How to edit your family history so it will make sense 20 years from now

You’ve written your family history in narrative form (congratulations, that was a major undertaking that took great commitment and effort!!!), and now you’re on to next steps: giving your work a final edit and determining how you will preserve it for the next generation. I’m here to share three things you should do during the editing process to ensure that all your hard work is understood and appreciated by your readers.

1 - Be explicit with family members’ surnames and ages.

Your mom’s sister who was named Margaret but only ever went by Aunt Peggy to you and your siblings was actually called Maggie when she was a little girl. There may be a great story in there (and if, so, try to find it through interviews!), but I’m sharing this example to illustrate how important it is to be explicit when introducing family members (a.k.a., your characters).

• On first reference, give a person’s full name, as well as some type of relational status (e.g., “my aunt” or “mom’s brother”). How you approach adding in the relationships will depend on the voice you are using to tell your stories. So, if you have written the majority of your family history in first person, then all of the relationships should be in relation to you—“my paternal great-grandmother,” “my father’s step-sister,” etc. If you have chosen to write in a more neutral third-person voice, then determine who the main character is of the particular story you are editing, and designate all people in relation to them—so, if Mary Smith is your story’s protagonist, you’ll introduce people as “John Joseph Smith, Mary’s older brother” and “Desirae Kensington Smith, Mary’s mother.”

• You’ll also want to mention any nicknames that you are aware of—and do so in the most clear way possible. Because imagine you simply say “Aunt Peggy decided to move to Texas…” and a relative who has only ever known her as Maggie is reading this; you run the risk of your character going unrecognized or being confused for someone else. I guarantee the chances of this happening increase exponentially the further your reader gets on your family tree. Your grandchild will have no idea who these people are beyond the picture you create on the page.

• I think it is so helpful to include an age—even an approximate age—when orienting a reader at the beginning of a particular family story. Was Aunt Peggy approaching 40 when she had her first child? Was your father just a teenager when his own father died? Again, adding ages in this way is to make it easy for your readers to follow what’s happening. You are abundantly familiar with your characters—they are your family, after all, and you’ve likely been spending a lot of time with them via your research; your readers, however, are not quite so familiar. So seamlessly give them the info they need without having to flip back to see who the heck Mike Jessup is again!

2 - Orient your reader with explanatory help throughout your family history.

Just as your reader two generations on will need help with names and relationships, they, too, will need help with other details you may take for granted. Try to do a read of your material as if you are someone who has no familiarity with your family or their history. What questions arise? Where might you add context to help bring your story to life?

A few examples of details you may want to include or elaborate on: 

• Beyond a city name, can you characterize where they lived: Was that place in that time a wealthy enclave, a haven for transplants from the big city, a blue-collar town where neighbors watched out for one another’ kids?

• Beyond a year, might you add some details that reveal how history may have impacted them? “The year was 1865, and while the Civil War had ended, that reality hadn’t quite sunk in for many who lived in my great-grandparents’ home state of Louisiana.” This could be a great opportunity to take advantage of new developments in artificial intelligence and ask ChatGPT or Google Bard for help describing what a time period or region was like—just be sure to include a directive in your chatbot inquiry to “use only factual information” when generating your answer!

• What other parts of your story might be vague or confusing for a new reader? If you don’t think you can identify such problem areas, perhaps ask a friend or colleague to give your family history story a read and mark their questions in the margins. I bet you’ll be surprised by some of their queries!

3 - Provide graphic “cheat sheets” to make things easy for your readers.

Reading an account of genealogical research can seem like an exercise in…well, putting someone to sleep—but sharing stories, not just facts, and providing elucidating information (as described above) are great ways to engage your readers. Another is to include visuals that aid in your storytelling.

Family photos go a long way in drawing readers into a story, of course, but there are other graphics you may want to add. Consider creating:

• Family tree charts: This can be as simple as a family chart that is generated through your Ancestry or FamilySearch account. Note that I used the plural here—while, yes, you may include a large family tree showcasing all the ancestors whose names you know, I recommend creating a few smaller charts that are relevant to a specific chapter or story. So if you’re telling stories about your second-great-grandfather Will Shannon, make Will the root of your tree and show just his parents and his siblings; then, in a subsequent chapter when you have an account of Will’s son, your great-grandfather, Marcus, create another family chart with Marcus at the root. Do you see why? That way your reader can easily glance at the chart to orient themselves within the family without really taking themselves out of the story.

• Maps: If you’re a die-hard genealogy buff, then perhaps you have insurance maps and land ownership maps in your files—include those if they are clear and they help illustrate some aspect of your family history. Then consider including more straightforward maps—an outline of your country of origin with relevant cities marked, say, or a map of the world with your ancestors’ immigration journeys marked with arrows. There are plenty of resources online to buy inexpensive digital maps, including Creative Market or Fiverr (for custom creations); and you can explore public domain maps from David Rumsey and also around the web.