Family History Writing Challenge Starts

Puzzle Parts, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

 Motivation and a Plan

It might seem to you, dear readers, that I am a writer.  

I guess I am but I am not a "trained" writer since I have not taken a formal writing course in years. I have authored or co-authored ten books and written a few magazine articles but I did not major in English as an undergraduate nor is my Master's in Writing. I do struggle to write corrrectly. 

This is because I am a "journal" writer. This means I am a keeper of records and a researcher.

The puzzle piece above is because I have begun to take a new approach to my own family history research. It is called Project Based Genealogy based on the approach used by education. Yes, I am an educator, but I taught adults in all of my careers. I taught children for a while. They are now adults.

I thought long and hard about this challenge because I have no trouble writing (a lot of words) and no trouble researching but I do have a lot of trouble putting them together. If someone asks me about an ancestor, I have to look at my charts to be able to tell you anything about them. I have not memorized dates and places. I am quite geography disabled. I talk too much and I write like I'm talking.

I want to leave behind (when I die), a more organized box of family photographs. Right now, I am the only one who knows who is who. So, with many years of research and a lot of time spent with my parents and grandparents, I want to write something about 28 of my photographs. Those of you who read both my blogs will recognize some of them as I have used them in conjunction with my gravestones.

However, I need to identify, date and coherently write something about every photograph in my collection. Most of these oldest photos are portrait style, a few are about special events and one, yes, just one, is a gravestone. (Taking the Challenge)

Let's begin tomorrow with the story about the gravestone....