For All Time: A Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History

Family history writing can take many forms--a short essay or narrative introduction to a collection of family letters, long captions comprising a family photo history, a biography of parents and a narrative of their life together, an autobiography, or even a family newsletter. This sensible and accessible book is for those who want to do a little writing as well as for those who want to do a lot.

Kempthorne shows how easy it is to write family history and how much fun it can be. He illustrates in detail how to:

write narratives and dialogue

use physical details in a scene to make it come alive

create suspense

use many other techniques frequently employed by historians and novelists.

By the end of the book, readers will not only gain a thorough understanding of how to write family history, but will have completed a number of sketches to entertain and enrich their families.

Charley Kempthorne, a former teacher, is the founder and editor of LifeStory Magazine, an interactive workshop by mail for family historians. He also teaches workshops in journaling and writing family history through his LifeStory Institute in Manhattan, Kansas.