Personal Life Historian----------Marie Scott

My Problems

With Writing My Personal History Are . . .

Treasures of Truth Book -- a Life Story

I don’t know where to start.

It takes too much time.

I’m no good at writing.

I don’t know what to put in or leave out.

I seem to keep starting and never finish.

I’m too young to have a story.

I’m too old to get the job done now.

I’m just not interested in doing it.

I can’t do it myself, but I can’t spend much on having a historian do it for me.

Possible Solutions to the Problems

I Don’t Know Where to Start

Start by writing stories about your life that you think would interest your children or grandchildren. You know what? Write stories about your life that interest you, and they will surely interest your posterity. Write about whatever you want, as the stories occur to you. After you have several stories, they can be organized chronologically or under topic headings, and become your history.

It takes too much time.

            It does take time to write. But if you do it in small increments, on a regular basis—say on Saturdays or Sundays—you will eventually have a nice history. Give up your television, reading, or game time one day a week or month, and put your history down. Persistence in creating small portions is the secret to finding time. If you’re computer-savvy, you can organize your efforts so as to type and save the stories as you go, then it’s easy to rearrange them in the order you wish. If not, write and end each story separately, then you can stack the stories in the proper order as you go, or do it after you’re finished.

I’m no good at writing.

            Not everyone is a writer, it’s true. But let me tell you a little secret: Some of the most interesting writing is done by people who simply write from the heart. Being honest is better than being grammatically or technically proficient. Think of diary or journal accounts you’ve read or listened to that were written by early settlers or pioneers. Not all pioneers were good at writing, but those who wrote at all have been read, researched, reread, and enjoyed. Your writing will be too.

I don’t know what to put in or leave out.

            That’s always a good question. I would suggest making a timeline, or an outline of the most important things, and then filling in the detail that most shows who you are. Certain details are just as important to include as the big events, so give a sampling of the little things that make up the big picture. Use my three bears rule: Include some of the big, medium, and little things in each of the three eras of your life—your childhood, middle years, and older years. Find and record important dates, places, people (use full names), and historical information that could be useful to your family researchers. If you give information about family members, make sure you document it, or tell how you came by that information.

I seem to keep starting and never finish.

            That’s okay. Don’t throw any of it away. Keep it together until either you, a personal historian, or one of your ancestors, can sort through it and write it up properly. If you leave it to an ancestor, it may not be just as you would have done it, but it may be done better, because family members who take an interest in these things are usually the ones who are also good at them. Take good care of the information, label it, and indicate you’d like it given to an interested party, so some super-cleaner doesn’t pitch it out.

I’m too young to have a story.

            I suppose my mother could have said that because she died at age 31. But instead, she left the family a four-inch thick “Treasures of Truth” book full of memorabilia, including her life’s story, genealogy, and life sketches on all of her family members and best friends. There are pictures and bits of information about each of us children, and even snippets of our hair. Her life is in that book, short as it was. Her spiritual testimony, patriarchal blessing, hobbies, favorite stories and Bible characters are all included in that book. That book is worth its weight in gold. It catches the gist of who she was, what she believed, and how she loved each of us. Anyway, now days children are encouraged to keep journals and scrapbooks—besides their therapeutic value, you just never know how they might come in handy.

I’m too old to get the job done now.

            Then save your things, pictures, memorabilia, any writings, and do as I suggested above. Store it carefully, label it, and give it to a family member who loves you and has an interest in family history. Better yet, hire a personal historian and let them do the leg-work and pull your story out of you. It will be some of the best money you ever spent. You’ll love your book when it’s finished.

I’m just not interested in doing it.

            Then don’t. That’s one of the best reasons I’ve heard yet for hiring me to do it for you. And let me just say, I’m glad my mother didn’t feel that way. I could lecture you about how your posterity will wonder about you and feel the same way we historians and interested family members do when we have no information of any kind on our long-gone relatives. But I’ll save it.

I can’t do it myself, but I can’t afford to spend much on having a historian do it.

            To hire a personal historian to make you a good quality book, is in the ballpark of about $1,500. But we’re talking about a nice hardcover book with reproduced black and white pictures, and the payment of your historian to do at least one personal interview—depending on how much written information you can produce, some phone interviews, and the work of organizing, typing, and designing your book. The cost can be greatly reduced by simply going with less costly options for publication. (Spiral bound, medium-hard cover plastic front and back, copied- paged book, being the least expensive way to go.)

Also, many personal historians are not in the business just for the money. They are generally willing to do the job according to your budget. They do need to get reimbursed for their costs and make it worth their while, but many of them will do the work at a surprisingly low cost. Personal historians love their work, understand the importance of each client’s story, and come to love their clients as a result of the work. Whatever you spend on having your story preserved will be some of the best money you ever spent on this earth.

If you haven’t realized it yet, hiring a personal historian to do your history automatically takes care of all of the above problems.  J