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Why not make your own legacy list?
Whether you're downsizing or consciously sorting through your stuff, make a legacy list of items that hold memories—it's a cheat sheet to your family history.
A well-loved donut cutter has been passed through generations of my neighbor’s family—and best of all, they continue to use it and share stories of those who used it before them! An heirloom doesn’t have to be so precious that it sits in a box untouched; those we stitch into the fabric of our lives through regular use are often even more meaningful!
How making a “legacy list” can set stories—and guilt—free
Things can hold memories. But those same things—maybe even more so because they hold memories—can feel like a burden.
Rather than let the stuff of your past overwhelm you—with clutter, with guilt—let’s look at a few ways to take control of the things so you can focus on the stories associated with them.
Have you ever seen the PBS show Legacy List with Matt Paxton? I hadn’t until fairly recently, but I love it! TV promotions describe the series as exploring the hidden treasures within our homes: “As millions of Baby Boomers downsize their own homes or settle the estates of family members, they will discover the most important museum in the world is in their family home.” In each episode Paxton and his expert team of organizers and historians clean through one family’s home with the intent of uncovering the most special things within—what he calls a legacy list.
“A legacy list is really just a list of items that help you tell your family history,” Paxton says.
“Lose the stuff, keep the memories” is a mantra for many downsizers or minimalists, but you don’t have to be either of those things to want to get rid of at least some of your stuff. Consider it a courtesy for the next generation (I speak from experience when I say going through my mother’s things after she died was not an easy task). And think of it, too, as a way to ensure that the things that really matter get preserved, not discarded.
Make your own “legacy list.”
1 - Write your legacy list.
Start with a list of items you think you want to find. Watch the episode of Legacy List below for some inspiration, or think about the following questions to help you identify things that may hold meaning within your house:
Are there items associated with specific family members that help tell their story?
Are there certain items that were used by ancestors that are still functional?
Are there handmade items among your treasures?
Do you have handwritten recipes that have been passed down through generations?
What items, if any, hold historical value, or perhaps help tell the story of the region?
Some examples:
In the episode below, “Home on the Range,” the family matriarch treasures her mother’s early handwritten school notebooks, which symbolize her intelligence and the sacrifice she made of quitting school at the age of 13 to care for her siblings.
Things don’t need to be big or monumental to be imbued with meaning! I, for example, think of my mom every time I bake and use her small offset spatula; and I gave a friend who loves to knit my grandmother’s collection of knitting needles so they would continue to be used with love.
I adore my mother’s chimes, and rather than stow them away in a box, I consider them an everyday heirloom and smile every time I hear their song from my backyard. I also cherish the crocheted blankets she made for me when I was away at college, and the ring I inherited with her birthstone (which I wear often).
2 - Allow yourself to be surprised.
There will be things you “just know” are packed away that you can’t find, and others that you never knew existed. Remind yourself that it’s okay for some things to have gone missing; you can write down your memories associated with them so those are not lost, too, and even search for photos that might represent the items in a more concrete way.
3 - Go beyond finding the things on your legacy list—tell their stories, too.
When Paxton asks the family matriarch why she gets such a sense of comfort from her ancestors’ stuff, she says, “I guess it’s just all a part of me…. I think that if I let go of the stuff, the memories will fade, too.”
“I think that if I let go of the stuff, the memories will fade, too.”
Those memories will fade as time goes on, though, if they are not recorded in some permanent way. With each new generation, the experiences and firsthand memories become further removed.
So grab a pen (or hit “record” on a digital audio or video recorder) and tell those stories! Many pieces may need explanation (how was that plow yoke used? for instance). Some may have important documentation associated with them (a dated certificate of authenticity, for example). But mostly, strive for heartfelt stories (for a recipe—how the smell alone alerted you to the holiday and Poppy’s presence; for a photograph—when it was taken and what the context was…and why it holds a special place in your memory).
And take a lesson from the show: Interview members of every generation to hear about their memories and associations with the items on your family legacy list. As you’ll hear in this episode, even the grandchildren may surprise you with distinct and meaningful memories.
As Paxton reminds viewers, if an item is properly chronicled, it will be cherished forever.
Watch an episode from the recent season of Legacy List with Matt Paxton below, or browse all available episodes on PBS.
14 Best RootsTech sessions for family storytellers in 2022
Here are my top picks for RootsTech 2022 sessions teaching about family storytelling and photo legacy. They’re all free, and you've got a year to watch!
Why waste time browsing through hundreds of session descriptions? If you’re interested in learning about preserving and sharing family stories and photos at RootsTech 2022, then look no further and bookmark this page—I’ve curated the best options for family story keepers below.
Again this year, RootsTech, the largest family history conference in the world, will be held virtually—and free of charge. That means there is a wealth of stuff you can access for free! But trust me when I say diving into the menu of seminars and finding exactly what you want can be challenging.
There are 22 family history topics covered in the RootsTech array of class sessions and keynotes in 2022, from technology to travel, from historical records to DNA. While of course all kinds of genealogy topics may be of interest to you, I am honing in on the best that’s on offer on the topic of storytelling.
Of the hundreds (!!) of results that RootsTech dishes out on the storytelling track, here are my favorites—and those I think you may most benefit from.
Bookmark this page and come back to those that interest you when you have time—for while the conference officially runs from March 3-5, most of the content will be available on the website for a full year.
RootsTech 2022 sessions on family storytelling and sharing
Telling Your Stories & Making Connections
1 - Workshop: Start Telling Your Own and Family Stories
“Writing about your memories doesn't have to be an arduous task. In this workshop, we'll complete fun brainstorming exercises to develop family story ideas. Because stories beget stories, we'll also have opportunities to exchange ideas.” Sounds like a session that will be both informative and participatory—that’s my kind of class.
Presenter: Laura Hedgecock is president GeneaBloggers and author of Memories of Me: A Complete Guide to Telling and Sharing the Stories of Your Life.
2 - Stories for Your Family History: How to Tell a Good Family Story
“Learn family storytelling tips that will help others enjoy your stories as much as you do,” describes the course description. Remember: Your own personal narrative is part of your ongoing family history, so it’s important to document your stories for the next generation—hopefully this session will get you started!
Presenter: Sunny J. Morton, author of Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy.
3 - Easy Family History Video Stories
If you’re like me and the idea of shooting and editing a video intimidates you, then this course looks like it’s for us. The description promises to cover a storyboarding technique to help with planning as well as simple tools for combining photos, audio, video clips, and music. “This class will use a case study of creating a video story from an inherited World War I wallet. It was created with post cards, voice narration, and other memorabilia.”
Presenter: Rhonda Gaye Lauritzen is a professional biographer and founder of Evalogue.Life.
4 - Create a Family History WordPress Blog
“Blogging is a great way to share family history, family stories, photographs, documents, and more. This short video teaches you how to set up a WordPress blog, how to invite family members to join, how to upload content, and how to make the site private,” reads the session description. Salina will also provide examples of other family history sites for inspiration.
Presenter: Rhonda Chadwick is author of Secrets from the Stacks and teaches family historians and genealogists how to create a family archive for long-term preservation.
Sharing Difficult Stories
5 - Researching and Writing About Skeletons in the Family History Closet
“We all have them: ancestor stories that tend to be hushed up: illegitimate children, desertion, abuse, mental illness, etc. How do we discover the facts and what do we do when our family history research uncovers something unexpected? Recording these kinds of details can be difficult. We’ll explore ways to tell our ancestor’s story with integrity and kindness.”
Presenter: Diana Elder is a professional genealogist, author of Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide, cohost of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast.
6 - Handling Sensitive Subjects in Family Storytelling and Autobiography
“Writing life stories containing adversity can heal and inspire, but we must navigate the danger zones carefully. These include handling different versions of the truth, unreliable memories, abuse, difficult family history, and unflattering details. Learn how to process your story in a safe environment versus when to share with others. This class will provide practical guidance so you will know how to approach sticky questions. Guidance includes: empathy, a mindset of grappling, self-care, and a focus on transformation. These tools can turn the hardest topics in your personal story or family history into lessons of growth. If you approach writing your memoir, life story, autobiography, or family history with care, your words can be a source of strength and healing. The reward is greater insight and stories that will inspire others.”
Presenter: Rhonda Gaye Lauritzen is a professional biographer and founder of Evalogue.Life.
7 - How to Handle Sensitive Topics in Family History
“This presentation examines the ways in which we present our family stories and considers those ancestors whose lives we may deliberately or unintentionally be misrepresenting and why. It discusses why it is important to present a rounded portrait of our families, the good, the bad, the ugly and the marginalized. The potential impact of telling unbalanced stories on current family members will be considered. There will also be suggestions for handling difficult material in a sensitive manner.” The syllabus includes notations on slavery, disability, mental illness, prostitution, and criminals.
Presenter: Janet Few is a community and family historian and lecturer.
Evaluating Family Stories
8 - Is Your Family Folklore Fact or Fiction?
“This presentation helps people understand, it is okay to find out if their family folklore is true.”Using two personal case studies, Pratt shows how to search for clues, where to find information, and how to discreetly share your findings with family.
Presenter: Virginia M. Pratt currently works as a Wiki content project coordinator for FamilySearch.
RootsTech 2022 Sessions on Your Family Photo Legacy
managing your photo archive
9 - Best Foot Forward: Preserving Ancestors' Photos
“Tracking down our ancestors’ photos, documents, and stories can be a treasure hunt with huge rewards,” reads the description for this two-part course from presenters Maureen Taylor and Nancy Lora Desmond. “The images and details we create during our lifetime will be equally impactful to generations down the road.”
In part one, they focus on what materials to digitize, how to properly handle physical artifacts such as photos and documents, options and tips for digitizing materials, smart ways to name files, and how/where to store the materials to ensure long-term preservation. Part two delves into options and tips for storing digitized files, best practices for structuring folders, how to tag details as portable metadata, and why that matters.
This session is suitable for anyone who wants to tackle a DIY family album project or sort and preserve their photo library for the next generation; syllabus indicates course is geared toward beginners.
Presenters: Maureen Taylor, a.k.a. The Photo Detective, is a family historian who focuses on photographs, digital albums, and photo restoration platforms. Nancy Desmond is chief memory officer and co-founder of MemoryWeb, a photo organizing site that makes capturing metadata easy for family historians.
RootsTech Sessions 2022 introducing you to apps and technologies to help preserve your family history stories
10 - Food Heritage
Want to preserve your family’s food stories? Learn about Fareloom, an app designed to help you engage, gather, share, and preserving your own recipes, food stories, and traditions.
11 - Oral History Markers
Want to add audio stories to your family photo books? Check out Audiostickers—their QR codes connect to cloud storage for capturing your oral stories.
12 - Hard Drives
Do you store your digital photos, genealogy documents, and other family history files on an external hard drive? Tech guru Andy Klein describes failure rates of hard drives and introduces cloud storage as an option.
13 - Family Heirlooms
Interested in preserving the stories behind your favorite keepsakes and family heirlooms? Check out GenerationStory, a free app designed especially for archiving such stories.
14 - Family Newsletter
Ever considered creating a family newsletter? Get inspired by presenter Kylie Zhong, who talks about her daughters’ experience interviewing relatives and sharing their stories in a monthly newsletter.
15 - Photographing Journals
ShotBox, a mini portable lightbox photo studio, offers up a tutorial on photographing journals and other bound materials such as books and photo albums.
Honorable mentions
While I have chosen to highlight the sessions above—for their in-depth content and quality presenters—there were a number of shorter or duplicative sessions that may still be of interesest that I wanted to put forth. So here are honorable mentions in many of the family history categories we’ve already covered (who knows, perhaps you’ll find sessions in here that are treasures to you!):
Storytelling
Let Me Tell You a Story: Helping Children Make Connections by presenter Susan H. Porter.
Write Your Family Stories (in 30 Minutes or Less) by presenter Brenda Hudson, a journal facilitator and author of Story by Story: 15 Projects to Write Your Family Legacy
How to Draw Closer to Our Ancestors by presenter Cameron Briggs.
Using Family Stories, Pictures and Keepsakes to Connect Us to Our Ancestors by presenter H. Wallace Goddard.
Documenting an Ancestor by presenter Seema Kenney, an experienced software instructor and a professional genealogist.
Roots for Kids: Sharing Family Stories by presenter Susan Provost Beller, a teacher and author of history books for children.
Creative Journaling for Busy Parents by presenter Kandis Lake, a mom of three and a hobbyist family historian.
Preserve your Legacy in a Simple Word Document Memory Book by presenter Rhonda Chadwick, author of Secrets from the Stacks.
Capturing the Stories of our Families and Communities: A Youth Project by presenter Byron Holdiman, a genealogy librarian and teacher.
Evaluating Family Stories
Why Your Story Matters by presenter Devin Ashby, a global outreach manager for FamilySearch.
Photo Legacy
From a Box in the Closet to a Treasured Family Heirloom (two-parts) by presenter Sara Cochran, a full-time professional genealogist with over twenty-five years of research experience.
Organizing Your Photo Legacy by presenter Cathi Nelson, founder of the professional organization The Photo Managers.
Liven Up Ancestors’ Histories with a Variety of Photos to Engage All Generations by presenter Jean Naisbitt
Organized to Capture Stories: Photos as Triggers for Family Storytelling by presenters from Ponga, photo organization software often used to capture research, crowdsource stories, and curate family legacies.
Family Photographs and a Sense of Belonging by presenter Janet Few, a family and community historian and lecturer.
Remember, RootsTech 2022 is free and virtual—all you need to do is register to gain access to all the great sessions above and many more in so many additional genealogy categories. Happy learning!
Storytelling hack: Talk, don’t write.
Do you want to write your memoir but don't consider yourself a writer? Don't worry, there's another—easier—way to preserve them. Speak your life stories aloud.
Telling your stories out loud and recording them is a great option if you want to preserve your personal history but don’t feel comfortable writing.
Have you thought about writing your life story—but then refrained because you don’t think you’re a good enough writer?
I’ve got three important things to say to you:
You are good enough.
Sure, you may want to take a virtual writing course or hire a memoir coach to help you improve your writing, or read one of these valuable books with life writing guidance. But know this: You don’t have to. You don’t need to strive to write a bestseller; rather, focus on reflecting back on your experiences, finding the lessons, the love, the joy, and the hardships, and sharing them with those you love. Whatever you write will be more than good enough—for you (you do know that writing your memoir is beneficial for YOU, right?), and for any family members you would like to leave your stories to. So write on—please!
Don’t change your voice.
Your memoir should sound like you: the way you talk, the way you weave a tale. It should reflect your values and your experiences. “There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice,” Michelle Obama has written. “And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others.” So don’t focus on sounding writerly or clever, and don’t edit out those colloquial phrases you say often. Focus instead on being authentic and truthful, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable as you tell your stories.
Drop your pen and pick up a recorder.
The blank page before you is just a vehicle. If you are paralyzed by the thought of writing your life stories, drop your pen (or step away from your keyboard) and instead begin recording your stories out loud. All you need is the voice recorder app on your smart phone or a digital recorder, a quiet space, and some time. I recommend either brainstorming a list of memories or creating a life timeline beforehand, so you can reference these and feel inspired to tell your tales. Then hit “record” and start talking. Maybe do this once a week, or every morning (setting some kind of regular schedule will help you finish one day!). Down the road you can transcribe these oral histories and maybe edit them into something more cohesive and inspiring. But for now all you need to do is (a) get started and (b) keep talking!
“Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family,” Terry Tempest Williams says. “Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility…. Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.”
Your story, moreover, is a gift.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “done is better than perfect,” and oh how applicable that is here! Whether you write your stories or speak into a recorder, the end result will be a gift to your family. One day in the future, one of your descendants will read your words and be grateful you took the time to preserve them. How powerful is that?
Today: “I don’t care.” Tomorrow: “That was life-changing.”
Family stories have enduring value. Some you share now may not be relevant enough for your kids to care. But one day they will see themselves in your stories.
Your granddaughter is too young to really listen to or understand some of your stories right now—but one day she may need to hear them, to be nourished by the lessons and comforted by your shared experiences.
“I never knew any of this stuff about you, Mom,” the daughter of one of my clients said after reading her life story book.
From a family member of another client: “When I lost my job this year during the pandemic, I had a niggling sensation that my grandmother had gone through something similar. Then I remembered: I read about her experience in her book.”
“When we hear stories from family members about their experiences, we usually ruminate longest over the ones that feel the most familiar to us.”
When we hear stories from family members about their experiences, we usually ruminate longest over the ones that feel the most familiar to us.
If I am engaged to be married, perhaps I linger over my mom’s retelling of how she and my dad met. If I’ve just had a child myself, I’ll undoubtedly read with great interest the tales of their experiences parenting me and my siblings.
Some stories will feel foreign upon first reading. Your grandmother describing life in Brooklyn during the Depression; your grandfather recalling what if felt like to return from the Great War and no longer have a purpose. Even your parent losing a job when they least expected it—that is, until that story becomes relevant to your own experience, too.
Family stories have enduring value
Life transitions are some of the strongest fodder for memoir and personal history specifically because they bring about change—and change stirs all kinds of feelings and fears.
Transitions are the plot twists in our lives. And when they are unexpected, and they are happening to us right now, we feel unmoored.
But imagine if we had access to a story about the time our dad went through something almost exactly the same. He, too, felt unmoored. He, too, had no way of knowing how this transition in his life would play out.
Then 30 years later, he reflected about that time—his experiences, his feelings, the lessons he may have learned—and his stories made their way into a book. A book that now sits on a bookshelf in your living room.
While you may have flipped through that book a dozen times before, you want to reread it now. You crave remembering how his story turned out. It has a newfound relevance for you, and as such, it means so much more to encounter it at this time in your life.
“Transitions are the plot twists in our lives. And when they are unexpected, and they are happening to us right now, we feel unmoored.”
“In former times, knowledge was passed down from father to son and from grandparents to grandchildren,” Gianluigi Quentin has written. “Today, the focus is so concentrated on the future that there is a disregard for many of the important lessons of the past. This is why it is important that we elders write our memoirs—so that younger generations can learn from our experiences.”
Indeed, this is also why some stories will matter more in 10 years than they seem to right now: because our loved ones encounter them when they need them.
The stories of our modern lives—of transitions and ups and downs—“should tell us that the best way to respond to a period of personal upheaval—the close of one story, the end of one dream—is to push through the darkness, paddle through the torrents, persevere through the woods,” Bruce Feiler writes. “And to know: We’re not alone.”
What better way to let your descendants know they are not alone than to preserve your stories for them to learn from?
The simple reason your life story project never gets finished
Got a life story writing project that you've wanted to do for a long time that's just not getting done? How setting a deadline may be the key to completion.
Setting a deadline for your life story writing project will help you get it done rather than languishing on your to do list.
You’ve thought about getting your stories down on paper for years. You’ve made a list of pivotal moments throughout your life that you’d like to write about. Maybe you’ve gone through your photo collection and set aside some favorite pictures to use as part of your storytelling. Perhaps you’ve even written the first few chapters.
And yet, that journal you bought especially for this life story project sits neglected on your nightstand. Why?
“I seem to have lost my passion for it.”
“I don’t always know what to write about on any given day, so I end up staring at a blank page before abandoning it for Netflix.”
“I thought I’d have the time, but I really don’t.”
“It seems like too big an undertaking—I can’t imagine ever finishing.”
You know what these are, don’t you? They’re not real reasons—not legitimate ones that should stop you from completing your family history or legacy project, anyway. They’re symptoms of the real problem.
So, what’s the real problem? You don’t have a deadline (or a plan).
Don’t believe me that setting a deadline will spur you into action and get you on the road to completion? Research backs me up (as does two decades of personal experience as a managing editor at monthly magazines!).
How to set a realistic deadline for your life story project
Having a deadline forces you to think about the steps it will take to complete your goal. So, to meet that goal:
Make a broad-strokes plan.
Define your finished project—is it a book with photos, a journal covering a specific time period, or an oral history that delves into pivotal moments in your life? Be specific, so you know exactly what you are working towards.
Set mini-goals.
If you know you want to write only about your years in the military, for example, create a list of steps to get you there (make a timeline; denote key themes and stories you want to cover; gather photos and other mementos to use as memory prompts; write one story per week).
Create a schedule that works for you.
Maybe it’s writing one story per week, like in the example above. Or maybe it’s more aggressive: Write for one hour every morning. Don’t be so liberal that your project promises to take all year. As Tim Ferriss describes in his bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek, “If I give you a week to complete the same task, it's six days of making a mountain out of a molehill. If I give you two months, God forbid, it becomes a mental monster. The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.”
Understand your lifestyle and your ideal work times (are you energetic after your morning cup of coffee, or wonderfully reflective and calm enough to write on Sundays after church, for instance?) and designate the best times for YOU to devote to this project. By being thoughtful about when you’ll be most productive—and eager—to tackle your life stories, you are setting yourself up for success.
Use the info gathered above to write down a schedule.
This may seem like a lot of work just to come up with a deadline for your life story book, but you’re not going for any deadline, but a reasonable, achievable one. So, if you jotted down that you want to write about 12 pivotal moments from your life, and you’ve decided to write on Sunday mornings, block out 12 weeks’ worth of Sundays to write. What date does that bring you to? WRITE THIS DOWN on a calendar or create a bulleted list of target dates and tasks to complete. Writing it down helps it become real for you—and gives you a way to hold yourself accountable.
How to finish your life story book by your deadline
Without having a task master checking in on you periodically, it can still be challenging to finish the life story project you started, even with a deadline. Keep these things in mind to help you stay on track:
Consider asking a friend or family member to help hold you accountable.
Tell someone you love and trust about your life story project—and ask them to follow up with occasional check-ins. Declaring your goal out loud holds great power on its own; adding someone else into the mix, well, adds a little external pressure, too!
Let go of perfectionism.
“Make meeting the big deadline—not achieving perfection—the ultimate goal. Voilà. You’re making no guarantees of quality, but perhaps your work can be improved later,” Phyllis Korkki writes in this piece in the New York Times celebrating the power of deadlines.
And remember: You don’t have to do everything you want as part of this one project! Maybe your FIRST project—complete with plan and deadline—is to get your stories down. Then, when you’ve got the satisfaction of completing that project (congratulations!!), you set another goal—with corresponding plan and deadline—to edit those into a book.
Don’t let one slip-up derail your whole project.
Did you skip an entire week of writing? Did you ignore your project while caring for a sick child or vacationing in Mexico? Life happens. And you deserve a break. Consider scheduling vacation breaks into your plan. But when they happen out of the blue, don’t get too down on yourself. Adjust your deadlines accordingly and get back to it!
Make sure to WRITE DOWN (or adjust in your digital calendar) the new dates you’re due to complete your project so you continue to have an accurate date to work towards (there’s nothing worse than keeping the original dates in your schedule and constantly feeling like you’ve let yourself down—forget that!!).
Seek help for those aspects of the project you hate or feel overly challenged by.
If you don’t like writing, record your memories orally; you can always pay someone to transcribe the audio recording later.
If you can’t recall as much as you expected, enlist a family member to sit down to reminisce with you; take notes during your conversation for later reference.
And if you get your stories down but have no idea how to progress to a printed heirloom book, consider reaching out to me or another personal historian to get you to the next step—it’s what we do!
By the way: It takes incredible commitment and vision to even begin writing down your life stories—so kudos to you for taking steps to not only start, but to finish your personal legacy project!!
Two unexpected writing prompts about family
These two writing prompts about family—and what it means to you—may be just the ticket to more thoughtful storytelling and personal meaning-making.
“Families are united more by mutual stories—of love and pain and adventure—than by biology. ‘Do you remember when . . .’ bonds people together far more than shared chromosomes . . . a family knows itself to be a family through its shared stories.”
—Daniel Taylor
definition:
family*
1 : a group of people who are related to each other
2 : a group of persons of common ancestry : CLAN
3 : a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation : FELLOWSHIP
There are plenty of official definitions of the word family in the dictionary, many of them self-referential, most of them rooted in cultural norms of another time (“the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children,” for instance).
Here's the thing, though: The idea of family—what family means to you, who belongs to your family—is as personal as it gets. And yet…it's not something many of us think about, is it?
We may sit down to do some family history work—clicking on those green hints in Ancestry, sending away for land deeds and marriage certificates—and the assumption is we're discovering our family. Kin. But is that the extent of it?
More and more these days genealogy efforts may yield surprising results, especially since DNA entered the picture: a father who isn't biologically a father; a daughter who was raised as an only child only to learn she was the product of a sperm donation…and that she has 18 half-siblings by blood. How might these individuals rethink who their family is (and isn't)?
Moreover, the idea of family has evolved over time, and for some, their “chosen family” may play a more significant role in their life than blood relatives do. What is a “chosen family”? According to the SAGE Encyclopedia of Marriage, Family, and Couples Counseling, “Chosen families are nonbiological kinship bonds, whether legally recognized or not, deliberately chosen for the purpose of mutual support and love.” I have plenty of friends whose chosen family is their world.
You needn’t have made a shocking discovery through DNA or chosen a group of friends as your primary family, however, to have something important to say on the matter of what family means to you. Even in the most traditional of families, some relationships hold more weight than others. And what we derive from family—support, inspiration, pressure, trauma, love, fun, stability—can run the gamut, and have a profound impact on our notion of self.
So while documenting our family history is essential, so too is stepping back to ask ourselves a few questions about our family—in fact, it may be just the ticket to more thoughtful storytelling and meaning-making. Are you ready?
Writing prompts to yield deeper family history stories
Consider both of these questions, grab a journal or your laptop, and start writing.
What does the word ‘family’ mean to you?
Who is your family?
You're not writing for publication here. Rather, you're ruminating. Finding meaning through your writing.
And remember: Your responses to these prompts could be wildly different today than tomorrow, and that's okay.
How you answer these questions is revealing. Your own definition of “family” is foundational to how you discuss your personal history. How you regard past experiences may shift once you become more aware of your vision of your family (and where you fit into it).
What will you do with the writing that results from these prompts? A couple of ideas:
Think about your answers and integrate them into your own life narrative. You are the narrator of your own story, and writing about themes such as what family means to you is a path to self-discovery. As Sara Aird has written about storytelling and identity: “The final stage of writing yourself into existence will be accepting who it is you are finding, believing that who you are creating is real and true and worthy.”
Use your initial writing as fodder for more refined life writing. Was there a surprising nugget in there? Or perhaps you gained clarity on an overarching theme in your life story? Writing about your own life necessarily covers family ground; hopefully thinking deeply about questions of who and what family means to you will allow you to delve even deeper into your own personal stories.
* definitions from Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Explore more blog posts in these categories:
Family potluck: reminiscing and recipes
If you're not sure who is the keeper of your family's favorite recipes, take advantage of your next holiday gathering to start preserving your food heritage.
Thanksgiving—or Passover, Christmas, or other holidays where extended family gathers in one place—is an optimal time to collect stories and memories via oral history interviews. There needn’t be a lot of pressure: Simply turn on your smart phone’s voice recorder or set up a video camera on a tripod, then forget it’s there...and let the reminiscing begin.
Ask family members about their favorite food memories and record these tasty bits of family history in a heritage cookbook—or simply stash them in a recipe box.
Collecting family recipes is one of those things that’s on many of our “I want to do someday” lists but that can easily slip through the cracks. It always seems like there will be time. But instead of saying “next time,” make it a priority—as well as an enjoyable endeavor!
Invite family members over for brunch one Sunday with the dual intention of visiting and connecting AND sharing recipes. Consider making it a pot-luck get-together and asking each person to bring at least one of their favorite recipes—maybe from childhood, or maybe one that’s part of their current immediate family’s repertoire (we’re always making new traditions, right?!).
This doesn’t have to be an anxiety-inducing project. Follow the few tips below and remember: You’re collecting your family’s food heritage, so you can do so whatever way makes sense for YOU! (Just, well, do it.)
A few tips for getting your family involved in preserving your food heritage:
Make one person (you?) the point person, organizing the day and ensuring that recordings get transcribed and backed up digitally.
Distribute recipe cards to everyone and ask that they handwrite one of their favorite recipes on the front with accompanying memories on the back.
Use the recipe cards as a jumping-off point for telling longer stories that, when joined together, bring your family history to life.
Designate one or two people as photographers. You may want to collect photographs of the dishes once they’re cooked to accompany the recipes (those can be brought the day of your get-together or collected later), but don’t forget to take pictures of the family interacting around the table or in your home. Food brings people together, after all.
Consider collecting all the recipes and food memories along with a special collection of photos old and new into a heritage cookbook that you can gift to loved ones next year. (Go the DIY route or reach out to us for professional assistance.)
I wonder: What dish will you bring to this family reminiscence potluck?
Limited-time SALE on food heritage gift set!
Through the end of November 2021, input code GRATITUDE at checkout for 25% off our Taste of the Past recipe & memory card set (they make a great holiday host gift, too!).
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3 awesome (and easy!) Thanksgiving memory-keeping ideas
Get the whole family involved in saving stories and favorite holiday recipes with these three easy and fun Thanksgiving memory-keeping ideas.
My fingers are crossed that you are able to gather with your loved ones this year in person to celebrate Thanksgiving—to honor your family traditions and find fellowship around the table.
If you would like to use the opportunity to share stories and begin preserving some of your delicious family history, here are three simple Thanksgiving memory-keeping ideas, complete with ways to make them manageable and fun.
Thanksgiving activities that help you preserve bits of your family history
1 - Start a recipe preservation project.
In addition to writing down your family recipes, snap a few photos of a family member cooking the food, of the ingredients (especially unique or hard-to-find ones), and of the finished dish; whether or not you eventually put them into a family cookbook, your family photo archive will be more complete.
Notice I said “start.” Too often we let things we really want to do fall by the wayside because they seem overwhelming. Don't think about creating a heritage cookbook or worry about getting every single recipe your family has ever cooked! Instead, try one of these approaches to put your family on the path to preserving your best recipes:
Why not write down recipes for every dish at this year's Thanksgiving meal? Take a few pictures of prepping the dishes, what they look like when they are finished, and a few of the family around the table enjoying them? When the time eventually comes for you to make a recipe book, you'll have wonderful photos at the ready. And because you are beginning with a finite number of recipes—those for this year's menu only—your task is manageable enough to take on without worry
Make your recipe gathering a group endeavor. Send a blank recipe card (or a digital template for them to print) to every member of your family and ask them to record the recipe for their favorite Thanksgiving dish or meal. Important: Tell them where to return it, and provide a deadline (trust me, you'll never get them back otherwise).
Consider upping the ante and asking not just for a recipe, but for your loved ones to also write up a favorite story associated with that food. It's not just the provenance (that this was Aunt Betty's stuffing, for example) that make a passed-down recipe special, after all—it's the memories and traditions associated with it.
2 - Make a gratitude jar.
A handmade gratitude jar is easy to make and even easier to incorporate into your Thanksgiving festivities—I bet it will become a new tradition.
This one is so easy and it's sure to become your newest Thanksgiving tradition. It can be as basic as handing out pens and small pieces of paper to your guests, asking them to write one specific thing they are grateful for (as well as their name and the date), then storing them all in a mason jar until next year. There are so many ways to soup this one up.
Consider having each participant read theirs aloud, sharing a bit of a story with all those gathered before dropping their paper into the jar.
If your family does this annually, pull out random slips from previous years and share what was recorded—while this is sure to be touching, hopefully it will also prompt even more story sharing and reminiscing together as a family.
Maybe you want to set out construction paper, markers, ribbon, and glue and ask the kids to decorate the jar.
Why not find some autumn-themed paper to record your thanks?
Consider preserving everyone's notes of gratitude as a section in your annual family photo book.
3 - Revisit Thanksgivings past.
Thanksgiving is a great time to interview family members about food heritage, holiday traditions, and favorite childhood memories.
Thanksgiving is a perfect opportunity to interview your mom, dad, or another family elder about their holiday memories, as it's usually a time when generations gather together in one place—and nothing sparks visceral recollections like the smells and flavors of childhood foods!
Like with the recipe preservation project above, it's super-important that you don't get caught up in the idea that this is too big a task to take on. I promise this is something you can do even if your shopping list is long and you plan on getting up at the crack of dawn to get that 15-pound turkey in the oven! A few ways to make a family history project like this practical:
Is there a younger family member or non-chef in the family who might want to take the reins? Ask them to be the ringleader, bringing a list of interview questions designed to elicit Thanksgiving memories; setting up the voice recorder on their phone; and generally ensuring that everyone gets to participate.
If you've got a large clan and the football game's on, too, consider setting up a quiet area especially for brief interviews to happen and be recorded without interruption.
A fun—and efficient!—idea: Designate pairs of people who can interview one another, so you are not burdening one person to handle all the logistics. Two siblings, for instance, may be able to jog one another's memories of shared experiences; and a grandmother might have fun sitting with a grandchild to talk about how times were different “back then.”
Remember, any memory-keeping project you begin this Thanksgiving does not need to be finished by the next morning’s turkey trot. But if you don't start somewhere, your cherished recipes and stories won’t get recorded at all…so hop to it!
Resources to make your Thanksgiving memory-keeping easier
A Taste of the Past: Recipe card set that capture recipes and memories
Free guide: 55 Questions to Spark Thanksgiving Story Sharing
Gift idea: 8 weeks of writing prompts specifically designed to capture food memories
If you'd like to talk about working together to preserve your recipes, stories, and family history in an heirloom book, reach out any time to set up a free half-hour consultation.
