Recently, with the time I have had at home, I decided to write my personal history. I have been keeping a journal off and on for many years, beginning with my missionary journal. I read through that first journal, in an effort to refresh my memory of events that occurred some time ago. As I read these journal entries, I was surprised by how very ordinary most of the things were that I wrote about. There were very few momentous events recorded, and some of my writings were quite repetitive. I was even a little surprised to read that my past self was concerned about many of the same things I am still concerned about.

As I have read some histories of my pioneer ancestors and my more recent relatives, I have come to realize that my journal writings are not the same as a personal history. I believe that much that is written in my personal journals was meant to help me at that time and would probably hold little value to my posterity. With this in mind I decided to change my approach.

In a great article posted on the Family Search blog, called: Define Your Dash: Start Writing Your Personal History with the #52 Stories Project, I found many ideas that can help anyone write a personal history and help them interview and write the histories of family members. The article and sources linked to in the article will give a framework that you might want to use, and will help you write your personal history. By tackling one question a week, if you start now, you can have your personal history written by this time next year. What an accomplishment that would be. Happy Writing!! –Elaine Hardman