How to Write a Family History Story That Lasts: 10 Simple Steps

Every genealogist, beginner or professional, starts a research project by gathering three main facts for each family member: birth date, marriage date, and death date. We all know, though, that there’s a lot more to be learned about a person’s life than just these events. In this guide we’ll go through the process of writing down a family history story that is both accurate and interesting.

We’ll explore how to gather the right details, how to lay them out to prepare you for the writing process, how to present facts you have in your family tree versus assumptions, how to construct the story and how to share it. We’ll cover the topics you see below in order.

How to write a family history story:

1. Start with the facts you already have about your ancestor
2. Organize these facts into a timeline
3. Determine the scope of your family story
4. Conduct further historical research to add details and context
5. Expand your timeline with new information
6. Cull your timeline to fit your scope
7. Turn your timeline into a story outline
8. Write your ancestor’s story down
9. Take the time to double-check every fact
10. Share your story with others

How to Easily Create a Family History Story People Will Want to Read

First, you might be wondering what a family history story is. A family story is a narrative that turns the facts of your ancestor’s life into an interesting piece of writing; a short biography of sorts. And, like a biography, it will contain more than just dates and names. It will include the important facts about your ancestor, but will also provide rich details about the world they lived in and context for the experiences they had and choices they made.

Family history stories are important because they allow you to take all of the hard-earned research you’ve conducted and make it more interesting and accessible to others. Someone is much more likely to want to read a short biography than look at simple facts. The process will also help you better understand your ancestor or ancestors and identify holes in your research.

You may wonder how you’ll ever be able to transform the basic facts you’ve gathered about a particular ancestor into an engaging life story. How can you go beyond “Jemima Jones was born on January 23, 1843, married John Smith on May 5, 1861, and died on October 17, 1897.” Don’t worry; the fact that you’re reading this guide means you’re already off to a great start! Here’s how to do it in 10 simple steps.

1. Start with what you know about your ancestor

First, make sure you have all of the information about your ancestor gathered into one place. This could be in a family tree or in well organized notes. If you have not yet started research on the ancestor whose narrative you want to write, now is the time! You can find help for your research in the guides on Family History Daily and in our courses.

Once you have some facts, consider the source of each piece of information. Did it come from a gravestone, marriage record, family bible, census record, or newspaper clipping? Go back to those sources and use them to gather new information you may have missed. Read this article about how to mine records you’ve already collected for new details. Write everything down in your notes or add them to your family tree.

2. Create a timeline of your ancestor’s life

Once you’ve collected the information you already have access to you can place your ancestor in a time and a place for each event and to begin to flesh out your family history story. Do this by creating a simple timeline that includes the fact and the source or sources – make it as long as you can at this point in your research.

• Jan. 23, 1843 Jemima Jones born to George Jones and Emily Johnson in Olive Hill, Carter County, Kentucky [Family Bible]
• May 4, 1861 Jemima Jones of Kentucky married John Smith of Tennessee in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee; witnesses were Joe Johnson and Henry Smith; Rev. Daniel Foster conducted the service [Marriage record]
• October 17, 1897 Jemima Jones Smith, a “most noble woman,” died in Florence, Lauderdale, Alabama, at the home of her daughter, Susan Walker [Newspaper Obituary].

Family History Daily provides a downloadable timeline in our digital family history workbook, you can access that here, or you may create your own in a notepad.

Once you start a timeline, it’s easy to see where you have holes in the story. Are you missing key birth, marriage or death information? What about big moves or births of children? Did you check the censuses for job changes? Take some time now to fill them in before we move onto the next step.

Not sure where to look for new facts? If you haven’t already, download our checklist of family history record types. It lists many sources for you to explore that will help you build a family history story. You may also like this article, which outlines how to use your ancestor’s birth year to find new records.

3. Define the scope of your family story

Hopefully, by now, your timeline is chock-full of information about your ancestor and his or her family, as well as general facts about the places and times in which they lived. Perhaps you even have a seemingly overwhelming amount of data, and you’re wondering how it will all fit into a nice, neat family history. Or, maybe you can see that you have a lot more research in front of you (to fill in those holes) and need to know when to stop.

This is a good indication that it’s time to define your scope. Just how much information, how many people, and what time period(s) should you include as you begin to develop your outline?

This isn’t always an easy decision. Take Jemima, for example. Sure, you started out with a goal to build a timeline of Jemima’s life. Along the way, however, you learned a lot about Jemima’s parents, sisters, brothers, neighbors, husband, and children. Of course each of those people played a role in Jemima’s life, but how significant are they to the story you want to tell? How deeply do you want the reader to understand the lives of these other individuals? Do you want to write a complete story of a family group, for instance, and include all immediate family members? Or would you prefer to write a unique story for each person?

It’s important to decide now how much of your ancestor’s life you want to tell, and in how much detail. Write down a quick scope for yourself so you know what to focus on and what to leave out (or include in another person’s stories).

4. Conduct further research to add richness to your ancestor’s life

You can likely see that your facts are already telling a story, so keep adding more until you feel like you have a good picture of what their life was like!

We know, as an example, that Jemima traveled to (or was living in) Tennessee when she married John, then together they settled in Alabama. To put this information into context, consult local newspapers, almanacs, and local histories of these places and times to find out what life was like. Try to understand why they may have moved, what the journey would have been like and what they found in their new home/town.

Write down important information you discover to make sense of why things happened in their life. For instance, if your great grandfather changed jobs in his mid 40s suddenly, ask yourself why? Could the place he was working at have closed down? Were others put out of work?

Did your great great grandparents move to a new state or country? What might have been happening in that location to cause them to want to move? Were there droughts or food shortages, better work opportunities in another place?

While you can’t always know the exact reason for a change, historical research can provide clues. In our example timelines, we know that a minister married Jemima and John; by finding out if he was affiliated with a church, you get a clue to the couple’s religious affiliation. Their marriage date was less than a month after the Civil War began, and John was young enough to fight; you find that he went off to war, consult Civil War diaries and other books on the subject to find out what would life have been like for Jemima.

And you know that Jemima was staying with her daughter, Susan, when she died, and seems to have been well-respected in the community; are there any family stories or old letters that indicate her personality? Do any old photos of Jemima give any clues to her looks or physical stature?

As you research, make notes of any information you might find relevant. What were the fashion trends, current events, and economic conditions at each of these times in the communities where Jemima lived? What was the weather like on these dates? Look at church records to see if the couple were listed on attendance records. What was going on in the church then? Do local newspapers indicate any church events, like picnics or revivals?

Next, make a note of any other dates and locations you’ve gathered from your research, like census records for 1850 through 1910, and add birth dates and locations of Jemima’s children, the death dates of her parents, John’s death date and place, and his dates of military service, if applicable. The census can provide a lot of information if you know where to look.

Consult published historical references for additional clues about things like modes of transportation, typical housing structures, and how people in the area and time period shopped, cooked, and lived. Learn how to better understand an ancestor’s location and life here.

As you learn more about what was happening to and around your ancestor, you’ll inevitably begin to develop a better picture of what life was really like for him or her and your family history story will start to really come together. Putting yourself into their shoes, in the context of their time and place, will provide an excellent perspective from which to develop your narrative.

For example, maybe the 1861 Farmer’s Almanac shows that May 4 was a breezy, cloudy Saturday in Nashville, with a temperature of 53 degrees. From the newspapers, you see from the editorials that the town was nervously preparing for an inevitable conflict between North and South, but it was still business as usual for the merchants and railway lines. These are the details that will help you paint a vivid picture for your story’s readers.

Continue your research to add color and context to the other events in your timeline. It’s also helpful to make notes about significant changes between the dates, such as “Jemima’s big brothers aren’t listed in the household in 1860 and George had passed away; household of women only” or “Emily died in Columbia; Jemima may have been able to care for her mother in her last days.”

If you have been lucky enough to find photos or old letters pertaining to your ancestor, add those facts as well; simple things such as “Jemima wrote to Jeremiah in 1858 that the crops were successful and that old lady Stevens has died,” or “Jemima’s cursive handwriting was lovely” will be great additions to your story.

Can you see the outline of Jemima’s life story forming? At this point, you may want to shift your timeline to a spreadsheet program like Excel or Google Sheets, or even a word processing program, so that it’s easier to insert new lines of text into your timeline.

Or, if you prefer, write each fact on an index card with the date of the event printed clearly at the top of the card. As you add your information, be sure to record the source of each fact in a dedicated column or on your card. This will make citing your sources much easier when you’re ready to create a narrative.

But don’t worry if you can’t find facts or conditions for every single place, date, or time period. Unlike your genealogy research, you’re not trying to conduct a reasonably exhaustive search to add to your family tree; your goal is to simply help you and your readers gain a better understanding of what life was really like for your ancestor, and to make his or her family history story as interesting as possible for those who might read it. Afterall, we want to show future generations that there was much more to them than just a few dates.

5. Add new details to your ancestor’s timeline

Believe it or not, you’ve already made great progress toward writing your family story. By now you have constructed a timeline that is getting a little more detailed every time you add another date and fact.

Maybe it looks something like this now:

• Jan. 23, 1843 Jemima Jones born to George Jones and Emily Johnson in Olive Hill, Carter County, Kentucky [Family Bible]
• April 1850 George Jones (age 42), Emily Jones (36), Robert Jones (15), Jeremiah Jones (13), Sarah Jones (10), Jemima Jones (7), living in Olive Hill [1850 Federal Census] (lists George’s occupation as factory worker)
• March 4, 1853 George Jones dies in Olive Hill [Family Bible] (outbreak in town killed many people in this year, see newspaper clipping from Olive Hill Herald)
• April 1860 Emily Jones (46), Sarah Jones (20), Jemima Jones (17), Georgia Jones (9) living in Olive Hill [1860 Federal Census] (census shows all members other than Georgina were working as factory workers)
• May 4, 1861 Jemima Jones of Kentucky married John Smith of Tennessee in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee; witnesses were Joe Johnson and Henry Smith; Rev. Daniel Foster conducted the service [Marriage Record] (see newspaper clipping from Nashville Observer announcing wedding) (when and why did Jemima move to Nashville, was it because of the war?)
• December 1, 1869 Emily Jones dies in Columbia, Tennessee [Family Bible] [Columbia Times obituary] (find her will if one existed)
• April 1870 John Smith (28, occupation: Farmer), Jemima Smith (27), Susan Smith (9), Samuel Smith (7), George Smith (5), living in Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee [1870 Federal Census]
• NEED MORE INFORMATION TO FILL OUT THIS PERIOD OF TIME (ideas: 1900 census, state census records, marriages of children etc)
• October 17, 1910 Jemima Smith, a “most noble woman,” died in Florence, Lauderdale, Alabama, at the home of her daughter, Susan Walker [Newspaper Obituary]; died of “old age” [Death Certificate]

Make sure you add anything new that you learn and make notes of where records or notes with additional information or context can be found (is it attached to your tree, or in a folder on your computer?). You may also add questions to your timeline that you would like to do further research on. 

6. Cut out information that muddles the story

In a previous step you defined your scope, now is the time to decide what to cut out and what to keep. Remove facts and information that falls too far outside this scope so that you can stay on track. Copy any information you don’t intend to use into another document that you can draw from later. This information may become useful to you and, more information, even if it’s not being directly used, it good to have as it increases your own knowledge and confidence in your main story.

7. Turn your timeline into an outline

When you have a pretty good idea of who and what to include (it’s OK if you’re still deliberating; you can always expand or decrease your initial scope), it’s time to start turning your timeline into an outline. Remember in high school when you had to create an outline for your standard five-paragraph essays? This is exactly the same thing, except this time you might actually enjoy the exercise!

Let’s say you’ve decided to write a relatively short biography of Jemima’s life. The easiest structure for your story is a chronological outline, with details, beginning with Jemima’s birth and following her life until her death. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach; in fact, it may make the most sense, especially if this is your first narrative.

For this type of story, your outline will be pretty straightforward, perhaps something like this. And, just as with your timeline, you can add questions you would like to do further research on and answer later. The outline does not need to include every detail, but should provide an easy way to stay on track as you write – jogging your memory for important life events and special details.

Here’s an example:

• Birth (Mention her birth and provide interesting details about the family she was being born into.)
  1. Born Jan. 23, 1843 at home to George Jones and Emily Johnson in Olive Hill, KY
  2. Was there a local midwife that could have helped with the birth? How can I find their information?
  3. According to a local newspaper, the day was cold and snowy
  4. She was the fourth child; older siblings Robert (8), Jeremiah (5), Sarah (3)
  5. Olive Hill main industry was brick factory; Joneses lived near factory, did her father or mother work there since we know he was a factory worker? What does this job say about their economic status? Did they own a home?
  6. Mother was a homemaker? What was life like for her?
• Childhood (Growing up, what kinds of challenges might she have faced? What things may have provided joy?)
  1. Brothers married, moved out
  2. Did she attend the weddings? Can I find any marriage listings in old newspapers or mentions in society pages?
  3. Dad died when Jemima was only 9 from a flu outbreak, this may have been very hard for the family
  4. Still living in same house in Olive Hill with mom and sisters at least up to 1860, did they have good community support or other family members that made them stay?
  5. How did Mom pay the bills?
  6. Census from 1860 shows Jemima working at this time as a factory worker What factory was she working at? Was it the same one as her father worked at before he died? Was it the same as her mother and siblings?
  7. Local history shows most children homeschooled then, later handwriting indicates that she received education. What was that like?

And so on. You’d continue outlining Jemima’s life using the other facts that you’ve gathered about her wedding, married life, and on to her death in 1910.

Another option for your outline is to start your story with a significant event, like Jemima’s marriage to John, then look back and forward throughout the narrative. This approach might take a little more planning and organization when you start to write, but it can be a fun and interesting alternative for your readers. It’s your story, though, and you should do only what is within your comfort zone as a writer.

8. Time to write your family story!

Pat yourself on the back; you’ve done an enormous amount of research and preparation, and now you’re ready to write your fabulous family history! Please don’t worry about your writing skills–or lack thereof. Your family members will appreciate your efforts so much that they’ll overlook a misplaced modifier or extra set of quotation marks.

Sit down and just write. Imagine how you would want someone to tell your story if you were writing a memoir, apply that to the short biography you’re about to create.

With your outline as your guide, just put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and start with a working title. For Jemima’s story, we may choose the title “The Life and Times of Jemima Jones Smith.” Again, nothing is permanent. You can always change it later.

For your first paragraph, you may choose to open with a short introduction or synopsis rather than jumping right into Jemima’s birth.

Perhaps something like this:

“My great-great-grandmother, Jemima Smith Jones, led a fascinating life. Growing up in the mountains of Kentucky, Jemima survived all sorts of hardships. She even lived through the terrible Civil War years, raising children alone while her husband was off at the battlefield. Great-great-grandma Jemima was a survivor, and I’m proud to share her story with you.”

It’s perfectly alright to share your personal feelings about your ancestor in your story; it’s YOUR story! However, once you begin to write about your ancestor’s life, you have to be very careful not to let your personal beliefs and assumptions displace or cloud the facts. With any genealogy project, it’s important to distinguish proven, source-supported facts from fiction, and this is especially true when writing a narrative that will most likely be read by your own ancestors long after you’re gone.

For this reason, it’s imperative that you use words and phrases like “perhaps,” “maybe,” “we might assume,” and “could have” in your story when you’re making assumptions based on the facts. For example, the first sentence in your next paragraph might look like this:

“Jemima was born to George and Emily Jones on January 23, 1843 on a cold and snowy day.”

You have proof of the weather from a newspaper article from the next day talking about the big snow storm the day before. If you did not have this fact you might make an assumption and write something like this to let the reader know you aren’t sure.

“Like most January days in Olive Hill, Kentucky, the day Jemima entered the world was likely very cold; snow might even have covered the ground.”

Notice how we us used the words “likely” and “might.” Generally it is very cold and snowy in January in this area, so these are solid assumptions, but they are unproven so we must state so.

Here is another example: “Jemima was the fourth child for George and Emily, and we can imagine that her older siblings–eight-year-old Robert, five-year-old Jeremiah, and little three-year-old Sarah–were excited about the birth of their little sister.” Again, we have used the word “imagine” to remind the reader that we don’t know how the children felt about a new sibling.

These kinds of details help the reader imagine the story of your ancestor’s life and makes it more interesting, so include as many as you can – while also sticking to the facts and being careful to show when you’re add potentially fictions narrative.

9. Double-check every fact

Now, just because this is a family history story doesn’t mean that genealogical standards are thrown out the window. Even in a narrative, it’s vital to cite your sources. Good thing you kept a record of all of your sources in your timeline!

As you write, be sure to cite the source for the various facts you’ve included. If you’re using a word processing program like Google Docs or Word, use the “footnotes” feature to add this information to the bottom of your page. There are a number of reasons for citing your sources, including avoiding plagiarism, giving credit to the original researchers or writers from which your facts were gathered, and to give a reference point to your readers who want to dig in a little deeper themselves. It’s much easier to cite sources as you go along rather than trying to go back and insert them later.

If you need help citing sources check out lessons on this topic in our Master Family History course here.

When you’re done with your narrative, step away from it for a few hours (or even a few days) before you sit back down to review and edit. It’s often difficult for even professional writers to find errors or make revisions when they’ve only just completed a piece; a little time away makes a huge difference in your perspective.

If editing your own family history story makes you uncomfortable, ask a family member or friend to take a look and make suggestions. You’ll want to do this now, because our next step is actually publishing or distributing!

10. Share your story with others

How you decide to share your work will depend upon the scope of your finished project, as well as your personal preferences and who might receive your story as a gift. Your options are only limited by your imagination and budget. Here are some ideas.

Photo Books

If you’ve written a short story and have some great sources, either direct and indirect, consider creating a photo book. Many online services offer themed templates that make it easy for anyone to insert photos and add text and end up with a professional-looking, nicely-bound book. Insert a few paragraphs from your story on each page, and complement them with any photos you might have of your ancestor.

If you’re short on photos (or even if you’re not), consider adding some screenshots of the census records, newspaper articles, letters, obituaries, documents, or almanac snippets as images in your book. Even the non-genealogists in your family might find these historic images interesting, and they will certainly enhance your story.

Self-publishing a Family History Story or Stories Into a Book

If you have written or gathered quite a bit of information, or a number of family stories, self-publishing your narrative in book form might be an option for you. Publishing a book is not at all as difficult today as it would have been even 20 years ago. In fact, it can be just as easy as creating a photo book.

One of the benefits of a self-published book is that, unlike a photo book, your published work can be made available to anyone for purchase. Of course, you could also print a limited number of books just for distribution to family members and maybe your library’s local history room, and not allow your book to be marketed to others. That’s completely up to you.

To find a publishing partner, you could look for small presses in your community that publish local authors, or you might use an online “print on demand” resource. Creating your book on these sites is much like the photo book process; you’ll insert your text and images into a template of your choice.

However, for publishing purposes, your text will have to adhere to the site’s guidelines for image resolution, margins, font size, etc., which will ensure that your finished product is printable and readable. You’ll also have your choice of book size, bindings, paper quality, and cover material, each of which will have an effect on your final publishing price. If you’d prefer to have an online-only version of your book, these sites allow you to share your finished product with readers with a personalized link, or even publish your story as an ebook for sale.

Of course, you could keep things really simple and just share your story by printing it off from a home printer, or even digitally, as a document file or email.

Don’t forget to add your story to your family tree – either as an uploaded document or in the notes. Be sure to credit yourself as the author for others who may be viewing it.

To Share or Not to Share

Of course, you may decide not to share your story publicly at all, and that’s OK. You’ve no doubt developed a much deeper and more comprehensive understanding of what life was like for your ancestor throughout this exercise, and probably have a pretty good narrative of his or her life.

Perhaps you simply want to tackle another ancestor’s life story, or try a more ambitious project that encompasses the lives of an entire family unit. You might only want to use this exercise to improve your research and better understand your ancestors.

Use what you’ve learned to repeat and perhaps expand your research and writing process while keeping your work organized and manageable so that whatever your final product, it’s interesting, engaging, and accurate.

No matter your reasons, enjoy the process!

You may also enjoy: Tracing Ancestors in the Old Country: How to Start Your International Research