Family Tree UK

Revealed…

Discover the secrets for making the dream of writing up your family history a reality: with Ruth Badley, Jackie Depelle, Diane Lindsay, David Ryan and Mike Sharpe – 5 specialists whose unique take on preserving the stories of the past we hope will inspire you to write your own family histories

Hooking‘em in

Family history tutor, guru and dedicated research night-owl enthusiast Diane Lindsay explains why you really shouldn’t delay in putting pen to paper…

One of my students, a lady of 93, once declared: ‘That’s it! Finished my family history!’ How we laughed. And sure as your grandad’s your grandad (or is he?) next week she sashayed into class having demolished a brick wall that proved she had most certainly done nothing of the kind.

Like her, you’ll never finish your family’s story, so my advice is start writing it immediately, taking small bites or ‘chapters’ and starting with families or characters that interest you most or you know most about.

Break it down into bitesize chunks

Working in chapters, you can begin anywhere in time. Some families are more interesting than others; some individuals lived lives full of incident or you have more research with which to work. This last however can be

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