Writing your history- Then & NOW- Your Family

Through the middle of December, there will be a series of journal prompts regarding your life now and as a child. These prompts are about your life today.

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about you and your experiences. This is your history and writings of your individual experiences.

Who do you live with?

Are you currently married? If not, have you ever been married?

I live with my husband of 26 years and three living children. They are pictured above heading out for our Grand Biking Adventure., which was 170 miles this year. Our three youngest learned to ride bikes at age three, our oldest saw her brother on his bike and asked that her training wheels taken off and rode without them the same day.

Our last bikepacking trip all together.

Are your parents or grandparents alive? How are your relationships with them?

Do you have any children?

Do you live near your family?

Our family decorating my oldest daughter’s grave for Dia De Los Muertos this year. When she passed away we decided to have her buried in the closest plot to her high school, which is on the other side of the row of trees and 5 miles from our house. We live 1,500 miles from our extended family and wanted to have her buried close to us, rather than in our family cemetery in Oregon.

Writing your history- THEN & Now- Your Family

Through the middle of December, there will be a series of journal prompts regarding your life now and as a child. These prompts are about your life today.

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about you and your experiences. This is your history and writings of your individual experiences.

As a child, who did you live with? Were your parents married? Did you have siblings at home with you?

How were your relationships with each parent?

Did you live near your extended family? How often did you see them? What are special memories with each?

Maternal Grandparents: Merlin & Lois

I had THE best grandparents in the world. They lived in California, but I saw them frequently. The would often come for 4 weeks at a time and stay at two local camp grounds; their campers got nicer over time. We would raft with Grandpa down Hell Gate Canyon, grandma would pick us up in the SUV and drive us back to the boat launch. Grandma was a prankster and loved to do sewing and crafts. Occasionally, they would visit in the winter and during those trips grandpa taught me how to snow ski. In all of their travels around the world, grandma always sent me a postcard.

Grandpa Bob at my wedding

I happen to be blessed with multiple sets of grandparents on my father’s side. Most of my childhood, Grandpa Bob lived in Colorado, but for about a year, he lived near us. He and his wife have always been there for big events in my life. He came to be with us when I got married and before that to see me off to college. As I kid, I loved when he visited and not just because he had a supply of Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper.

Me with my great-grandma, who we called AA

AA is the only great-grandparent that I sent time with. I only remember her after she had had a stroke and her speech was limited. She was always full of smiles and would call me and my siblings “the good one”, which is the phrase she used if she liked you. My youngest daughter is named after her.

Writing your history- Favorite Activities

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about you and your experiences. This is your history and writings of your individual experiences.

I love riding bikes with my family. When the kids were younger or couldn’t physically ride, I would ride with them on the back or in a handlebar seat. My current bike is a little smaller than the one pictured and 20 lbs lighter. It was nice to be able to tote my 11 year old this summer when he sprained his knee.

What are your favorite activities?

What do you like about them?

How often are you able to enjoy them?

Is it a singular experience or do you to do it with someone?

Is there a barrier to you enjoying them regularly (i.e. finances, weather, COVID, health, etc.)?

Writing your history- Food Favorites

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about you and your experiences. This is your history and writings of your individual experiences.

Photo by Ari Helminen used under Creative Commons license.

What is your favorite food?

Could you eat it every day?

Do you make it yourself or eat it out?

Have you been able to have it during COVID?

I love tacos and especially Mexican tacos! My favorite place to get them is a local restaurant called Taco Dale, which has a location pretty close to my house. I have gotten them a couple of times for takeout during the pandemic. They are always really good. We haven’t eaten at the location since maybe December. They had 2 months that they were open for indoor dining, but the COVID case numbers were rising, so dining was discontinued. It looks as though that county will reopen restaurants in the next few days.

I probably make tacos at home a couple of times a month. My youngest layers hers with sour cream and cheese and eats whatever protein on the side (I think it is very strange!). I am the only one who uses cilantro on mine. I make homemade refried beans to go with them.

I could easily eat taco everyday; however, my family likes pasta and (gasp!) casseroles.

Not watching where you are going- in cars and in research

I think that far too often we are distracted when we are working on most things in our lives that we don’t fully focus on what we should be. While bikepacking with my family this summer, I came across this sign, 4 days later when we were passing this same town on our way home there was a similar sign. It was obviously not a road, but is part of the I&M Canal Path. It appears as if too often people are paying too much attention to their GPS and not the road. (Note the single track down the middle and the narrow passage next to the utility pole.)

I&M Canal Path near Illini State Park

When I am doing research or look at what others have put together, I always verify the information that they give me, as too often people are careless or do not fully vet the information that they are gathering. Are we making assumptions about those we come across? Are we finding someone with a similar name in a document and assuming it is the person we are looking for?

For a project my senior year in high school, I did a family history project on the David Newton Dague family. I assumed that the child, Shirle was female. Shirle was born in 1881 and died in 1897, so did not appear in any available U.S. Census record. Besides family records, I had some pages from Carrie M. Dague’s The history and genealogy of the Dague family and on page 168 she has the spelling of the name as Shirley. I think it was a novices mistake that my 17-year old self made to assume that a Shirle/Shirley was female and not having seen the movie Airplane. If I had been careful I would have also realized that on the same page, she lists my great-aunt Joann as John. Thankfully, it was not a generational connection, so did not send me branching off into someone else’s tree.

It wasn’t until 2014 when I was researching this line some more, that I came upon a newspaper article indicating that the son of David Dague had passed away that I corrected my mistake.

Writing your history- Helping children write their stories

Here are a few ideas on helping to get your children in the habit of writing about themselves.

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Bikepacking journal for children

• Use a book that is engaging for the child. Have colorful and fun options for them to use.

• Consider whether they should have lined or unlined pages. I have one child who is consistently drawing and doodling, so to help him focus on putting words on paper he has lined pages in his journal.

• Let them have a selection of archival safe scrapbooking stickers.

• Have themed journals- My children have a daily journal that they write in, they have a mourning journal where they write thoughts about their older sister who passed away, and as pictured above, they have a bikepacking journal. We are an avid cycling family and go on bikepacking trips at least once a year; we carrying the bikepacking journals in a plastic bag to protect them from the elements.

• Encourage personal privacy and respect. No one is allowed to open or read anyone else’s journal without permission. This helps them write in a more honest and authentic way. They do tend to share some of their writings, but are not obligated to do so. Our only condition is that if, as parents, we feel that they are in danger or are endangering someone else then we may read a personal journal for information.

• Modeling writing- write in your own journal while your children are around, share writings from your journal.

• Share the journals and writings of others. If you have access to journals from ancestors consider sharing information from them with your children. I find it funny that in an ancestor’s journal he wrote only one line about his wedding the day he got married, but wrote over a page about farming conditions.

Writing your history- How is COVID-19 in your area now?

Here are a few questions to get you thinking about your experiences with racism. This is your history and writings of your individual experiences.

How are the COVID-19 cases in your area?

Are the number of cases going up?

Are you venturing out more than a few months ago?

How have government recommendations and orders changed?

How have the activities you and your family engaged in changed?

Inequalities in Family History Research- helping to making it better

It is not unknown that there are great inequalities among the genders in family history research. It is much more difficult to find information on women who often could not own property and were excluded from voting registers and many census records. Even in the recent past, a woman might be listed in a document only as “Mrs. Robert Smith”, but not under her own name. I am in reference to records in the United States, in other cultures women might not be listed on records at all, or might only be listed as “first daughter.”

However, even with that disparity between the genders, there is an even greater disparity between the races. Black Americans were excluded from many local, state, and national records for centuries in this country and the early founding. Even after emancipation, institutional racism and intimidation prevented many from being listed in voting registers, owning real property, and being listed in local and region histories.

Join Me In Helping to Make Records More Equitable

Sample birth register within the Caribbean- Civil Registration, 1859-1978

Currently, the Caribbean- Civil Registration, 1859-1978 has only 3% of the records indexed to make them searchable. This is a wonderful opportunity to help to make what few records we have available to be accessible to all. It is listed as an intermediate level of difficulty; however, in the records that I have completed I have not found it to be that level. So log onto your free Family Search account and get indexing.