Tips and resources on family research.
The decade of the 1940s was, from the perspective of seven decades past, a decade of numbers. But in choosing the decade as a setting for my story, they are numbers to be looked at, as the nation changed drastically. Before World War II, much of the country still resided in farm communities. No Ordinary …
Okay, so I tend to geek out on family history – and not just my own. But why talk about it on a blog geared to writing historical fiction? What does one have to do with the other? While researching genealogy, I’ve discovered some wonderful nuggets of history which seeded good ideas for fiction. Go …
Why Genealogy Has Anything to do With Writing Historical Fiction Read More »
Halloween has been a favorite of mine since my early childhood, as I grew up in an area heavily trafficked by trick-or-treaters, and the night ended with a large bonfire party in our neighborhood park, complete with costume contests, hot cider (this was in Michigan where October nights are chilly compared to where we live …
Old yearbooks are very useful when it comes to researching your own family. But for writers they are a huge resource of historical information about a specific town, era and a pool of ideas for character development. I have used old yearbooks for all of the above. School annuals, or yearbooks, have been around since …
YEARBOOKS: RESEARCH HISTORY USING SCHOOL ANNUALS Read More »
While researching my mom’s family, I learned about a golden nugget that led to finding lost family members – City Directories! City Directories were published in most cities and in many small towns, because they were designed to be a reference for people from outside the community, such as traveling salesmen. They differ from Telephone …
Following up on my last post about family history, here is how I started. In 1998, I read an article in a magazine about asking your elder family members questions about their lives and about the times in general when they were growing up. Liking the idea, I wrote to my dad and each of …
I have always been interested in family history. My mother had a wall of old family pictures, and it took me ages to learn how I was connected to all of those people and what their names were. When I was twelve, I learned my mother had been adopted and that intensified my interest, culminating …