Our Story: A Guide to Recording and Sharing Your Family History

Create a meaningful legacy for future generations with this step-by-step guide to gathering and sharing your family history, packed with inspirational, creative, and practical advice from a leading oral historian and museum curator.

A parent celebrates a birthday. A best friend moves away. A grandchild is born. There are new events, new people, new locations—whole new chapters—in our lives, and every family has a story to tell. Perhaps you have a sense that preserving your family’s history is important, but you’re not sure where to start.

That’s where this book comes in. Our Story is an actionable and inspirational guide to help you capture and preserve your loved ones’ unique history. An oral historian with decades of experience in the field, Rachel Seidman takes you through the process of compiling and sharing your story one easy-to-understand step at a time. Her book offers support at every turn, as you gather your materials, prepare for interviews, and consider any number of ways to present your findings. Perhaps most importantly, it will help get you talking to your loved ones now, creating new and lasting connections across generations.

Inside this book, you’ll find:

- Fun prompts and activities to discover the stories hidden all around us, from the objects we collect to the keepsakes we put in albums to the recipes we cook.
- Expert tips on conducting meaningful interviews with family members and loved ones.
- Inventive approaches to presenting your family history, whether through a book, quilt, time capsule, recipe collection, or as part of family gatherings.
- Suggestions on how to connect your family’s story to the broader context of local and national history, and explore how the events of our time shape us.
- Moving essays drawn from Seidman’s own personal and professional experiences to encourage you along the way.

With Our Story, Seidman offers you the confidence to take on this meaningful project, the tools to carry it out, and the inspiration to make it a story only you can tell.

Rachel F. Seidman is an award-winning curator and a professional oral historian. She is currently a curator at the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Museum. Previously, Seidman directed the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where she also taught history, American studies, and women and gender studies. She has also taught at Duke University and at Carleton College. In 2019 Seidman was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Turku, Finland. She holds a PhD in history from Yale University, and a BA from Oberlin College. She is the author of Our Story and Speaking of Feminism.