Write a Personal History: Difference between revisions

A personal history is one way to leave a legacy that descendants will treasure for generations. As you create your personal history, you should make sure the information is accurate. If you leave someone else to rely on memories and secondhand stories to create your history, it may not reflect your life accurately. Resources and information in this lesson include:  

Ask yourself these questions—if your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors didn’t leave life histories, do you wish they had? Do you wish you could read about their lives? If you answer “yes,” then don’t leave your descendants to wish the same thing! A record of your life can be a great gift? Words in print can be read and reread, pondered over, and returned to. The words your teenager rejects now may become clear and precious when he or she rereads them later in life.  

Writing your history now can also provide you with an opportunity to evaluate your life. It may help you clarify your direction in life. Even if your childhood wasn’t idyllic, writing about it can help you cope with your feelings and possibly find understanding and forgiveness.  

Start writing your personal history now. Do not put off writing until you have more time or until you retire. You rarely have time to do all you want or need to do, an dyou never know how long you will live, so don’t procrastinate. No one else can write your personal history the way you can. The longer you wait to write it, the more details you will be likely to forget. This story is about your life, and it should be written by you. 2 When writing your history, set realistic and specific goals. For example, you could set a goal to complete a first draft in three months. A final draft could be ready for review in six months. In nine months, you could have a finished copy ready for photocopying and distribution to family members. Or it may be more realistic for you to write one chapter a week for the next 12 months or to write about one subject each week or to write one page a day. You can also write about different eras of life; preschool years, grade school years, high school, etc. Broken up into segments like these, makes the task easier to do. Do what you can, but do it regularly and consistently.  

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As you begin writing, do not be too critical of your writing skills. Get the information, stories, feelings, and events recorded first. Later you can polish what you have written. These suggestions may help you begin your personal history:  

*Remember your story doesn’t have to be told in chronological order. Digress whenever you feel like it. These digressions might just be the most interesting parts of your story!

=== Writing Challenges  ===

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Writing a first draft is only the beginning of the process. Some of your best writing will happen as you review what you have written and revise and rewrite sentences that don’t work as well as you would like them to. A trusted friend, your spouse, or another family member can help with this process. Ask yourself and other reviewers the following questions:  

*Is the proper tense used throughout the history?

You must decide what input to incorporate. Decide which feedback is useful and which is not. Sometimes a reviewer will express a concern that will indicate a problem besides the one mentioned. For example, a reviewer might say that a certain story is too long. But perhaps length is not the real problem; you may need to consider instead how you tell the story or how you describe important events.  

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