Information will show personalities

For the past couple of weeks, the subject of Heritage Hunting has been writing family histories narratives that will make the stories of your grandparents come to life, one ancestor at a time, one year at a time.

Including social history is key to the success of such an effort. It will help place your grandparents in the environment that helped shape their characters. The personalities of your Victorian Age ancestors are bound to be far different than those of your Puritan ancestors because of their social histories. We are products of our ages.

"Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History" by Katherine Scott Sturdevant, will help you understand the premise of such a search, and give you ideas on where to start.

Sturdevant is a great person to talk about this subject because she was first a historian, then became enamored with genealogy. What a wonderful, logical combination of talents. It happens in reverse all the time. When the book was published last year, she was a Ph.D. candidate in American history.

The first of eight chapters is "Social History: Your Ancestors' World," to help readers train themselves "to view everything about your family in social history context." It has examples to show how meaningful family history can become.

Although I bought the book several months ago, I didn't read it until I returned from the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy in January. It dovetails nicely with the course I took, "Preparing a Family History in the New Millennium." Even though that course won't be available again until next year, you can start your project by reading a few books on your own.

I'm so excited about writing my ancestors' stories that I want to create enthusiasm so as many people as possible will do the same. I read that it's a good idea to form a support group of genealogists who are all writing their family stories. Any takers?

"Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History," ($19.99) published by Betterway Books, can be ordered by logging onto www.familytreemagazine.com.

On an unrelated subject, I want to tell you about an exciting new CD. Heritage Quest Magazine, one of the nation's premiere genealogy publications, has published 14 years' worth of its editions. That's 1,800 articles, from September 1985 to December 1999, with "Over 10,000 Pages of Genealogical Expertise," according to the CD cover.

The CD lists subjects, authors and issues from past editions. Also, it's possible to search all 84 issues at once for key words, such as Scottish geneology.

"Heritage Quest Magazine," the CD, is a bit spendy at $69.95 and can be ordered at www.heritagequest.com.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.