Stories and Videos of Family Members

By Winona Laird

Family History isn’t about just gathering names and dates of our ancestors.  It’s about learning about our ancestors, where they lived, why did they live in that certain area was it because of their occupations.  Maybe it was because family before them lived in the area. What ever the answers are, research your family member or members for their story. Good stories don't just happen.  You have to find the Story and tell it.

I became interested in family history when I was 11 years old in a church class. We had to gather the information about ourselves and our parents and grandparents. We also had to have our parents and grandparents write a short life story about themselves. My mother and father wrote their story and just my grandmother my mother's mother side wrote her story for me. The stories were only about a page long. Years later when my grandmother passed away my aunt found a box with notes that my grandmother had written about different times in her life. My aunt gave me all these notes and I compiled them into Grandma’s life story, and published a book, called Have you ever lived in a mining town.

You don’t need notes like I had, just start researching. Gather birth, marriage, and death information, census records through and ancestor’s life, other information from Newspapers, cemeteries, courthouses etc. and do a timeline of an ancestor or family and start their story.

Stories don't have to be long stories or books. Take one picture, look at the details in the picture, who is in the picture, when was the picture taken and why was it taken. You can also and put a story with the group of pictures.  Like family reunions, special parties, vacations and other events.

Make Videos such as the one below of these stories to be enjoyed by all.

To see a larger view click on YouTube in the lower right of the video.

Winona Ione Hahn Laird