1. Know as much as possible about your subject before approaching the museum staff so spending time on basic questions will not waste either your time or their time.
2. Have questions in mind before your meeting. Other questions will occur during your interview. Ask about any controversial dates, name spelling, quotes, or stories that are great in the telling, but may not be historical accurate.
3. Call ahead for an appointment if possible. Trying to get staff attention when a group tour of fourth graders is underway will not make you a welcome visitor.
4. You may be fortunate to have a staff person willing to ”fact-check” your copy before publication. If so, give them adequate lead time. Furnish them with your best copy, neatly typed, with the spell-checking already done. Also give them a deadline for you to pick up their changes/suggestions.
5. Include staff by name in your Acknowledgments Page. A thank-you doesn’t cost you anything, but is always appreciated. A basket of chocolate is also a good way to show appreciation for their time, effort, and–most of all–expertise.
Based on Write History Right by M. H. Collins, Copyright 2007, CHS Publishing Company
ISSUE SIX: Five Tips for Writing Family History
Issue Five discussed ways to get the most from group interviews. These techniques apply whether you are writing family history or telling the story of the founding of your town. Working with family members sometimes takes a little more finesse. Keep these tips in mind as you interview family members.
1. Stay objective if family squabbles exist. Great Aunt Jessica may not have spoken to her sister in twenty years because of a disagreement over who got their mother’s bureau or the mahogany secretary that stood in the living room for as long as they can remember. You want to know if the furniture was made at a local mill or by a well-known craftsman of their day. Does anyone know approximately how old the furniture is or how it came to be in the family? Try to draw the focus away from the well-worn argument to pertinent information about the history involved.
2. Genealogy is important. Someone in the family is probably the expert on who begat whom. There are computer programs that help chart the family tree. Unless this is your specialty, let another family member trace the dates and names while you write the story about the people–loves,, hardships, and triumphs. What decisions were made by your great, great, grandfather that affected your family through the generations. Were they part of the large influx of people from Germany that came to this country in the early 1800s? Where did they first settle? What caused them to move from New York to Oklahoma? These decisions probably placed you – physically – where you are today.
3. Identify the pictures. Cleaning out the attic of the family farm house may lead to the discovery of an old box full of pictures. But who are these people? You may recognize some, but will probably need older family members to help you identify the people in the pictures, where they are, what they were doing, and the approximate date. Without identification, these pictures become lost treasures who’ve lost their way in history.
4, Don’t overlook the simple stories. History is not just the grand gesture and sweeping epic. History is also the story of how your grandfather walked through six feet of snow into the next town with a gunny sack over his shoulder to get groceries for the family. Or the fact that your grandmother was the first business women in your town and was the first retail clerk ever hired there. The laughter and family jokes handed down from generation to generation carry their own special place in history.
5. Write it down. Video or simply voice tape the stories. If you don’t write it down, the stories may be lost. Beyond the stories, think how wonderful it would be to hear your grandfather’s voice or the voice of your own parents again. The voices, inflections, accents, and warm kind words give meaning even beyond the written words.
Based on Write History Right by M. H. Collins, Copyright 2007, CHS Publishing Company.
Family squables can go very deep. Some of the ones I have come across include:
1. Loss of the family farm due to inheiritance and bankruptcy
Families carry hard feelings for a long time. They can be seen in legal documents and even the changing of the spelling of a surname.
2. I have had to deal with multiple stories from family traditions about Civil War deserters and heros.
One tradition includes the changing of a surname because of running from the Union Army. One of the traditions held that the family changed its name. In the end it was true that James Robert Schuyler was a deserter, but the name had not been changed.
I have not tried to tell my aunt who is certain our name was changed. Part of it is fear of undoing a important personal connection with one of her uncles.
I spent hours trying to find a way to make connections to the alternate name. In the end it was access to free documents through the USgenweb that paid off.
Raymond