Today we wanted to draw your attention to a terrific blog post from the New York Public Library by Carmen Nigro, 20 Reasons Why You Should Write Your Family History. For each reason cited, there is a link to another publication on writing family history that could be helpful.

What do you wish you knew about your parents? What do your children want to know about you? The following questions, culled from college students, can give tremendous insight into what to include in your own life story writing.

What are your "ten best" stories? In this presentation you'll see a step-by-step method to make the process of writing or recording a personal history easier and more fun.

Here is a short exercise from today's presentation, "Story Triage: How to Tell the Best Ten Stories of Your Life." If you are at the Rootstech conference, you can hear this presentation at 2:30 p.m. in Room 150. If you aren't able to join us, here is a little exercise you might want to try. It may jump-start some memories, and give you some ideas about important stories you need to tell.

As "personal historians," Tom and I often use these terms interchangeably when blogging or teaching about the concept of writing one's life stories. But does that signify that they all mean the same thing?