The January 1977 Ensign was titled Special Issue: Eternal Implications of the Gospel. The content was dedicated to building and bridging family ties through personal histories, journals, family records and diaries. This issue of the Ensign was the prologue, if you will, to a year long effort to encourage members to record their personal histories.

Elder Theodore M. Burton said in an article called The Inspiration of a Family Record, “your personal history may be one of the most persuasive witnesses of the gospel your family will ever hear… During the past year great efforts have been made by our Church leaders to get members of the Church to write their personal histories. Many have done so and have brought great joy not only to themselves, but to their families as well.”

Elder Burton goes on to say, “Life is soon gone. Grandparents do not live forever. Parents all too soon become grandparents and in turn pass away themselves. They and their influence will then in part be lost as memories begin to fade. All too soon our imprint in the lives of our descendants begins to dwindle. We can keep that flame of love burning brightly if we write down a personal history of our lives and that of our families. By so doing we can pass on to our descendants in a more permanent form the courage, the faith, and the hopes we felt within us as we lived our lives and solved the problems which faced us. Passing an account of these experiences on to them will provide them vital guidance and direction.

“In these personal histories we can express to them our love, our hopes, and our desires. We can pass on to them knowledge of our family ancestry and express to them the pride we feel in our family heritage and the blessings we have received through those who went before us…When we reduce to writing those things that have strengthened our own faith and courage, we strengthen faith and courage in our children and grandchildren.”

My son Briant, who is eight years old, found a new hero to pattern his life after when we discovered an ancestor who helped in the rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. Our Stake had the opportunity to experience a section of the handcart trail in Wyoming this summer. Our Stake President, Paul R. Willie, of the Mendon, Utah Stake was our captain. He is the great, great grandson of Captain James G. Willie of the ill fated Willie Handcart Company. The members of our stake were encouraged to research their family histories and learn more about their pioneer heritage.

My great, great grandfather Briant Stringham came to Utah in the pioneer company with Brigham Young. He would have been the type to help with the rescue of the Willie and Martin handcart companies and I often wondered why I never saw his name on the plaques honoring the rescuers. On our trip we discovered the name of George Stringham on one of the extended lists of rescuers and I immediately got out my book “Briant Stringham and His People” to search for this ancestor. It turns out that George is Briant’s brother.

This is some of what I read to the family about George Stringham. “When there was a job to be done requiring courage and fearlessness, George was always in the front line…He could bend the most rugged type of gun barrel by grasping either end with his hands and with the center against his knee, pull until the metal would yield to his marvelous strength…this man, to his dying day, possessed a ‘heart of gold’ with a sympathy that would extract his last penny or the shirt off his back if that would assist a friend in need."

Briant was enthralled with the story of George Stringham and exclaimed, “When I grow up I want to be like that!”

President Thomas S. Monson gave us this counsel in the April 2006 Ensign article Becoming Our Best Selves, “It is time to choose an oft-forgotten path, the path we might call ‘the family way,’ so that our children and grandchildren might indeed grow to their full potential. There is an international tide running. It carries the unspoken message, ‘Return to your roots, to your families, to lessons learned, to lives lived, to examples shown, even family values.’ Often it is just a matter of coming home - coming home to attics not recently examined, to diaries seldom read, to photo albums almost forgotten.”

Like it or not, you are an ancestor. What will you have your posterity know about you? What do you want them to remember or know about your faith and testimony, your parents, and grandparents and their strength and courage? You can ensure that your influence and impact on generations to come will be long lasting through a personal history.

Where and How to Start
In his article Writing Your History: Some Helpful Ideas, William Hartley suggests you start by making a time-line, a list of the major events, along with the dates, that have happened in your life. Once the time-line has been written, you can begin to fill it in with information.

To facilitate the writing process, the information you collect will need to be stored in a logical and organized system. Hartley suggests using a filing system with manila folders, index cards or binders, divided into specific subjects from the areas of your time-line. "The topics come from the areas of your time-line, such as family background, where you store information about your mother, father, brother, sisters, grandparents, etc.; youth, adolescence, and so on. You might also want to use geographical divisions in your file system according tot he various places you have lived and what happened to you there, or special themes, such as school, work experiences, or influential people. You'll want a special section for spiritual experiences."

The information collected for each category or topic can then be used to write your history. Your history can be divided by years, or by the category/topics used in your filing system.

Gathering Information and Materials
Whether writing your own personal history or that of a relative, gathering information that is informative and accurate can be challenging. Hartley recommends, eight places to look when starting your research.

1. Diaries: A regularly kept diary is the most valuable source of personal history.
   
2. Letters [and e-mails]: Letters go two ways—to and from. Letters to you provide important information because the writers often respond to things you told them. Letters from you can be rich sources if you can track them down.
   
3. Documents and artifacts: Papers and objects that are important in our lives ought to be saved. Birth, marriage, missionary certificates, awards, and diplomas. Drawings, paintings, poems, and talks. More bulky but still important are artifacts like sewn items, carvings, jewelry and handicrafts. Official government records are valuable as well as Church records.
   
4. Photographs: Beyond just faces, pictures ought to capture typical work and play situations. Labeling dates and names on our photographs is a must. The same goes with our digital files too.
   
5. Tape [and video] recordings: Recording voices of children year by year, dictated life stories not only preserve the story, but the voice of the story teller.
   
6. Recollections of others: "Written or tape recorded, other people’s memories of us can provide a wealth of insight. People to contact: your parents, children, brothers and sisters, teachers or students, employers, employees, neighbors, close personal friends, local Church leaders, visiting teaching partners, doctors, and former classmates or roommates."
   
7. Life sketches and autobiographies: "It is sad that most people write only a brief ten- to fifteen-page life sketch as their record of a rich, full life, when in fact full chapters could be written or recorded about each stage of life—at least one chapter each on childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, prime adulthood, and later adulthood—and about special themes, such as parenting, work experiences, religious work, family roots and background, influential people, life philosophy, and humorous episodes."
   
8. Your memories: Think about who’s in that fuzzy picture and why they’re important. What do you remember about the place and time? Jar your memory with other things: visit your old school, listen to old records or tapes, see movies that were filmed about the years you grew up, brainstorm with siblings or old friends.

The Writing Process
Once you've collected information to fill in your time-line, you can begin the writing process. This can be a daunting task. We each have lived full and rich lives and you have many experiences worth sharing. To make the writing process manageable, start by picking one of your files and write an outline of that part of your life. You do not have to start at the beginning with birth and family background. You might want to start with something more familiar or the topic know the most about - especially helpful if you're not writing your own history but that of a relative.

In Lesson 19 of the The Latter-day Saint Woman, Part B Relief Society manual, on writing Personal and Family Histories, provides a list of details to include in a personal history that might provide a starting point for your outline:

• Name in full
• Birth: day, month, and year; house, hospital, or other location where born; town, county, and state or country; family circumstances at time of birth
• Father: complete name; date and place of birth; his father’s name; his mother’s maiden name
• Mother: maiden name; date and place of birth; her father’s name; her mother’s maiden name
• Brothers and sisters: names; dates and places of birth; names of spouses and children; other information
• Blessing: when named and blessed—day, month, and year; where blessed—ward or branch, stake or district, town, county, and state or country; by whom blessed
• Baptism: where—ward or branch, stake or district, town, county, and state or country; when—day, month, and year; by whom
• Confirmation: when—day, month, and year; where—ward or branch, stake or district, town, county, and state or country; by whom
• Patriarchal blessing: date, place, and name of patriarch
• Schooling: when and where first schooling took place, schools attended, teachers remembered best, certificates or diplomas received, outstanding experiences
• Marriage: to whom; day, month, and year; place of ceremony—town, county, and state or country; circumstances of courtship and ceremony
• Childhood memories: adventures, accidents, thoughts, amusing incidents, friends, and so on
• Faith-promoting experiences: personal; in other family members’ lives that affected you; circumstances surrounding your conversion to the gospel
• Health: record, including sickness and accidents
• Home life: duties in the home, home activities, relationship with brothers and sisters, places lived, family trips and vacations, pets
• Hobbies and talents: musical, artistic, and creative abilities; lessons and workshops taken; things you like to do
• Goals and future plans: things to accomplish in vocation, home life, or Church service
• Other incidents: include Church experiences
• Include appropriate pictures, if available, to enhance your story

Once your outline is written, start filling it in with details. When you're confident and comfortable with the structure, write a rough draft. Use a much detail as you can, describe the way things looked, express your feelings about the experience, answer all the question words... who, what, when, why, how. It will provide for a more accurate and interesting history for you and your posterity to read.

A rough draft is exactly that, rough. Let others read through it and provide feedback. Their reactions, suggestions and questions will provide a great opportunity to edit your history, add details and streamline your though processes. Remember, the revision process may take a number of rewrites.

One last thought, use a writing tool that is easy and comfortable for you. Computers can make writing a personal history easier, but if typing is cumbersome, use paper and pen, or dictate it to a cassette tape and ask a friend or family member to help you transcribe the information onto a computer.

Publishing and Distribution
Once you've gone through the labor of love of writing a personal history, you have revised and revised and revised the content, collected what pictures and other memorabilia you want to include, you're ready to put everything into a presentable format for family and friends to enjoy.

If you're writing your own history or that of a living relative, your story is not yet finished. Find a way to preserve what you have written and continue to add to it often. Make back-ups of the history and give it to out of town family members for safe keeping - hard drives crash, houses flood and burn - protect your investment and back-up your history with a hard or electronic copy or burn it to a CD-ROM, etc.

A couple of years ago I spent a couple of days with my dad interviewing him. I recorded and transcribed his responses to my questions about his life and the life of my mother who had died in 1972. Mother died when I was a teenager. As the oldest of seven children, I knew I had the most memories of my mother and felt a great responsibility to share what I knew, and could gather from others, with her posterity. Today there are 18 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren who never had the privilege to know this wonderful woman.

As I pondered the different ways I could publish the information I had gathered about my parents, I knew I wanted a high-quality book; something that would last a long, long time. I also knew a book of that quality would be expensive and I did not have the funds to support such a costly project. This weighed heavy on my mind and heart for several years until I saw a presentation about an online publishing company called Heritage Makers.

Heritage Makers, uses an online publishing process done totally over the Internet from the comfort of your home computer. You upload photos you want used, and fill in the wanted text. They have lots of different sizes, types and styles of books to choose from to compliment whatever your subject. Plus, they archive your book file for safe keeping and any future ordering. What makes this company unique is they have consultants who are assigned to you to make sure you are successful in taking your book from start to finish.

As the presentation progressed, I knew this was the way I wanted to publish my parents story. The books were affordable, beautiful and best of all, I was in complete control of what went into the book. There was no middle man, no out of state editor editing my story and making decisions about what did and didn't go in the book. I literally felt a burden lifted from my shoulders. The end result was a beautiful, full-color, hardbound book that will last for generations.

Other publishing options include:

• CD-ROM of the entire history
• 3-ring binder with plastic protector sheets
• Comb, spiral or other binding options available at most Photocopy Centers

When Should I Start?
It is never too late to start, and the sooner you start the better! Don’t let thoughts like, “Who would ever want to read anything about me?” or “I am nobody. I haven’t done anything very interesting,” discourage you from getting started.

The thing is, we all relate to ordinariness, it is what we are comfortable with. It comforts us to know that our lives are not so different from those of our ancestors. If they can make it though life, so can we.

We all have had experiences in life that have made us who we are today. We have personality traits that have played a part in the path we have taken. As we convey to our posterity the results of our choices, good or bad, we can teach and influence them. We can make a difference.

Alex Haley, author of the book Roots, has said: “In all of us there is a hunger, bone-marrow deep, to know our heritage—to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” (Reader’s Digest, May 1977, pp. 73-74) We have a unique opportunity to pass on the torch of faith and love for God. Remember, it is the roots that give the branches and the fruits life.