Stop what you're doing before you send your family history book to the printer
to share with the world please for the love of trees make sure it's not boring.
In this video I'm going to show you how.
Howdy I'm Devon Noel Lee with family history
fanatics where we help you understand DNA, climb your family tree, and write
your family histories in a non-boring way. Know many genealogists dream of
writing the book and sending it to archives libraries and even other family
members but the problem is we're still writing in a style that was developed in
the 1870s. Nothing wrong with the 1870s but the register style writing method
developed in the 1870s well it has flaws. And I know it's controversial because
there's an organization that tells you to write in this way in fact they won't
accept your writing if it's not in this format, but it is boring and you need to
stop wasting trees and computer resources on these types of books. Now
this is register style reading and it's oh so enjoyable.
Reinhold son of two people was baptized in this state in this location in
England he died in Lyme CT I'm assuming that's Connecticut in the summer of 1662
his will is dated there's an inventory he married Marie judging by
the date of the baptism of her eldest child in sixteen seventeen or eighteen
but no record has been found the registers not complete she died not long
before her husband evidence if that were. Is this exciting no it's not
not in the least but there is something pretty exciting right over here. Her
death was attributed to witchcraft. Okay stop the press witchcraft?
1662 in Connecticut I thought witchcraft happens in Salem hmm.
So this book missed out on an opportunity to tell a really great story
because it's written in that register style this style so many people keep
trying to print. Now in 1870 printing was very expensive it was a luxury to be
able to print a book with family history. So this was very helpful but last time I
checked were in 2020 at least and printing is cheap. It
is so cheap so we shouldn't have to be forced to write these types of family
histories. So if you think that this is going to excite your family about their
family history tough love baby it's not. So how can you improve on this well I
wrote a blog post that's going to be linked into the description and there's
gonna be lots of resources to help you write better so be sure that you absorb
the description box for this video but the very first thing that you can add to
make this be less boring is to add explanations. How old were Edward and
Margaret when Reinhold was born? What's the birth order? Is he the first
is he the fifth? Is he a long-awaited first after they got married 10-15 years
before? Just how far apart is the age of Reinhold and his wife Marie I know
we're working with the 1600s and you don't always have definitive answers but
give us a rough idea. Next could you please describe the places I have never
been to England I have no idea where Essex is. Now I've learned where Cornwall
is because I'm a huge Poldark Fan and I've heard of London once or twice.
So where is Essex County? Is it close to London? Is it far? Is it close to
the coast? What kind of geography does it have? In this time period did it
experience a lot of famines? or did it experience a budding basket of the new
agricultural product? Describe Essex and while you're at it tell me about the
church. What type of religion was it in that time period when Reinhold was
born? I guess it's Church of England but I don't know all of my English history
like the back of my hand so tell me about this church? And then what did that
church look like to get the idea all of these details would then make me go oh
my gosh this is really cool, but you have to add the facts rather than make
forcing me as your family history reader to have to go check it all out. Do the
work for me and you might get me hooked on my family history. Now the other
problem with register style writing and in fact many of the things that are
being produced and published by genealogists sorry guys nobody cares
about the proof well okay some of you care about the proof but remember we're
trying to write books that you know our family who wants to read and if you're
not going to stop watching this video I totally get it but proof arguments
aren't not enjoyable reading so if you want to explain how you discovered your
research that's what the appendix is for and if you have a couple of a side notes
that you need to add in of you know we're estimating this birth date because
we there are no birth records we're gonna base it on the marriage record
which we don't have silver you see what I'm saying you could put that in a
footnote that at the bottom of the page don't put it in the writing because
honestly nobody really cares finally add context I
the top of my mind I do not know who the ruler of England is in 1594 sorry it
doesn't come at the top of my head you should never make your reader work that
hard to understand the time and place their ancestors lived it's not dumbing
down the book it is making it born enjoyable and making these connections
so they go oh that makes sense so who are the leaders in 1594 what are
the political fights taking place now I know this is pre Napoleon I mean by at
least 200 years but what kind of battles are taking place because when you start
inking your story into historical time periods all of a sudden it becomes far
more enjoyable and you don't have to be a creative writer in order to do that
some additional topics of context could be how old did people typically get
married in England now I'm a huge fan of Regency era romance novels so that's
about 1800 1800 set in England and they talk about how the older men when they
were about about 30 that's when they start thinking about getting married and
then you have these fresh from the schoolroom 18 19 20 year old girls going
and having their season in London and it's not unusual for a 30 year old and
an 18 year old to get married now I don't know if it's true or not you can
tell me in the comments what you think but a little bit of historical context
to help us understand oh this age gap is typical or atypical if you're letting
these tips go ahead in the comments and say great tips thanks so much I'd
appreciate it so two more tips about how to add context to your stories go ahead
and add in the socio-economic conditions of Essex and compare it to London and if
you can compare it to your ancestors and the other people in the village now
typically when we're writing about people from the 1500 G you know who
she gets records written yeah people who have land and money and titles so if
you're writing that early you almost have their story written but do us a
favor and add that in now I could go on and on and on talking about how to
improve your writing and you don't have to be a creative writer in order to
accomplish a non boring book you just have to add details so why don't you go
ahead and check out the description for this video for more tips on how to get
started writing and if you want a methodical approach to writing your
family history I have a book called a recipe for writing family history and
the link is in the description you're going to in love it