Is Honesty the Best Policy when Writing Your Life Stories?

October 21, 2014 Alison Taylor

How honest should I be when writing a memoir?

There is a difference between being honest, or truthful, and being accurate.

Accuracy alone, while important in certain essential facts like birthdates and college degrees, can be the kiss of death in a memoir.

Why? Because you are a human being, not a recording machine. You have a soul that interprets events, molding them into your own personal truth that is expressed in a way only you can express it. That subjectivity is what makes a memoir interesting. You are showing your reader what it feels like to be you.

Life Story Webinar #8: Putting Your Book Together

October 17, 2014 Alison Taylor

This week's webinar is the eighth and final one in the “How to Save Your Life, One Chapter at a Time” series: “Putting Your Book Together.” Now that you’ve written your stories and gathered your pictures, we will show you some options for turning them into a beautiful hardbound book.

Minimalism and Family History, Part Two

October 16, 2014 Alison Taylor

Cool modern pedigree chart by mytreeandme.com. — Cool modern pedigree chart by mytreeandme.com.

What is essential?

How do we tell the gold from the dross? How do we decide what to let go of? And what should we do with the stuff that is important enough to keep, so that it can be enjoyed and cherished by the whole family?

Minimalism and Family History, Part One

October 10, 2014 Alison Taylor

Is it possible to live with less and still preserve important family history?

News flash: I have way too much stuff.

Our nest recently emptied, Tom and I live in a house that is now too big for us, filled with way more stuff than we need or have time to maintain. Recently, we have been longing for less, and have been considering our options. What in our lives is worth keeping as we slide into our "golden" years? What can we gleefully chuck into the dumpster with nary a second thought? These questions apply not just to stuff, but to all aspects of our lives: tasks, responsibilities, thought patterns, prejudices, relationships...

What does this have to do with family history, you ask? I promise to come back around to the relevant subject, if you, dear reader, can forgive a few personal musings along the way.

Storytelling in Business - Some Links

October 9, 2014 Tom Taylor

In the current business climate, storytelling is all the rage. The best way to connect people to your brand is to tell a story. Whether we tell stories to inspire our families or to sell a product, many of the principles are the same. Here are two articles on telling stories in the workplace that have some interesting points to consider as you plan to tell your own stories—to whoever you choose.

Life Story Webinar #6 - Editing Your First Draft

October 3, 2014 Alison Taylor

This week's webinar is the sixth in the series: "Editing Your First Draft." In this webinar, you will learn some effective ways to edit your first draft, such as how to handle sensitive information and how to keep from getting stuck.

Life Story Webinars #5 - Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories

October 1, 2014 Alison Taylor

This week's webinar is "Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories"

Hey, we finally got around to creating a Pictures and Stories YouTube channel! We'll be posting new instructional video content from time to time. But first, we thought we'd share some webinars we created last spring as part of our series to accompany our book, "How to Save Your Life, One Chapter at a Time." We'll be posting a webinar each Friday. We hope these webinars are useful to you as you prepare to tell your life's best stories.

This week's webinar is the fifth one in the series, "Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories." In steps 1 through 4, you have written a nice little pile of stories about your life. Now what? This webinar will give you some ideas about how to go about putting your stories in order and finding an overall theme and tone for your life story book.

Enjoy! We'd love to know what video content you'd like to see from us in the future.

Life Story Webinars #4 - How to Write Your Stories

September 19, 2014 Alison Taylor

This week's webinar is the fourth one in the series, "How to Write Your Stories." In this webinar, we'll show you some ways to make the writing process much easier. Writing isn't your thing? We'll show you how you can turn an oral history into a written manuscript.

Enjoy! We'd love to know what video content you'd like to see from us in the future.

Adding Historical Context to Your Autobiography

September 15, 2014 Alison Taylor

Do you remember the moon landing? Put your life stories in context with a little history.

Putting your own life in a historical context—comparing your life events to what was happening in the world or in your community at the time—can add great depth to your stories. Looking at historical events can also spark your own memories.

Life Story Webinars #3: Story Triage-Choosing What Stories to Tell

September 12, 2014 Alison Taylor

This week's webinar is the third one in the series, "Story Triage: How to Choose What Stories to Tell." In this webinar, we talk about how to choose your most important and compelling life stories from all the possibilities you've gathered in your brainstorming.

Feb 28, 2024

Speaking at RootsTech 2024

We are so excited to be back at RootsTech live this year! Come by and see the Pictures and Stories booth (#1609) and see some of the many new books we’ve helped our clients create. Alison is giving two in-person classes: The Seven Deadly Sins of Building a Digital Archive, and Making a Genealogy Story Book. Hope to see you there!

Apr 15, 2020

"Novelize" Your Family History Story - Live (sort of) from RootsTech 2020

How do you get from dry genealogy facts to a compelling story? This presentation from RootsTech 2020 will hopefully inspire you as well as give you tools to write your ancestors’ stories. (Audio with slides) Join me on a fascinating journey as I find one of my ancestors and write her story.

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