family stories...

Here is a piece from the Albuquerque Journal on keeping track of family stories... I think they were reading our class' minds...

Making History

Rick Nathanson / Journal Staff Writer/Published 5/6/2012 
 

An old baseball card, a yellowing photograph, a birth certificate, an old 45 rpm record or the recollection of a favorite story by a favorite uncle.

These are more than the bric a brac of everyday living; rather, they are pieces of a person's life that can be preserved and shared as part of a personal history or "life story" to pass on to future generations.

Now, thanks to digital technology, people can archive that history and present it in many formats interviews on CDs or DVDs, movie and slide shows, or scrapbooks with text, photos, memorabilia and documents. And they can be posted and shared online at personal or business websites and social networking pages.

Creating a life story is important, personal historians say. "It connects us to each other and to the past, it gives people a sense of place and it records our stories and contributions," says personal historian Genevieve Russell, who operates StoryPortrait Media in Santa Fe. "We know who we are, in part, because we know where we came from, but creating a life story is also a good way to reflect on everything you've done in your life."

And it's not necessary to have lived a long life to create a personal life story. This semester Tom Gilbert, a social studies teacher at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Albuquerque, has introduced seventh graders to the idea that life stories are histories in the making.

The project is intended to give kids "a sense of story as history," he says, because historical events typically get passed along first as oral stories "before someone writes it down to preserve it."

How to get started
It can take time to compile a personal history, and if there are many archival documents, it can be an exercise in organization. That's why people often seek out profesional services of personal historians, says Beth Morgan of Full Circle Heritage Service in Vado, N.M.

Software can help, such as "Personal Historian 2," "Family Atlas" and "Personal Ancestral File."

Websites provide instructions and templates. Users can pour in text and photos, then share their compilations online through social media or print on demand in a book or photo album.

Increasingly popular, says Russell, are personal or family websites where people can share family stories, post photos, letters, a family tree, genealogical data. Stories can be as text, video clips, sound or images.

Finding stories
Paul Ingles, an Albuquerque radio producer and documentarian, has created oral CD histories of his parents and an aunt for members of his own family an exercise, he says, that "is not that much different than some of my work as a radio documentarian."

Recording your own life stories is one thing, but getting others, especially older people, to talk about themselves may not be so easy, Ingles says. Often times, "they do not think that their lives have been all that extraordinary and they don't understand why anybody wants to sit them down and ask them about their life and times."

When they do start talking, they can ramble if not kept on point, he says. "The trick is to get them to talk about feelings and what they did and motivations about why they did it, and to offer descriptions," he suggests. "A common mistake is to go in with a list of questions and then when the subject answers a question you go on to the next one; then, when you listen to the interview later you realize they didn't say enough."

Forms of histories
In addition to audio CDs, personal histories can involve digital or book form memoirs written by family members; DVDs of interviews with the subject and people close to the subject; a video history that uses old photos, home movies, slides and related material set against a background of music; and ethical wills or legacy letters in which the subject relates personal values, beliefs, life lessons, hopes and wishes for family, friends and community.

One of the oldest and still popular forms of chronicling personal and family history is with a scrapbook, and one of the oldest reasons to create one is still relevant. "It helps preserve memories in something other than a shoebox," says Elizabeth Reil, owner of Scraps Galore in Albuquerque.

"The nice thing about a scrapbook as opposed to a digital format, is people can touch it and hold it, which I think provides a greater appreciation for the person and the process."
Scrapbooks commonly contain personal photos and images from magazines or printed off the Internet, personal writings, drawings, newspaper articles, an envelope of hair from a child's first visit to the barbershop, embellishments such as stickers or colored paper, concert or theater programs and ticket stubs from sports events.

Special scissors can be used to cut different shaped edgings into paper or photos, and scrapbooks often contain pockets to hold audio or music CDs, DVDs or plastic page protectors for special citations or documents. "You're pretty much limited only by your imagination," Reil says.

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