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Old 04-11-2009, 05:00 PM   #1
Parrothead
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Family Stories - Write it Down

An incident just happened that reminded me that we need to journal our family stories. Not just the tree but the stories. I posted in another post that my brother passed last week. Actually Roy was my brother-in-law. But I was only 18 when he and my sister, Paula, were married. So he has been a part of my life for over 50 years. Paula died of breast cancer many years ago - too many. And my parents are gone and my ex-husband is gone so the stories of the early years are up to me. I called my self "The Last Man Standing". I was talking to my nephews and telling them some of the stories when their Mom and Dad first met, etc. They didn't know that their Dad had gone to college studying engineering. So I know I need to journal.
Happy Trails........................
 
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Old 04-11-2009, 05:40 PM   #2
Wayne and Carolyn Mathews
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You are so right, Parrothead. My parents and my husband's parents are long gone, so we'll never know a lot of our family history. Part of the problem in not learning it when everyone was still alive was that my mother was pretty close-mouthed about a lot of her history. My mother-in-law told us detail after detail of her family history. However, she changed the facts, faces, and places, to suit her fancy, and none of the stories ever matched. We didn't mind that too much, because everything she said was so funny.

I do have a lot of letters my mother and father exchanged before they married. My mom was teaching school in Wallis, Texas, and she created a scandal when she and my dad took a picnic lunch down to the San Bernard River during one lunch hour. Alone! An unmarried teacher with a MAN! She almost lost her job once because the senior play, which she was in charge of, had a boy kiss a girl on the cheek in one scene. That's funny now, but it wasn't then; her letter to my father about that incident was heartbreaking. She loved her job and was terrified that the school board would indeed revoke her contract. Later, My mother took a graduate class taught by J. Frank Dobie at the University of Texas. She had to submit a paper to him, and I still have that work with Mr. Dobie's comments and correction as well as his signature on it. I'm a Dobie fan, so that paper means a lot to me.

Journaling is more than a way to record events. It's a way to learn who you are, because as you write in a journal, you think, react, relive, and have time to examine so many aspects of your life that flew by when they were happenning. I require that my senior students do a "My Life" journal as the final activity the year. They have ten areas such as most terrifying moment, an object that means a lot to them, favorite pet, etc., and they have to write a one-page personal essay for each topic and include a photo that suitably illustrates that topic. Boy, you should hear the griping and moaning and groaning when that assignment is made . . . followed later by the begging to extend the assignment, usually prefaced by "Can I add a topic because I want to write about . . . "

Write on!

Carolyn

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Old 04-11-2009, 05:52 PM   #3
Rondo
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Excellent suggestion Sue! We found out, to late- after both my parents were gone, that we knew vary little of the family history from either side. We have since been in contact with members of my Dad's family (some of which are in their late 90's and early 100's) to get family history from them. I also have a cousin that is my age that has done some investigating and documenting prior to this. It will be quite a bit harder on my Mom's side since she was an only child, a lot of her relatives still live in the "Old Country" (Russia) and all relatives here in the States have already past on. The DW is trying to document anything we can to pass on to our children also. We hope to continue the investigations and try to find more documentation in records at the courthouses, and even through newspaper articles from the past.
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Old 04-11-2009, 07:32 PM   #4
Mrs. CountryGuy
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As some of you know, I am rather addicted to family history. You will note, I do not call it genealogy, because to me what I do is more than genealogy (a listing of names, dates and places of life events of those in my family lines). What I try to do is to bring what my researching friends and I like to call, "color" to my ancestors and descendants. Color can be stories, photos, military service records, and documents of course.

We discuss this quite frequently, how to make our work more than just that list of names and dates and places.

Photos! I attempt to tell each person's life story with photos. From their first days to their last, and even past, as a photo of their headstone, if it can be obtained, is also part of their photo history/color.

Stories, such as Sue and Carolyn are talking about. If you have a voice recording of your loved one, that can be included. News articles are wonderful ways to record and honor our ancestors. For one fellow, I was able to follow every step of his service in World War I, from the very first draft notice in his local paper to reporting for duty, to his return home. What a history lesson I received with this part of his family history. I also now have a copy of his draft registration (as well as over 450 others), with signature, physical description including eye and hair color.

I feel I honor those past by recording the color of their lives. I wish I could say I have a photo of everyone born since, ohhhh, 1825, in my data base, sadly, I don't. For some I am so glad to have a photo of thier headstone.

Some other photos I may and do include, photo of their homes, land, barns, pets. With the great maps and satellite photos now available at Google and LiveMaps, I get some great visual representations of their homes. I can spend hours getting great maps and those satellite views.

My mother is still living, so, recently I asked her, okkkkk, what is the story about your marriage to my father. I now have that, short version, but very nice, story of their meeting, dating, and running off to get married. I did not know, now I do.

Record those stories that get told round the family table at holidays and celebrations, you known, the ones that usually start with, "you remember ...." and are followed by lots of laughter. Record em, write em down.

Oh, and label your photos! Now, there is a job, let me tell you. Nope, mine are not all done either. Working on it tho!

Great post Sue, as you can tell a subject close to my heart.
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Old 04-12-2009, 05:35 AM   #5
Waynem
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I only can wish that my side of the family was more informative than they were. Many years ago I attempted to put together a "family tree." It was fairly easy to get information on the living generation, but not the past generations, but I tried - and have put it aside.

However, my wife's father's side is full of history. One can do a search on, "father and Son In Texas," with the quotes and get a pretty good listing of a book published by her cousin Wilma Mathews Woods. John Himes Livergood is the main principle in the book, first justice in Lavaca County, Texas, and a memeber of the Meir Expidition (another search term). It is a rich history.

I tell my children all the time to document, document, document, and as Carol has said - note your photos. Name(s), location, and date along with any other information that you might have. Many of the electronic programs now let you annotate your stored photos. So much easier than when I had to pull every one and put a notation on it.

Again, I was very fortunate with my DW's side of the family. Her mother annotated just about every photo she ever kept, so many of the early 1900 and prior photos are well notated.

Carolyn's journalling technique is a wonderful way of preserving your life. I'll have to get my DW on that immediately because I can't write worth a darn.

Is Journalling with one "l" or two?
Carolyn?
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Old 04-12-2009, 05:57 AM   #6
Mrs. CountryGuy
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Wayne

With the ever expanding data bases online (yea, ya gotta pay for some), you might want to reconsider and try again on those families that you had trouble with years ago.

There are a LOT of Texas things online, including Death Certs, real images of em!
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Old 04-12-2009, 06:01 AM   #7
Parrothead
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Wayne
It doesn't matter how many l's or if you can spell. That is what makes some of these writing so wonderful, the mispelled words, the beautiful handwriting or the horrible handwriting. I have documents written by Great-Great Grandparents - some poor spelling, some great - no matter I treasure them all.

Carol
Your suggestion about the photos is so right on. When my Mother passed I brought all of her 1000's of photos home. They were a collection belonging to Great-Great Grandparents, Grandparents, Great Aunts and Great-Great Aunts. I started scanning. There was an envelope that said "Unknown". It was the last I did and as I scanned the photos, I started recognizing that I had seen that hair do, that dress, etc and was able to identify almost all of them.
Happy Trails.......................
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Old 04-13-2009, 05:45 AM   #8
refocused
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For some who find it hard to even "get started" - there are two journals I would recommend - "Reflections from a Mother's Heart" and "A Father's Legacy". Both are kind of "fill in the blanks", but all is in life order and some of the topics you might not have thought of yourself - probably available at B. Dalton's or the like!

Suzanne
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Old 04-16-2009, 03:55 PM   #9
Dustytuu
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My mom who is gone now, wrote her life story with pictures of places they lived, places we lived when I was a child. Poems she wrote and etc.
A story about moving to another state and taking the train on that move with all their cattle, sheep and cows. They couldn't get their dog the day they left but a neighbor found him and packed the dog in a crate and shipped him by train to their new farm/ranch. The sheep were having babies and Grandpa and grandma had bought a new car. When they got off the train they had a couple of lambs in the back seat with my mom her brother and sisters.
So many stories she wrote. Some were funny and some were informative.
She put this together in an album and I love the thought she put into it.
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