Record a Personal History & Stop the World
Why we take the time and make the effort to record people’s stories, their personal histories.
Why we take the time and make the effort to record people’s stories, their personal histories.
“America Writes Home” is a website with a wonderful collection of some existing pre-1920s letters, giving a flavor of that time before iPhones and email.
“The recently departed whose time overlapped with people still here are the Sasha, the living dead. They are not wholly dead, for they live on in the memories of the living—when the last person knowing an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the Sasha for the Zamani, the dead.”
The most interesting reaction was that of his grandchildren who sat fascinated. They had heard some of his tales over the years but for the first time they were able to get a true picture of just what an incredibly resilient and fascinating person their grandfather is.
Read this article and you’ll understand why I’m interested in gathering and writing personal histories.
Wow. I am a huge believer in reading and writing and the power of it all — but have a look or listen to this woman from Nepal, who was a child bride and didn’t learn to read until she was 21. The story she tells — her story — …
I mentioned that I’ve become a member of the Association of Personal Historians, and I just listened to an interesting “This I Believe” audio story by Stefani Twyford, one of its members, on Houston Public Radio. She talks about family stories and working as a personal historian. From her essay: Each time …
It’s one of my new writing interests, and something I’ve almost always been fascinated by (my uncle once told me I was born a genealogist) — I’m starting to write personal and family histories for people, in order to help preserve some of the great stories people carry around with …