Welcome to Day 1 of Writing The Story Of Your Family! If you missed my introduction, you can find it right here. While this post will contain the first writing prompt for your family’s story, I also want to share a bit about why this topic appeals to me and why I think keeping a journal about your family (online or offline) is important:
- How much do you know about your grandparents or even your parents? Wouldn’t it be interesting if they had given you a notebook full of stories about their childhood and family life growing up? By writing your family story, you are leaving a legacy for your children and their children.
- By journaling about your family, you may develop a closer connection to your family or to the things that are important to your family.
- As a blogger, I tend to record the things we do in the present, but I might not concentrate on our overall story.
There are a few ways you can write your family’s story – by hand in a journal, typed and saved on your computer, typed and printed and placed in a binder, or right on your blog. If you keep a blog already, you may have some of your journaling already done, so don’t forget to check your past blog entries for ideas!
Another question you may have is “which family?” That is up to you. If you have children, I am imagining you will want to write about them. If you aren’t married, you may want to write about yourself, your parents, and your siblings. If you are extra motivated, you can include both.
To get started, share a photo of your family. You may wonder about this – with growing children, family pictures change very quickly. Well, your family story will change over time too. This project may be one that is redone or added to every so often. If you are creating a binder, your family picture can be on the cover. If you are writing a journal, I would attach the picture to the first page. You also may want to include individual photos of the family members that are part of your story. If you want to do this on your blog, please feel free to leave the link to your post in the comments!