Breathing Life into Ancestors
by Ted Pack
("Anyone who wants to copy this article may do so as long as they give me credit and spell my name correctly." -- Ted Pack)
How many times have you found an ancestor and wondered what they
were like; what made them laugh, what made them cry, what made
them give up the farm in Vermont and move to Kansas? What was
the Civil War like, not for the generals, but for an 18-year old
farm boy in the 118th Ohio Volunteer Infantry? What was it like
to marry at 18, move to the howling wilderness we now call
Indiana, and be expected to provide for your new wife with axe,
plow, and musket? It is too late to ask our pioneer ancestors,
of course, but you can ask your living relatives what their
lives were like, and you can write an autobiography. With luck
the story will be passed down. If you write a biography of your
grandparents, your grandchildren could have an idea of what life
was like for them -- a span of five generations. Your children
might think of you as dull; mine do. Your great-grandchildren,
assuming someone finds a copy of your autobiography in an attic,
might find you fascinating.
Some people have a hard time thinking of anything to write, and
some of us ramble along for hours at the slightest provocation.
I'm the second type of person; most of my relatives are the
first type. I wrote up two pages of general questions for my
relatives. The questions are also on my Web site. If you answer
all of the questions in complete sentences you'll have a start
on an autobiography. If you answer each of them with a couple of
paragraphs, you will have 30 pages of heirloom more valuable
than a gold watch. You can see it at: http://www.tedpack.org/.
(Editorial note: We recommend a visit to Ted's site which has a number of interesting articles on different subjects.)
This article appears here with permission of the author.
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