Writing about family lines is one of the best ways I've found to learn more about my ancestry. In the search for stories, I delve further into the information I already have, connect the data in new ways and can often take my lines further back or to the side. The quandary is which family to focus on next.
I could choose by the area to be researched much like the Australian research that I last did. My family binders include information that takes in quite a variety of communities, each with their own quirks and challenges. But this time I should probably be smarter and consider the other writing projects that I'm going to be doing at the same time.
My writing and research often take me in different directions while I juggle writing projects. This time I'm going to see if I can work on complimentary projects during the same time period. My writing time period, that is, not the era I'm writing about.
At the end of this coming January, I'm scheduled to take part in a writers' retreat for family historians. We're learning the art of telling the stories of our ancestors through creative nonfiction. For that retreat I need to have 5000 words written for my chosen ancestor's story. I'm focusing on my grandfather, the same person I started the Australian posts off with. The Australian branch of the family came from his maternal side. For my next blog posts, I'll have a look at his paternal side, which means a look at some English nonconformists.
No comments:
Post a Comment