Why We Need to Rethink Genealogy
30-Second Summary:
We need to stop focusing our genealogy efforts exclusively on documenting names, dates, and places
A story-based approach to sharing our family history is more effective, meaningful, and insightful for our primary audience
Humans are wired to love stories, providing us a great opportunity to create emotional connections when we write our story in a narrative
The best ways to start writing our genealogy story is by completing the Story Planning Grid template
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Our Typical Focus: Names, Dates, and Places
While some traditionalists may be disheartened by the suggestion that we change our approach to genealogy, I’m convinced family history is in need of a refresh. We’ve become too comfortable accepting the standard formula as ‘good enough’ in our work.
My largest gripe: we are obsessed with names, dates, and places—spending our time almost exclusively on tracing a family tree, figuring out baptismal dates and anniversaries, and identifying the church where our fourth-great-grandparents were married. Is the information useful? It’s interesting, no doubt. Finding facts about our family tree is a great starting point, but it’s not what genealogy should be about, nor should it be the guiding goal by which we concentrate our efforts.
“Our quest for names, dates, and places comes at the expense of telling compelling and meaningful stories.”
In 2018 when I started my own genealogy journey to document my paternal grandfather’s family tree, I fell into this mindset. The entire project, I thought, would prove successful if I could identify 200+ members of the family and trace my roots back a few centuries. I spent months using online tools and websites, paying monthly subscription fees, and assembling a family tree that showed my ancestors back to the late 1600s. But in many cases, the further back I went, the more frustrating it was to come up with clean and data-driven insight.
On top of those challenges, I spent dozens of hours on singular individuals. Perhaps I knew their name, but the more sources I investigated, the more contradictory information I seemed to find. Eventually I landed on a tree I was confident in, but it took months of frustrated, non-stop digging.
As the family tree took shape, I was thrilled to share it. That summer I printed off a bunch of my research that contained the names, birth dates, death dates, and locations for more than 200 ancestors. I shared it with a few family members and I was struck by their reaction.
“Wow, Danny. This seems like a lot work. Where did they live? What made them leave the Netherlands? What did they do for money? What was Wisconsin like when they first settled?” my aunts and uncles asked. After hearing questions like these a few times, it finally hit me: I missed the point of genealogy. It wasn’t about names, dates, and places…it was about the experiences of my ancestors and the world they occupied.
A Refreshed Approach
After my family provided feedback in the form of additional questions about our heritage, I knew my entire approach to genealogy needed to change. If I simply proceeded down the path of creating lists, I’d have little that was memorable. Nobody was going to study those pages and tell their friends, “My eighth-great-grandmother was baptized in a small church in Amsterdam in 1746.” It seemed like an unlikely conversation topic.
I reflected on the entire project while on a solo trip through the Pacific Northwest and came up with a new big idea: I was going to write a book—a narrative—that told the story of my family. Yes, it would contain much of what I researched and found, but it would put those facts in a story-like format and showcase the experiences and circumstances of my family through the generations.
Later that year I had the book printed and bound. It was about 200 pages long, included three main sections, and leveraged the family tree I previously designed as a baseline. I titled it The Living Years: An Intimate Portrait Based on the Lives and Experiences of Those in the Loomans Family History. About five years later, it remains one of the largest and most satisfying accomplishments of my life.
A few dozen members of my extended family purchased a copy. Many were shocked when they finally unboxed it, seeing the beautiful black-fabric cover with the silver embossed title and subtitle. They paged through, often slowly, digesting the hundreds of interesting facts and stories that filled its pages. I was lucky to personally deliver several copies. Many of them started by opening to the first chapter, which begins, “Nestled in the eastern countryside of the Netherlands along the German border sits a quiet town of less than 30,000 people.” It served as a prelude to our family’s earliest recorded beginnings, and the start of the book’s story.
Many of my family members showcase the book on their coffee tables or display it prominently on a bookshelf. They love showing it off. When guests visit, some aunts and uncles gleefully pull it out to reference a story or map. They rarely reference the birth or death date of an ancestor. They most love sharing stories like how our family settled in Wisconsin before it became a state or what it was like for my family to farm in the 1800s.
The point here is that writing my family history as a story was a million times more useful than following the traditional rules. I focused less on the hard facts of a family tree. It turned out, my family appreciated my change in approach.
We Are Wired for Storytelling
Consider where we start as kids. We read chapter books. We are taught how to visualize the words and descriptions we see on a page to conjure an image in our minds. We love to hear stories and share them with others. We’re obsessed with them.
Also think about your conversations today. Whether you’re telling people about what you did this weekend, recalling a funny moment at a holiday last year, or explaining the plot of your most recent streaming binge show, your day is likely filled with storytelling. Some studies estimate that 65 percent of our daily conversations are based on them. Additionally, researchers in the UK found that people who listened to character-driven stories had increased activity of oxytocin, a chemical in the brain that helps us feel love and empathy. All said, we’re wired for storytelling.
What does this mean for genealogy? It means that we have a great opportunity to connect with our family by turning facts about our shared heritage into an engaging storyline. Think about your family history as a cast of characters. The setting may be several times and locations, but the more you frame it up, the easier it is for people to connect. The first chapter of The Living Years was titled “Winterswijk, 1797,” an immediate reference to the time and place of the early storyline.
How to Get Started With Your Storyline
It may seem overwhelming, but writing your family story is not an impossible endeavor. Consider a few initial steps below to jumpstart your story planning process. Stay up-to-date with our blog and join our community for more insights and ideas that support your genealogy journey.
Decide the structure of your story. Will it be told in chronological order (starting with the earliest years of your known history and moving toward the present), by ancestor, or in another format? I am personally partial to chronological order (roughly) because it’s easier to follow for the reader and seems more straightforward to write.
Complete the Story Planning Grid. It’s a simple one-sheet grid, but can save you significant time in the long-run. Download and print the grid to record key details like:
Who are your main and supporting characters?
Where and when will different parts of the story occur (e.g., Wisconsin, 1840s to Present)?
What are the primary problems / threats (e.g., economic challenges in the Netherlands, premature deaths of some children, etc.)?
What are the interventions (e.g., saving enough money to immigrate, the strength of family, etc.)?
What is the resolution to the storyline?
Identify which facts to feature. You can’t include everything in your final story. Think about what facts you already collected and documented will fit the storyline. Determine how you might arrange these topics. Once I knew that the structure of the story would be in chronological order, I decided that the first chapter will explore my family’s ties to the Netherlands and the second chapter would feature the process of immigrating to the United States. Later chapters would discuss the family’s establishment in the United States and how the family gradually expanded. Sketch how you think the stories may layer together by chapter.