Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
You want to preserve your family history by writing about events in your parents’ or grandparents’ lives, but you don’t have a clear understanding of the timeline.
Maybe your grandmother emigrated from Venezuela, but you aren’t sure when she came to America. Perhaps you want to write about your parents’ long marriage, but you don’t know when they met.
Or maybe your father survived the Holocaust, your mother faced a serious illness, or your grandfather started a business. You know the event matters, but you aren’t exactly sure when everything happened.
This can feel frustrating and overwhelming. Many family story writers I’ve worked with begin to wonder if they can preserve their family history at all, simply because they aren’t clear on the timeline.
But the timeline doesn’t have to come first.
Instead, take time off the table and start by writing down what you do know about what happened. You know enough to begin, and you can place the events in time later.
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
Before you can preserve your family history in writing, give yourself a place to write. While it seems obvious, it’s an underrated step. It’s the action that takes you from thinking about writing to doing it. Having two places to write will make your writing process easier.
If you’ve already set up your two writing spots, skip to the next section.
Why two writing spots? Because there are two kinds of writing in a family history project.
- Capture is writing down what you already know about your family, like places, names, and events. It also includes writing down questions about what you want to know.
- Craft is using the family history you’ve captured to write words that become a story.
Set up one place to capture and another to craft.
#1 – Your Home Base for Capturing
It’s so much easier to capture what you know once. So set up one writing spot devoted to capturing. This is your Home Base for your family history project, a place you can return to as you write.
I designed the Writing Family History Template, available as a printable PDF or a Google Sheet, to make it easier to set up your Home Base.
The template includes space for your questions and the family details people often want to preserve: NAMES, PLACES, OBJECTS, EVENTS, and a TIMELINE. These details help you write about your family’s past.
When you capture what you know in your Home Base, you create a meaningful family history document you can build on and eventually 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 family history. I suggest writing by hand because many people find it easier to get a few words down with a pen than with a keyboard.
Your Notebook is your private space to get messy and explore. Here, you’ll take something from your Home Base and jot a few words about it.
Next, you’ll move to your computer and keep crafting, 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
Life Events Help You Preserve Family History
Preserving your family history is more than holding onto names and dates. It’s telling your kids what happened, why it mattered, and how the past shaped the family they come from.
Life events help you do all three. A life event is an important event in someone’s life, such as a birth, marriage, move, illness, loss, job, or other turning point. Life events are the backbone of your family history. They help you bring order to the past and discover your family’s story.
Here are three reasons why life events help you preserve your family history.
1. Life Events Help You Build a Timeline
Some life events help you put your family’s past into chronological order. I call these timeline events. These events matter because they give you the big picture of your family members’ lives: when they were born, married, had children, lived, were educated, worked, moved, and died.
For example, the day your dad was born is an important life event to capture in your Home Base, even if you don’t have anything else to say about it. It helps you build the timeline of his life.
2. Life Events Help You Write a Story
Some life events prompt you to say more. These events often have a before and an after. They connect to change, memory, or meaning. Things in the family were one way, and then they were another. I call these story events.
For example, if your dad’s mother passed away on the day he was born, his birth is not only a timeline event, it’s also a story event. That day shaped your father’s life. He grew up without his biological mother, and your grandparents’ life together ended. Things in the family were one way, and then they were another.
A timeline event helps you know what happened when. A story event helps you write why it mattered and how it shaped your family.
The same life event, like a birth, can be a timeline event for one writer and a story event for another. How do you know? If you have more to say about it than the fact that it happened, it may be a story event. Explore it in your Notebook to find out.
3. One Life Event Can Reveal a Larger Family History
What kinds of things might you have to say about a life event? Maybe you know something about what life was like before the event, during the event, or how life changed for your family after the event.
For example, if you want to write your grandmother’s story of emigrating from Venezuela, you can write whatever you know about her life in Venezuela. Then, write what you know about how she came to America.
You can write about the life she built in America. That may include the home she created, her work, or how her journey to America impacted what she believed about life.
If your mother grew up in her home, you can write what you know about your mom’s experience there. This is not only your grandmother’s story, but it’s your mom’s story, too.
And because your mom’s life shaped yours, your grandmother’s emigration story is part of your story too. You can write a little about how your Venezuelan heritage lives on in your family today. That might be in the foods on your holiday table, the words you use, the traditions you practice, or the values you’ve carried forward to your children.
That one event in your grandmother’s life helped you write a story about why it mattered and how it shaped your family across the generations.
Before You Begin Writing
What Kind of Life Events Matter When Preserving Family History?
Each person’s life has many events, even if you only capture the basics. Birth and death. Marriage, and perhaps divorce. Schooling. Work. Becoming a parent, and maybe a grandparent. Moving homes. Losses.
If you try to capture all life events for your parents and grandparents, or even for one of them, you can quickly feel overwhelmed. So you aren’t trying to capture everything.
The simplest way to preserve your family history is to do it one person at a time. Start with one person who feels easy to write about. Capture a few life events to build a basic timeline. Then scan the list below for one event that may open into a story. That’s all you need to begin.
This is not a checklist. Look for one event that changed something. Life was one way, and then it was another.
- Home: moving or starting over; immigrating or emigrating; buying or losing a home; or returning to an old homeplace.
- Family Roles and Relationships: birth, marriage, divorce; becoming a parent or grandparent; adoption; loss of a parent, spouse, or child; caregiving; estrangement or reunion.
- Education, Work, and Money: schooling or training; military service; job or career change; community service; starting or closing a business; job loss, financial hardship, or work success.
- Health and Hardship: disability or illness; accident or injury; addiction or mental health struggle.
- History and Circumstances: war or political upheaval; public tragedy or violence; economic depression or market collapse; or natural disaster.
- Celebration and Achievement: graduation or retirement; milestone birthday or anniversary; family holiday or religious tradition; travel; creative, athletic, personal, community, or professional achievement.
💡 Quick Tip: If you have more to say about it than the fact that it happened, it may be a story event.
Let’s Write Your Story
Start With Life Events
Choose one family member to focus on for this activity. Start with whoever feels easiest to write about. You can always repeat this activity with another family member.
Step 1: Capture Life Events in Your Home Base (5 min)
Write in the EVENTS section of your Home Base. Write the name of the parent or grandparent you are focusing on, then use the prompt below to get started.
- Set a timer: 4 minutes
- Write down: A few life events from that person’s life.
- Review: 1 minute. Read over your list and select one event that you may have more to say about than the fact that it happened.
Done. Now you have a short list of life events and one event to explore in your Notebook.
Step 2: Jot About One Event in Your Notebook (5 min)
Write the life event you selected in Step 1 at the top of a page in your Notebook. Then use the prompt below to begin.
- Set a timer: 4 minutes
- Prompt: What comes to mind about this life event?
- Jot down: Words and phrases that come to mind about this life event.
- No need to polish anything. You’ll do that later. Just get whatever is in your mind down on the page, even if you go off-topic.
- 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.
🌟Optional: Repeat with another life event.
💡Be Aware: More may come to mind when you walk, drive, do household tasks, or take a shower. Jot it down, even if you’re not sure it belongs in your story.
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 begun preserving your family history.
- For continuing writers: You captured some life events in your Home Base and wrote a few words about one of them in your Notebook. You made meaningful progress.
Choose whatever feels easiest to do next.
Stop 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 preserving your family history.
Stay With This Life Event
If you’d like to keep going, consider writing down any questions you have about the life event you’ve just written about. Questions can help you write, even if you never find all the answers.
You might also capture a few names, places, objects, or dates connected to this event. These details can help you begin piecing the story together. The guides below can help:
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 preserving your family history.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
A life event is an important event in someone’s life, such as a birth, marriage, move, illness, loss, job, immigration story, or other turning point. In family history writing, a life event matters when it helps you explain to your kids how the past shaped the family that they come from.
No. Some life events are timeline events that help you build a timeline. That’s useful and helpful when you are preserving your family history. And if you have more to say about the event than that it happened, it might be a story event. Story events help you write what happened, why it mattered, and how it shaped your family across the generations.
No. Exact dates can help you build a timeline, but you do not need them to begin writing. Start with what you know about what happened. You can place the events in time later.
Not necessarily. The earliest event may help you build a timeline, but it may not be the place to begin your story. Choose a life event where you have more to say about it than the fact that it happened. Events where you can write about life before the event, what happened during the event, and how it shaped your family after. When life was one way, and then it was another.
Write the little you know. A few words are enough to begin. Even writing your questions can help you discover bits and pieces of your story.
Yes. One life event can reveal a larger family history. It can show what life was like before the event, what happened during the event, and how life changed afterward.
No. Research can come later. Start by writing down what you already know.
Photo credits: Natalia Olivera on Pexels.
