I have three long-term projects that I hope to tackle this year along with my WIP. One is my DIYMFA which I talked about last week and one is to create a story time YouTube for my grandchildren.
The third is to put into words the stories of my family history.
Let me start by saying that growing up, my family was not one for traditions or preserving the past. (Except that is, for my Grandma Viola who told a lot of stories, but she was an unreliable narrator. I remember once listening to a tale about a ship captain and privateer only to have my mother tell me after that she was retelling the plot of an Errol Flynn movie.)
For whatever reason, be it a lack of curiosity or a desire to forget bad memories, my mother and father didn’t want to examine their families’ roots. In fact, whenever I brought it up, my mom would say “Why? It’s not like you’re going to find anyone famous or rich.”
But I wasn’t looking for famous or rich relatives (cool as that might be). The history of the world is made up of ordinary people living ordinary lives during extraordinary times. My family has lived through over 400 years of American history. They saw the Salem Witch Trials and fought in the American Revolution. They lost babies and planted farms and sent husbands and sons off to war. All of those experiences rolled forward to create the person I am today. The people my son and grandchildren are.
That’s why I want to put that history on paper. I want to bring the past to life so that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren can know where they came from and not have to rely on an Errol Flynn movie to give their past context.
For those of you who share my complete geekdom about this – Lisa Maguire of Ancestory has an amazing Substack this week on memories link our generations. She captures what I’m trying to say in incredibly eloquent fashion.
