Base.
- Set a timer: 4 minutes
- Write down: Any family heirlooms that come to mind.
- Review: 1 minute. Read over your list. Add any other objects that come to mind.
Done. Now you’ve made a list of family heirlooms you can return to anytime.
Step 2: Jot About One Heirloom in Your Notebook (5 min)
Choose one heirloom from your Home Base and write it at the top of a page in your Notebook.
- Set a timer: 4 minutes
- Prompt: Why does this family heirloom matter to you?
- Jot down: Words and phrases that come to mind about this heirloom.
- Review: 1 minute. Read what you wrote like a gentle, curious reader. What do you notice? Jot down a few more words. If you notice a feeling, name it. Add to any section of your Home Base.
🌟Optional: Repeat with another family heirloom.
💡Be Aware: More may come to mind when you walk, drive, do household tasks, or take a shower. Jot it down when it does.
Next Steps
What Feels Easiest?
Take a moment to notice what you’ve accomplished today.
- For first-time writers: You set up your two writing spots and wrote a few words in your Notebook. You’ve started writing about a family heirloom.
- For continuing writers: You captured more of what you know about your family in your Home Base and wrote a few words in your Notebook. You made meaningful progress in a few minutes.
Choose whatever feels easiest to do next.
Stop Here for Today
If you are out of time or energy, stop and feel good about what you’ve done. Come back another day and continue writing about your family heirlooms.
Capture More of What You Know
If you’d like to keep going, consider writing down any questions that came up about the heirloom you just wrote about. You may wonder who owned it, where it came from, when it entered your family, or why someone chose to keep it.
Questions can help you write, even if you never find all the answers.
Below is a list of categories you can choose from. Click one for step-by-step guidance.
Share With Someone
You’ve already shared with one person: you. This may have been the first time you’ve written about your family’s past, so pause to recognize this moment.
If you want, you can also share what you wrote with a child, your spouse or partner, your sibling, or someone else in the family. You can read from your Notebook or tell it from memory. Family story writers often tell me how much they’ve enjoyed the conversations that follow when they share.
Subscribe below to receive our Story Starter Workbook, a simple guide to help you keep taking small, meaningful steps in writing your family history.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
Think of anything in your home that is tied to your family that you’d like your kids to know about. It can be an ordinary item or something with a high market value.
If you can picture it in your mind, that’s good enough. Write about who the heirloom is connected to, what you remember about it, and what it means to your family.
Write down what you do know. You don’t have to know everything to begin. A few details, memories, and even your questions are enough.
The Smithsonian Family Treasures Toolkit provides five simple tips for preserving your family heirlooms along with specific suggestions for preserving documents, photos, books, clothing and textiles, furniture, jewelry, art, toys, decorative objects, and media.
Photo credits: Feyza Daştan on Pexels.
