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Creative Genealogy Writing

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Personal History and Creative Genealogy Writing Techniques

By: Anne Hart

Table of Contents

How to Start, Teach, & Franchise a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Club

The Craft of Producing Salable Living Legacies, Celebrations of Life, Genealogy Periodicals, Family Newsletters, Time Capsules, Biographies, Fiction, Memoirs, Ethno-Plays, Skits, Monologues, Autobiographies, Events, Reunion Publications, or Gift Books

Chapters

Introduction: Creating Your Syllabus: Sample and Resources

1. What Problems You Can Solve & Results Obtain Using Family Newsletters
2 Designing Family History and Corporate Success Story Newsletters as
Anniversary or Event and Celebration of Life Gift Books
3. How to Bind Your Own Book or Booklet by Hand
4. Pop-Up Books for All Ages
5. Full 5 – 6 Week Course in Writing and Publishing Gift Books
6. 50 Strategies on How to Write Memoirs and Life Story Gift Books or Newsletters
7. Personal Histories & Autobiographies as Points of View within Social Histories:
Write in the First Person
8. Personal History Time Capsules as Gift Books, Annual Newsletters and DNA
Driven Genealogy Reports
9. Romantic Wedding and Anniversary Gift Books, DVDs or Newsletters
10. Family History Newsletters or DVDs with Slogans, Logos, and Branding 11. Directories and DVDs as Gift Books: Entertainment, Walking Tour Guides, Historic Neighborhoods, Galleries, Museums, and Dining
12. Gift Books, Discs, and Newsletters Documenting Media Tours for Authors,
Performers and Speakers
13. News Clipping Collection on a “Theme Newsletter,” Report, Disc, or Niche
Market Gift Book
14. Age-Related Hubs as Family History Newsletters, DVDs, Reports, and Gift Books
15. Reunion Newsletters, Discs, and Gift Books for Families or Alumni

16. Digital Scrap Booking, Newsletters, DVDs, and Gift Books from Slide Shows
17. Dating History Newsletters, DVDs, and Gift Books
18. Celebrities’ “Lessons Learned from Life” as Newsletters, Discs, Reports, or Books
19. Mind-Body-Spirit Gift Video Newsletters, Reports, and Gift Books
20. Inspirational Video and Print Newsletters, CDs, DVDs, or Gift Books

21. Self-Help Seminar and Convention Newsletters, Discs, Reports, or Year Books
22. How to Make Great Video Extended Family Newsletters
23. International Family Reunions: Videoconferencing, Newsletters, DVDs, and Reports by Satellite or Camera Phones
24. Family and Corporate Success Story Newsletters, Annual Updates, or Reunions by DVD or CD (Personalized Video News Releases)

Appendix A Newsletter Templates on the Web
Appendix B Multi-Ethnic Genealogy Web Sites
Appendix C General Genealogy Web sites
Appendix D Bibliography
Appendix E 1,006 Action Verbs for Gift Book Writers and Publishers
Appendix F Template for a Handwritten Newsletter—Incorporate into
Multimedia if Desired
Appendix G Paperback Books Currently in Print Written by Anne Hart

Index



***


Introduction:

“Education is the best provision for old age.”-- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers.

It’s easy to start, teach, and franchise a creative genealogy writing club, class, or publication. Start by looking at the descriptions of each business and outline a plan for how your group operates. Draw up the rules and operation by referring to the categories or headlines titled: DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS, INCOME POTENTIAL, TRAINING REQUIRED, EQUIPMENT NEEDED, OPERATING YOUR BUSINESS and ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
Flesh out each category with your additional research pertaining to your local area and your resources. Your goal always is to solve problems and get measurable results or find accurate records and resources. When records run out, there’s always DNA-driven ancestry testing, which may be vague, but can pinpoint deep ancestry somewhat.
You can make keepsake albums/scrapbooks, put video online or on disc, and create multimedia text and image with sound productions or work with researching records in archives, oral history, or living legacies and time capsules. A living legacy is a celebration of life as it is now.
A time capsule contains projects and products, items, records, and research you want given to future generations such as genograms of medical record family history, family newsletters, or genealogy documents, diaries, photos, and video transcribed as text or oral history for future generations without current technology to play the video discs. Or start and plan a family and/or school reunion project or franchise, business or event. Another alternative is the genealogy-related play or skit, life story, or memoir.
The most important point to remember is you’ll need a syllabus and a business plan. If you don’t want to turn creative genealogy writing into a business, keep it at the project level as a popular hobby. With genealogy being the second most popular hobby in the nation (gardening is first), there are plenty of creative projects to start groups researching in your area or nationally. You can take this to the franchise level by starting groups nationally or world-wide, or keep it at the level of your local club.

Syllabus- Creative Genealogy Writing

Sample Syllabus

This syllabus can be stretched out to be a course lasting a year, a semester, or 10 weeks. If you whittle it down to 10 weeks, make sure to make it less ambitious and include fewer items to cover. Students taking this as a class or in a continuing creative genealogy writing group will be working on these projects part time at their leisurely pace.

So you probably will not be able to cover all items unless this course is in a continuing club or group. In a classroom, you’ll have to revise your own syllabus to meet the length of your class requirements, such as a 5-week class, 10-week class, semester class, or two semesters. Therefore, be sure to adapt and revise this syllabus to cover what you want as your goals by asking the students for feedback on what they want and need to learn in the length of time allotted.

Try Something New

Creative genealogy writing can include something new such as recipes for home-made natural plant-based cleaning products, diaries, living legacies, and specialized living legacies and celebrations of life. They can include time capsules with genograms, medical records histories of families for future generations’ reference and useful information. Material also would be of interest to historians, researchers, medical and scientific researchers, educators, oral history librarians, as well as progeny. Short stories, novels, and plays also are born with genealogy records as their roots.

Here’s my sample syllabus. Adapt your own syllabus to the length and emphasis of your class, group, project, research, or event.

Creative Genealogy Writing Sample Syllabus

Class Meeting Information
This course meets online.
Instructor Information
Name:
Office Phone:
Email:
Web site: http://annehart.tripod.com
Sample instructor biography:
Anne Hart, M.A., is a popular novelist and playwright with 85 paperback books currently in print. She holds a graduate degree in English/Creative Writing and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and Mensa. She has been writing professionally since 1963. Her full biography appears at http://annehart.tripod.com/id16.html.
Prerequisites — Classes or Knowledge Required for this Course
None, but an interest in writing and researching nonfiction, fiction, or drama/docudrama about life stories, genealogy, history, social issues, memoirs, biography, current events, or an interest in genealogy is helpful.

Course Description
Almost everyone is interested in the migrations, history, significant life events, turning points, and highlights of his or her ancestors. This 10-week online introductory course represents the “marriage” of creative writing with genealogy, to create stories and record personal histories to be passed on to relatives or researchers in the future.
Identify individuals and their ancestors using paper records, online searches, surname groups online, and DNA-driven genealogy resources. Information from research is then applied to creative writing with a goal of developing salable materials in a variety of genres—memoir, personal history, drama/plays/scripts/monologues, docudrama, essay, articles, true life stories, or simply publishing family newsletters. Weekly writing assignments usually will be one or two pages of writing.
Course Objectives (after completing this course, the student will be able to):
1. Use the methods of scientific genealogical research.
2. Establish lines of descent for the person or family you select and develop a pedigree chart or family history tree of names with critical dates such as birth, marriage, and death for each ancestor on the family tree and/or pedigree chart.
3. Organize genealogy records using online technology to research or supplement written records.
4. Interview and record relatives or selected persons.
5. Write a publishable 1,000-word researched family history/genealogy article.
Evaluation
Class participation and completion of projects/assignments is due by the end of the course. Assignments are due by the due date specified in the handout.
Equipment
Access to the Internet, a personal computer and printer, a tape or other audio digital recorder or camcorder using either tape or DVDs, and a DVD or CD recorder/R/RW disk drive in your computer or other device that saves a computer file to a CD and/or a DVD. Save your recorded projects on DVDs or CDs. Instruction will be provided on how to save any recorded material to a DVD or CD. Technical help will be available.
Course Text – Choose One
Hart, Anne. (2007). Ethno-Playography: How to Create Salable Ethnographic Plays, Monologues & Skits from Life Stories, Social Issues, and Current Events. ASJA Press imprint, iUniverse, (1-800-Authors) or order from any online bookseller or from publishers at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46066-6
ISBN: 978-0-595-46066-3.
The Ethno-Playography book is primarily for creative writers interested in using genealogy records to write plays, monologues, skits, or novels and real life stories or memoirs. If you choose this book you’ll also get materials of value to enhance your creativity and have a wider platform, a more versatile approach to adapting life stories to plays, skits, monologues, or stories and novels/essays and other genres such as niches, how to sell your play, and creating mini-books based on life stories, personal histories, and genealogy records or plays and monologues and essays.
Or:
How to Start a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Group (this book) and the following articles on creative writing (not on genealogy topics) on Amazon Shorts (http://www.amazon.com/amazon-shorts-digital-shorts/b?ie=UTF8&node=13993911)

Articles:

1. How to Write Salable/Commercial Short Stories for Popular Magazines Using the Formula of Multiples of Three for Balance, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Salable-Commercial-Stories-Magazines-Multiples/dp/B0012K1JIE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210290439&sr=1-1

2. How to Write a Historical Novel, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at: http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Historical-Novel/dp/B0010W756E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210290439&sr=1-2

3. How to Develop Depth of Character in Your Fiction, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Develop-Depth-Character-Your-Fiction/dp/B0010W755U/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210290439&sr=1-4

A Fashion Guide to Spatial Feminism: Full Metal Corsets?, an Amazon Short by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Guide-Spatial-Feminism Corsets/dp/B0010W7564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210290850&sr=1-1





Evaluation and Grading
Individual Assignments 50 %

Participation in class forum discussions 50 %

Grading Scale
A = 90% – 100%
B = 80% – 89%
C = 70% – 79%
D = 60% – 69%

Course Outline
Lesson or Week # 1
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 231-253
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss how to write and format a 72-page sweet family history story, novella, or short play/skit/monologue into a 4 by 6 inch print on demand or self-published gift book or salable book.
• Decide to write and publish genealogy as an inspirational book
• Or create a 98-page family history chronicle or novella for sale to gift shops or specialty and niche shops/ distributors/sellers.
• Students receive advice on how to improve their writing submitted by email in order to make it more salable, and to eliminate long paragraphs, long sentences, clichés, and writing that falls down in the middle. Student learns what type of writing sells or is preferred in the memoirs, family history, or genealogy-related genres whether fiction, nonfiction, drama, docudrama, essay, or article—memoir, life story, biography, autobiography, gift book, history, novel, drama, skit, script, multimedia presentation, annual family newsletter, or children’s book.
Assignments Due Reading assignments due weekly. Students choose which writing assignments to do depending on their time and email writing assignments for mentoring, suggestions, or advice regarding any changes to make their work salable.
Method of Instruction Online information and resources supplied by email in addition to text book above.
Lesson or Week # 2
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 254- 312, pages 349-365
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss how to format your family history novel, story, novella, play, or script.
• Discuss self-promotion techniques, how to plug self-published or POD published (print on demand) family history novels, stories, articles, plays, skits, gift books, monologues, or essays. Student learns what ethnographic writing in various genres are about and how to sell/promote ethnographic or genealogy-based creative writing.
• Student learns the 65 ways to create humor and/or comedy as salable family history/genealogy creative writing in various popular genres.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. .
Method of Instruction Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Lesson or Week # 3
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 401- 422, 435-509
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Research how to use genealogy as social history for playwrights
• Research how to open a home-based online business producing family history training videos or plays/skits/monologues based on life stories, social history, personal history, events, or current issues in the news. Writing, designing and publishing an annual family newsletter.
• Students will be emailed a list of more than 1,000 action verbs and information on how to write, design, and publish compelling family newsletters.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings.
Method of Instruction Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.


Lesson or Week # 4
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 278-295
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to develop a plan for pre-selling a family history article, play, essay, story, or skit
• Develop an age-appropriate hub or online Web site or keepsake album with text and images or sound or print only for sweet family history novels, skits, play or dialogue excerpts, true stories, or the annual family newsletter.
• Write an article for an annual family newsletter on a genealogy-related topic
• Make a brief storyboard outline
• Define and/or develop a platform of visibility plus expertise
Assignments Due Writing assignments and reading are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Lesson or Week # 5
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 393-422
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Research how to use or start an online genealogy broadcast, podcast or TV show
• Look at Roots TV™ Web site at http://rootstelevision.com
• Research how to collect videos from people who have recorded genealogy information
• Research how to adapt personal history stories to a script, story, summary, skit, essay, article or other creative writing/imaginative writing format.

• Write a short piece on how to revive genealogy-based old maids’ parties or: design a photo, illustration, with a paragraph of text for a proposed deck of genealogy cards using various concepts from your imagination. Example, playing cards with photos of ancestors and their genealogy information in a short paragraph or sentence such as dates, genograms, or other information of value to future generations.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Lesson or Week # 6
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 423-478
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Create a genealogy journalism or life story/memoirs Web Cast
• Discuss and research how to rescue documents, diaries, records, and photos from old genealogy sources.
• Discuss and research how to produce a short genealogy video podcast and save on a DVD or post to a Web site. Alternative: Produce an annual family newsletter and save to a CD or DVD. The family newsletter can consist of text-print-news- or be in video or audio clips or a multimedia combination of text, sound, images, photos, and video. Save as a file in your computer and to a disc or upload it to a Web site.
• Discuss and research what video or audio podcasting family history or annual family newsletters are about and how to produce and/or learn more about where to post your podcast from your brief written script, short enough to fit into a newsletter. Alternative: write a plan and/or excerpt from the family annual newsletter. Weekly writing should be short excerpts, outlines, or plans. You won’t be able to write an entire play, skit, monologue or novella in a week or even 10 weeks. So excerpts, plans, outlines, treatments, springboards, genograms, and short prose or filler-length articles are acceptable for weekly assignments.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.



Lesson or Week # 7
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 479-538
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to use genealogy records/resources to produce family history reunions in person or the annual family history updates as a print or online newsletter.
• Discuss and research how to bring long separated family members together in person or in print, from the distant past or present. How videoconferences differs from podcasts (online broadcasts) on family history
• Discuss and research how to write about DNA-driven genealogy—handouts will be emailed or posted online.
• Discuss and research how many different careers, jobs, or small businesses can result from training in family history journalism (at least 102 different categories).
• Write an outline for a short ‘skit’ or a monologue, essay, article, life story excerpt/experiences or a memoirs-related play and a few paragraphs of dialogue on a topic related to family history, genealogy, life stories, personal history, or DNA-driven genealogy—where the written records stop.
• Or write an excerpt of dialogue and stage directions for a stage play or sound effects and dialogue for a radio play, video or online multimedia theatrical presentation. Genealogy also can be turned into musical theater or an audio recording saved as an MP3 file to be used as a podcast or put on disc.
• Discuss and research how to interview others for personal history/life story highlights and significant events. Compose 10 questions to ask someone you would want to interview on video about his/her life story, ancestry, or family history in relation to events, issues, celebrations of life, or historic events.
• Discuss and research how to use memoirs writing for memory enhancement, recall, and reminiscing for creativity enhancement.
Assignments Due Write a list of questions you’d ask someone you’d interview about his/her life story significant events and highlights in order to write a play about that person’s life or personal history. Why did you select those particular questions? How many questions do you think would be sufficient for a 15-minute interview or a ½ hour life story recording on a CD or video to become a DVD? You don’t actually have to interview someone yet.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Lesson or Week # 8
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 197-277, 349-365
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to make a migration map of your ancestors or anyone else’s ancestors.
• Learn to write interview questions.
• Learn to interview one another or your own relatives or interview older people at senior centers to record and transcribe excerpts from significant events in a life story or a life story highlight.
• Ask those questions of the person you interview in order to create a brief family history or life story highlights of significant events or an outline and sample excerpt from their life story transcribed from an audio or video recording. You can use any tape recorder, digital recorder, or your camcorder or use audio and photographs. Save in your computer or just transcribe as text if you don’t have any type of recording devices. A digital recorder is recommended for interviews.
Assignments Due • Interview one another. Team up with a partner from this class and ask the questions you prepared—either 10 to 20 questions for an audio or video interview. Digitally record the interview and transcribe the first five minutes only or five pages or less of the interview. If you can’t find someone in the class to interview, you can interview someone in your family or visit a senior center and record a few minutes of someone’s answers to personal history questions you’ve put in your outline of questions to ask on recording life stories.
Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings.
• You can even save a digital recorder’s audio as an MP3 file in your computer and transcribe a page of the dialogue of the interview as text. You don’t have to transcribe an entire interview, just a few minutes, a page, or a few pages, perhaps two minutes/two pages. The goal is to get you to write out the list of interview questions and ask someone how he or she felt or thought about your questions. Purpose: to record a life story if you were recording an entire ½ interview, but you’d only record for a few minutes or ask only a few questions from your list.
• Your list could be 10 to 30 questions. Don’t write more than a few pages of your transcribed interview. How would you turn that interview into a skit or play showing the highlights or significant events of that person’s life? Alternative: Write about a historic person or your own ancestor’s life in a past generation.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Lesson or Week # 9
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 321-348, (read once more to review the questions and techniques on pages 210-222).
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to use genealogy as social history for playwrights
• Discuss and research how to open a home-based online business producing family history training videos or plays/skits/monologues based on life stories, social history, personal history, events, or current issues in the news.
• Alternative Choice for Nonfiction genealogy writers: Learn how to write, design, and publish or save to disc and/or upload online improved annual family newsletter.
• Discuss and research how to make and preserve a time capsule for family history resources.
• Discuss and research how to rescue old or damaged documents and photos, diaries, and books.

Assignments Due Select your own best questions to emphasize and ask when interviewing people for life story highlights and significant events. Or create genealogy fiction by making up questions and imaginative answers in a mock interview that could become an outline for an actual play or dialogue in a short story based on history, genealogy, or family/ancestry experiences and events.
Write a short piece, one to two pages, on how to preserve and save old photos and documents.
Alternative Assignment Choice: Write a section from your annual family newsletter emphasizing questions and answers as if in an interview or do an actual interview for an annual family newsletter article. Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives. Students will be emailed a list of more than 1,000 action verbs and information on how to write, design, and publish compelling family newsletters.
Lesson or Week # 10
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 1-146 (ethnographjic play)
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to write the ethnographic play
• Discuss and research how to write realistic dialogue in a play about genealogy, family history, personal history, life stories, and significant life story-related events from history, current events, social issues, folklore, or ethnographic settings.
• Discuss and research how to write a performable monologue based on someone’s life story or your own memoirs.
• Your goal by the 10th week is to determine what genre of writing you’ll most likely use when applying genealogy resources to creative writing. You’ll decide if you are more comfortable with fiction, true life stories, skits, plays, and drama, or essays, articles, and how-to pieces.
• You’ll be able to decide whether you want to approach family history, personal history, oral history or genealogy and ancestry studies as a writer of magazine features and how-to articles on genealogy research techniques or find out whether you are more interested in pursuing your focus on writing true life stories, memoirs, biographies, fiction, novels, plays, skits, docudrama, or multimedia, or publishing other people’s life stories as gift books, or writing your own memoirs.
• Explore where to market and or promote your life story experiences or genealogy articles. Resources and lists of genealogy and memoirs publications or book publishers will be emailed to you or posted on a Web site.
Assignments Due Write a sample page of dialogue from a play, monologue, or skit emphasizing ethnographic or genealogy-related/family history related themes or questions and answers as dialogue. Email the page of dialogue or questions and answers. Just a page of writing is sufficient.
In a real interview, the dialogue would run 15-30 pages recorded and transcribed as oral history, which would require weeks of preparation. So one page of dialogue in the form of questions and answers is fine for this course for the last week of class. You can expand the page on your own with more questions as you record and write life stories of whomever you interview in the future, should you choose genealogy journalism or creative genealogy writing in various genres from playwriting to novels and stories or true life experiences.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.
Types of Communication
In an online course, the majority of our communication takes place in the course forums. However, when we have a need for communication that is private, whether personal, interpersonal, or professional, we will use individual email or telephone.
Code of Conduct Information
Netiquette Information (What are the rules for your school, class, or club?)
Course Policies (For consistency, plan your policies of what is required and acceptable.)
Expectations of students
Students should be able to email the instructor outlines and/or short (one to five pages) articles, stories, interviews, essays, family newsletters, or drama excerpts, skits, plays (excerpts) for each assignment. Student may also choose to record interviews on CDs and create multimedia, audio, or video files on DVDs to record short interviews of life stories as an assignment or choose to write articles or essays about the multimedia projects or narration. Student has a choice in which media to work in—print or multimedia, audio or video.
A script, skit, or article is required that would be salable to a genealogy magazine or similar publication. Writing can be for all ages or for any specific age group reader. Students should expect from instructor answers to questions and suggestions for creating salable writing or improving their writing. Students should expect instructor to provide by email a list of resources they can use for genealogy research such as publications, helpful Web sites, and resources for research.
Expectations of the instructor
Instructor’s expectations is that the students turn in weekly assignments, keep the writing short, and let instructor know in writing what the writing is supposed to accomplish, for example, an excerpt from a story, an outline for an interview, a page of dialogue from a skit or play, or one to five pages of a proposed book or novel, a list of questions the student might ask a person being interviewed for his/her life story highlight or significant event, an outline for a map on your ancestor’s migrations, a short storyboard, or a short article for a genealogy magazine.
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Here’s How to Write a Creative Genealogy Writing Course or Club Franchise Syllabus

DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS

You can start a national genealogy course franchise to be used by schools, clubs, groups, or extended studies divisions of universities offering creative writing courses that specialize in a popular hobby niche such as genealogy, gardening, or scrapbooking. Or simply teach one course to a group or in a classroom, social center, or auditorium setting almost anywhere.
Here’s how to open your own genealogy, family history journalism, or personal history business. This includes a genealogy course template and instruction on how to start and operate a home-based business working with personal and oral histories, genealogy, family history, and life story writing. You also learn how to interview people, what questions to ask, and how to put together a business and/or a course or book on any aspect of genealogy around the world, journalism, writing, personal history, and life story writing.
Start your own course using the genealogy course template to inspire you to develop your own specialties and niche areas. Work with almost any ethnic group, and create businesses ranging from DNA-driven genealogy reporting services to family history, memoirs writing, or personal history videography services.
Use social history to find information such as female ancestors’ maiden names that had not been recorded using hidden and niche areas of information, including ethnic, religious, and institutional sources such as widows’ military pension applications. You’ll learn how to write social history by using genealogy journalism resources, find hidden records, and market your own course or write your book or report in many different areas of personal history and genealogy journalism. Female ancestors’ information also may be found in midwives’ records, journals, or diaries and in later times, in prenatal records books.
Start your own business or set up a course and teach or train others to be genealogists or personal and oral historians. Write for historical, folkloric, or genealogy publications, specializing in writing eulogies for people or pets. Interview friends or family, and write obituaries for publications that have no staff obituary writer on board all the time. Assemble family history time capsules, keepsakes, or courseware and software. Record family history how-to lectures on audio CDs or video DVDs.
Teach life story journalism. Or write life stories as plays and skits. Do research for clients, libraries, and institutions. Learn what is appropriate to charge clients for personal history, genealogy research, or life story recording and writing services.
Make family tree charts with software or craft them in scrap books. Learn how to be an independent documentarian. Produce video and audio recordings such as DVDs for your clients or family. Develop genealogy and personal history classes anywhere. You’ll make history. To start, first you need to create a course syllabus-either to teach beginners genealogy or to train professionals in other fields to use personal history techniques to find hidden information, or organize information for the reports you generate for your clients or family. Start your own business, club, franchise, or course.
One of the best ways to publicize and market your genealogy course and/or family history instructional book is to write a syllabus. Teach an online or in-person course related to the topic of your book. Require students to purchase the book. Teach the contents of the book in a how-to course. What’s your hobby or field of expertise? My usual full-time working day emphasizes genealogy journalism and personal history research. My hobby combines visual anthropology and producing, viewing, and reviewing documentaries.
If your field relates to personal history or genealogy, here’s how to write a syllabus to teach online (or in person) a genealogy course. You can train or teach at a variety of levels.
Starting your own classes and reserving a conference room in a library, church social hall, or community center don’t require degrees or credentials, only expertise. Nothing lets you learn a subject better than if you have to teach it to beginners. If you don’t like teaching face-to-face or training employees in a work setting, teach online from your Web site. Or apply to teach a course in something you can do well at online educational sites such as blackboard.com. Read online education publications such as the Virtual U Gazette. Check out GetEducated.com at: http://www.geteducated.com/vug/index.asp.
You learn more from your students’ feedback than you ever learned from books in a variety of areas related to writing and publishing. The first step is to write a great syllabus that convinces others to hire you to teach a subject related to the information in your book. This technique works well with nonfiction, how-to or self-help books.
If your book is a novel, your course syllabus might emphasize plotting the novel or marketing and promotion. To sell your book in this type of class, you’d use each chapter to teach how to write “tag lines,” emotions and behaviors in a novel, or portions of your novel as tools for fiction writers in the genre of your book—such as plotting the mystery or romance novel.
You’d use passages to teach consistency and transitions that move the plot forward and show how the characters grow and change or the romantic tension. A similar technique of “teaching the process” would be used if you wrote plays, poetry, or cinematic scripts. A syllabus helps you get hired and/or to recruit students so you can sell your book and teach a class or train a group of people either online or in person.
You can adapt this syllabus plan and format to the subject of your book in nearly any field. Instead of ‘genealogy,’ just substitute the concept and framework of your own book. Here’s how to write a syllabus.
A short course may be taught online or arranged in any room available from a church basement to a library conference room. A seminar can last a few hours. A lengthy course can be planned for an entire semester at any level in adult education, for college extended studies programs, or at community centers. You need experience in your area of expertise, and a published book helps your credibility. If you’re teaching a course in a community college or university for college credit you’d need a graduate degree. For public school you’d also need a teaching credential unless your expertise level is the equivalent. Teaching vocational education and using your book as instructional text is more flexible. You can teach in the extended studies (not for credit) department of universities and community colleges based on experience. Credentials in your field of work are helpful to get you hired, but without them, start your own course online or from an available room.
You can share a rented room to teach the course with other trainers or teachers. Least expensive is to teach at your Web site and sell your book online to students. At the end of the course, give them a certificate in the subject you’ve taught related to your book. Require students to buy your book, and use it throughout the course.
One of the easiest ways to get hired to teach a course is to offer one in genealogy and/or personal history, if you have done your research on how genealogists find their information. Since you have written a book, can you now call yourself an expert?
If genealogy, personal history, oral history, social history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, creative writing, early handwriting, or journalism interests you, a beginner’s course in genealogy attracts people interested in where their ancestors came from and how they lived, ate, and played. Classes often fill up quickly.
People like to take courses where they can learn about themselves and their families’ life styles. Genealogy courses work well online, at social, ethnic, and religious clubs, and at senior centers. So here’s how to begin writing a syllabus for a genealogy course.
Your first genealogy course syllabus expands the four keys of genealogy research: identity, name, date information was recorded, locality, and kinship. How you organize, edit, and write a genealogy course syllabus often determines whether you’ll be hired to teach a course in genealogy for beginners.
If you’re a genealogist or want to promote your genealogy-oriented book or journalistic skills, teach a course in genealogy. Genealogy courses rely on verifiable details. Accidental or intentional alterations by scribes can dramatically affect information. Courses that go on year after year are evaluated by students as excellent.
Genealogists are concerned about accurate reproduction of texts or entry of information. For generations, most public family history entries were hand copied by government record clerks, clergy, and scribes deeply influenced by cultural, political, and theological disputes of their day.
Your syllabus can help students look for mistakes and intentional changes in surviving records. Can the original names be reconstructed? Genealogy course content also includes the social history of where and why these changes were made and how family historians go about reconstructing what might be the original names, relationships, and records as closely as possible.
Use your syllabus as a tool to outline your course. Students want an easy-to-follow syllabus. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word ‘syllabus’ as an outline of a course of study. It’s a table of contents with a schedule of topics, not a book proposal.
Your syllabus also needs to cover how to find records of hard-to-trace people, such as clergy. How would you direct students who want to trace nuns, priests, ministers, or rabbis? Your course could run for a year, a semester, or a few weeks. Keep short courses with fewer requirements of the students’ research projects and assignments.
Genealogy courses given in churches’ social halls sometimes attract those who want to trace difficult-to-find genealogy records of clergy. Old books make excellent genealogy sources. Other primary sources to trace clergy or religious educators include College Alumni Records , The Clergy Lists , Crockford's Directories , Fasti Ecclesiae, Anglicanae, Parish Registers, Bishop's Records, Censuses, and County Directories.
A genealogy course syllabus for beginners includes answers to one of the most frequently asked questions: How do you find female ancestors and solve identity problems when maiden surnames didn’t appear on the death certificates? Before you try to organize and write a syllabus, first list topics you’ll cover in your syllabus.

Planning Your Syllabus
List all obvious items. Keep this list next to your blank syllabus page. Then list items often omitted from a syllabus for a beginning course in genealogy. Compare your syllabus with other genealogy course outlines that have received great student evaluations. Your clue is whether the course is repeated year after year. There are several copyrighted genealogy course outlines on the Internet to peruse. Use them only for comparison and motivation. Keep your syllabus unique to your own course. Make a list of resources to be used in your own course before you begin writing your syllabus.

Resources List
Social History (brief)
Genealogy sources created by women:
Diaries, journals, letters, postcards, family Bibles, heirlooms, artifacts, oral history, legislative petitions, atypical sources, published family histories, cemetery records, tombstone inscriptions or rubbings, church records, censuses, military records, hospitals, orphanages, institutions, sanitariums, passenger arrival lists, city directories, notaries’ records, voter lists/registrations, pensions, widows’ pension applications/civil war, orphans and guardianship records, land records, marriage records, medical records, Eugenics Record Office, (ERO), social data, midwives’ journals, doctors’ journals, asylums, divorce records, wills, probate, court records, school records, ethnic sources, codicils, ethnic/religious hospital records, naturalization laws.

After you compile this list, put it aside to refer to as you write your syllabus. Begin outlining the syllabus by starting with the course information, instructor information, text or reading materials, course descriptions, course calendar or schedule, and references or bibliography.
Each category would get a one or two-sentence description summarizing what will be covered in the course and what assignments are required of students. Keep your syllabus short— about three pages or less. The syllabus in a semester-long college level, 3-unit genealogy course meant for beginners and taught online or in person would look like this in its layout:


Syllabus or Franchise Plan—Research Strategies
Course Number/Title: Creative Genealogy Writing
Name of School or College
Year and Month:
Department:
Credit Hours 3
Required Text
Days/Time
Instructor
Location
Prerequisite: None
Course Placement: Adult Education, Extended Studies, Community College, University Undergraduate level.

Overview
In Creative Genealogy Writing 1, students will learn special strategies for uncovering hard-to-find information about their ancestors. By the end of this course, students will become more versatile in using interdisciplinary skills for researching family and social history resources.

Course Description
Genealogy 1 is an introductory course in family and personal history research methods that includes learning interviewing and recording skills. This survey course covers the strategies of genealogical research in North America and introduces the student to the techniques of genealogical research around the world. Students able to read other languages may work on genealogical records in other languages if they can translate their findings, projects, or assignments to the class in English.

Research Methods
Students are introduced to a survey of all the methods used to identify individuals and their ancestors, including paper records, online searches, surname groups online, and DNA-driven genealogy resources.

Learning Objectives for Genealogy 1
At the end of this course, students will have learned the following skills:

1. Students will be able to research the following resources:

Original records
Family histories
Church records
Censuses
Passenger Arrival Lists
City directories
Family history libraries and genealogy sections of public and university libraries
Voter lists and registrations
Military records and pensions, widows’ pensions
Land records and notary records
Marriage records
Medical records
Divorce records
Ethnic women and men
African American
Native American
Jewish American
European Immigrants
Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in California
Latino Immigrants
Pacific Island Immigrants
South Asian Immigrants
Melungeons
Specific Ethnic Genealogies and Customs Researched
Ethnographic choice by student or personal ancestry writing

2. Methods for determining maiden names.
3. Solving identity problems in genealogy research
4. Methods for identifying women (midwives’ records)
5. Genealogy as social history
a. child bearing and raising in genealogy research
b. children born out of wedlock and genealogy research
c. women’s work and genealogy records,
d. property tax records
e. religion and genealogy information
f. women’s reform movements, rights, and genealogy records
g. merging social and family history in genealogy research
h. documenting your own ancestor’s history
6. Unpublished Genealogy Sources
7. Published Genealogical Sources
8. How to research population schedules
9. Probate and court records
10. Slave genealogy and schedules
11. Social history research and biographies
12. Property, Inheritance, Naturalization and Divorce laws for genealogists
13. Widows’ pensions and applications-Acts and Laws, survey
14. DNA-driven genealogy, methods, resources, matrilineal and patrilineal research, surname groups and genetics associations
15. Online research resources
16. Checklist for genealogy research
17. Genealogical case studies
18. Articles and Bibliography
19. National Archives and Genealogy Research
20. How to read abstracted records
21. How to find and read microfilms and microfiche records
22. Military pensions—records in the National Archives
23. Searching records of the Veterans Administration
24. Published indexes to pension files and other aids
25. Genealogy journalism methods—interviewing and recording
26. Oral history, video and audio recording—what questions to ask.

How Students will apply the newly learned genealogy research skills:

1. Use the methods of scientific genealogical research.
2. Establish lines of descent for the person or family you select and develop a pedigree chart or family history tree of names and critical dates such as birth, marriage, and death for each ancestor on the family tree and/or pedigree chart.
3. Organize genealogy records.
4. Interview and record relatives or selected persons.
5. Research the past.
6. Use online technology to research or supplement written records and develop a pedigree chart or family tree.

Six Assignments and Projects: Due by End of 12-Week Course. (Insert Specific Due Dates) One assignment is due every two weeks.

1. Write a publishable 1,000-word researched family history/genealogy article and submit it to a publication.
2. Develop a list of 30 to 60 questions (chosen from a list of suggested questions to ask from the handout) to ask another person during a genealogy-oriented or life story-oriented personal or family history recorded interview.
3. Interview using critical and creative thinking skills one or more older adults and record on audio or video tape a half-hour to one-hour life story experience to submit to an oral history archive library. Obtain a signed release form from all persons interviewed to send the recording to an oral history library. Give all persons interviewed copies of the interview recorded on tape or disc, such as a CD or DVD.
4. Use written records and online resources/technology relevant to your personal interests or selected discipline. Genealogy has several areas of emphasis including archival records research, oral history, personal history, family history, video biography/life story recording, and DNA-driven genealogy/genetics for ancestry.
5. Understand opportunities, skills, and requirements for genealogy journalism and publishing concentrations.
6. Research the diversity of cultures in North America and other countries as related to how genealogy records have been maintained.
7. Find several new or hidden ways to find genealogy information on females whose maiden names (surnames) were not recorded in the usual records such as censuses and city directories. How would you find birth certificates of women?

Course Competencies:

1. Learn how to perform scientific genealogical research.
2. Fill out and expand a pedigree chart and family tree--first by hand and then using technology or genealogy software.
3. Collect sources and resource information and organize the sources using records, legacies, diaries, letters, or journals.
4. Understand the value of journaling and archiving journals, letters, and diaries.
5. Read an article on how to restore old diaries and photos.
6. Write and record as audio or video a life story to keep for future generations or to put in a time capsule. One copy would be text for reading and another recorded in any format, including text and photos, audio or video. Be aware technology changes, and a text copy on acid-free paper is required just in case the recorded format can no longer play.
7. Learn how to correspond with relatives or friends and what questions to ask when asking for genealogical information.
8. Fill out family group sheets for recorded information to be transcribed or kept in text form.
9. Read an article on genealogical identification, orphan trains, and family skeletons or hidden facts on everything from how a person’s race or religion was listed to name changes. Understand how some pre-1948 housing laws and codes excluded certain groups from buying property in various areas and how some records were changed so people could buy homes. Research articles on this subject as related to genealogy records.
10. Understand the four keys of genealogy as research tools: identity, name, date information was recorded, locality, and kinship.
11. Research the American and/or Canadian trains when children were sent from the East to the West. These trains are separate from the orphan trains. Records with the children’s names are in various archives. Find out where to find the records.
12. Learn organization, documentation, filing techniques.
13. Analyze, interpret, and present genealogy-related findings.
14. Keep a research notebook that cites each source of documentation.
15. Look at working files that organize genealogical documents.
16. Listen to a recording of oral history. Read an article on restoring or preserving keepsakes, heirlooms, photos, and scrap books that document family traditions.
17. Use oral history as a research method. Learn to record oral history in audio and/or in video using a camcorder or audio recorder.
18. Learn how items and traditions have been preserved by families, librarians, conservationists, archivists, or family and public historians.
19. Gather family folklore, recipes, superstitions, or traditions.
20. Record family rites of passage, celebrations, or traditions.
21. Search genealogy records on the Internet
22. Read published genealogy information online.
23. Survey genealogy published materials.
24. Enter family information and print-out computer-generated charts and family trees.
25. Learn how to use vital records, divorce and cemetery records, jurisdictions records, original records, Social Security Death Index records online, and specific localities searches of historical groups for an area. Look for transcriptions of original documents.
26. Understand handwriting changes and how to interpret early American handwriting. Translate documents recorded in early American handwriting.
27. Find out where to obtain court records used in genealogy research.
28. Use church data to fill in missing information.
29. Use newspapers in genealogy research
30. Trace ancestor’s lives using a city directory.
31. Research information on the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Locate the nearest Branch Family Center and research an ancestor or friend.
32. Learn to research immigration, emigration, and migration records, ships’ passenger lists, Naturalization records.
33. Investigate the reason why your ancestor immigrated to America. Trace the migration patterns used. Use passenger lists and naturalization records and find out where these records are located.
34. Use land and tax records, school records, and ethnic records.
35. Research what records are available in the National Archives. Find out what military records are available to genealogists for research. Find out the addresses to write to for military, pension, and bounty land records.
36. Plan for and/or attend a genealogy-related seminar, research-oriented field trip, family reunion, or a meeting of a heritage, historical, or lineage association. Read an article on or view a documentary on a family reunion. Research what grants are available from various societies related to genealogy research.
37. Read an article on how to look at medical histories and genograms. A genogram is a schematic representation (drawing) of a family's medical history. A genogram describes the medical and/or genetic history of a family and includes family boundaries, attitudes, values, beliefs and related psychological history of family members.
38. Look at a Web site or surname group online researching DNA-driven genealogy for deep ancestry research. Read an article or handout on the psychological aspects of studying one’s own family history. Start a genogram of your family. Does DNA-driven genealogy appeal more to anthropologists or to genealogists?

Libraries and Field Trips
Visit a library that has records related to genealogy and/or oral history research or archives. Record in your notebook in two paragraphs what you learned from the field trip and what most interested you there.

Method of Instruction
Class discussion, lectures, field trips, video documentaries, class participation, individual Internet computer research, collaborative projects, handouts, videos, and personal history recording projects is used. This course may be taught online or in person.

Evaluation
Class participation and completion of projects/assignments is due by the end of the course. Assignments are due by the due date specified in the handout.

Equipment
Access to the Internet, a personal computer and printer, a tape or other audio digital recorder or camcorder using either tape or DVDs, and a DVD or CD recorder/R/RW disk drive in your computer or other device that saves a computer file to a CD and/or a DVD. Save your recorded projects on DVDs or CDs. Instruction will be provided on how to save any recorded material to a DVD or CD. Technical help will be available.

Length of Course
Adjust the syllabus content and assignments to the length of your own course. Genealogy courses may run for a 10, 12, 16 or 18-week semester or for a two-semester year in adult education unified school districts or in extended studies or community college classes. Some colleges offer a degree in family history. Pace your requirements with the length of time students have available and be careful not to offer too many different projects that won’t be completed.
It’s better to emphasize one theme and let your students research one project for a longer time than to cram several shorter projects into a few weeks. If you start a genealogy club franchise, the emphasis on creative writing integrated into the study of genealogy, ancestry, and family history can open doors in the wide world of social issues, history, and current events as applied to life story writing in different genres—plays, skits, living legacies, time capsules, memoirs, autobiographies, and life stories as oral history.

***


Chapter 1

What Problems You Can Solve & Results Obtain Using Family Newsletters, Time Capsules, or Living Legacies and Celebrations of Life Publications

DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS OR PROJECT

Here’s how to start a project, business, or franchise using creative genealogy writing for classroom use or use by groups, clubs, schools, extended studies divisions of universities, library conference rooms, ethnic or house-of-worship-related learning rooms, adult or lifelong continuing education, senior groups, publishers, producers of documentaries or life story recordings, oral history archives, and social centers.
School or family reunion planners, genealogists and librarians, teachers, group facilitators of history clubs, biographers, living legacy writers, personal/oral historians, and documentarians all can make use of this information. Tired of only paper print annual family newsletters? Try multimedia--video with text, music, voice, and pictures.
Put warmth, kindness, and inspiration into photos, video, and text to cheer up viewers and readers. The annual family video and print newsletter, handwritten newsletter template using circles for messages and squares for photos, or a photo and text calendar delivers energy through celebration of life. Use a new, dramatic viewpoint, what’s called a fresh news angle. It’s something so new that viewers learn information that can be used in a different way. Make multimedia newsletters. See: http://creativityquestionnaires.blogspot.com/ (Creativity Enhancement Questionnaire for Writers).
It’s like discovering hidden markets or exploring new patterns and spaces. What are the unique qualities of your information? Contrast and balance the dynamic imagery.
What actions can you use? Emphasize what the family (or corporate) tradition represents. How do visionary events, change, the future, and reality contrast or compare with solidarity, energy, roots, genealogy, and tradition? How does it all work together as energy and character that provide the foundation of the family or corporation? These tips can be used both for video or print family newsletters and corporate case history success story newsletters.

1. Children: Have each child write about what they have done or are doing on an annual basis. If the child is too young, summarize in a short paragraph any updates.
2. Parents: Keep a separate business newsletter for updates on your business. Decide whether you want to talk about acts of kindness, promote yourself or your achievements, or ask about others. What’s left to discuss? Repairing the house? Choose a topic you want to emphasize that is universal, simple, and about values and commitment or teach a new subject to your readers with universal appeal with which they all can identify.
3. Information: How efficient and effective is your news information? Be informative rather than directive. Present information instead of giving them directions as commands. What are you expert at? What are you beginning to study that eventually you will have acquired expertise? What do you have time to do and write about that is not overwhelming you with overwork?
4. Shorten Text: Use large page margins on your newsletter text. Keep videos to 7 minutes before you break for another topic so viewers can pause. On videos, don’t read from a script. Talk into the camera.
5. Charisma: Be passionate, enthusiastic, and charismatic in your writing. Use humor and jokes in good taste. Use the element of surprise for humor, not disdain. Instead of flat writing, emphasize acts of kindness you and your children have done.
6. Kindness: What behavior helps your writing to be more animated rather than flat in tone and mood or texture? Each act of kindness measures a range of change in your growth. Emphasize the range of change as forward movement. Let your newsletter “pay it forward” as it has been said in support groups, by encouraging readers to keep passing forward the acts of kindness to others as a choice for growth, change, and vision.
7. Balance: Each topic should be equal in length or at least balanced. Don’t write the entire newsletter about one topic and then squeeze in a paragraph on another issue.
8. Relationships: Explain and define who each person is. Put a date on each event or photo along with the name and the relationship. Example: This is a photo of ABCD, my paternal niece taken on July 4, 2006, at the World’s Fair in EFGH, California.
9. Scrapbooks on DVDs: Decide whether you want your newsletter in text and on a CD or DVD or in print/paper/text form with different information from an interview or life story highlights placed on DVDs or CDs that you enclose with the paper newsletter. Or would you send the newsletter as a PDF file by email? A document file? Mailed in an envelope as a paper? Or saved on DVD as text along with video, with the print edition mailed together? Provide formats such that anyone can read the dated information with or without a machine to play the disc.
10. Time Capsules of Humor: Use uplifting, tasteful jokes, poems, art, video, writing, life story highlights, and volunteer work experiences to connect your extended family to community service which extends your family of humankind’s accomplishments even further. Create an annual time capsule from your conception of an annual family newsletter or video newsletter. The time capsule then becomes an heirloom that can be conserved and preserved for future generations catalogued by year.

What to Include

Corporate Case Histories and Success Stories or Extended Families’ News:

Your family video or print newsletter can be a business that you do for other clients. Decide whether you’d like to do corporate case histories and success stories or family history and genealogy as newsletters either in print and text paper or on DVDs and CDs or all of these for all types of clients-family, corporate, or professional, educational/institutional.
A professional newsletter could focus on a medical or legal practice, for example, or other professional. A business newsletter can emphasize the work of a corporation, its history, or an individual business. One example would be the work of a contractor or developer, architect, or independent teacher, dentist, engineer, computer programmer, artist, musician, author, consultant, or life, job, and image coach.
Family newsletters could reach out to extended families or include alumni reunions, genealogy and DNA-driven family history and ancestry surname groups. You choose your emphasis. Include more types of newsletters, whether DVD or text.

Here are what to put into your video newsletter
1. Significant events
2. Life stories
3. Travel photos
4. Photos of events such as weddings, graduations, or grand openings
5. News of births or childbirth video clips (leave out the gore)
6. Summaries
7. Jokes
8. Memorabilia and trivia with useful facts, such as statistics
9. Joy of life and fun events
10. Wise sayings and original proverbs or quotes with source of origin
11. Mourning and/or celebration of life events
12. Hobbies, crafts, art, writings, poems
13. Sports enjoyed
14. Reading group: Start a family or corporate book club and discuss reading
15. Old time radio clubs, public domain video, or exchanging gifts of purchased videos from stores
16. Make your own family videos and exchange them—such as graduations and birthdays
17. Celebrations marking rites of passage, anniversaries, cruises, or other events marking dates
18. Scrap booking or quilting tips for those interested
19. Poems and skits
20. Monologues
21. Genealogy and DNA-driven genealogy reports
22. Food preferences or allergies
23. Reunions and suggesting video conference reunions for those not able to travel
24. Free courses to family members in what you are expert at doing
25. Instruction in putting video on DVDs and CDs for family newsletters or desktop publishing tips for those who want to make their own newsletters
26. Military experiences or war stories
27. Survival stories
28. Computer skill tips
29. Making natural, non-toxic cleaning or bug repellents from household kitchen baking ingredients such as cinnamon, baking soda, vinegar, or cream of tartar
30. Finding hidden markets for bargains of quality at better prices and activities

How Much Time to Spend on Each Newsletter

If you want to email a newsletter, use a template and follow the template’s guide. It will take you about two hours per issue for a two-page newsletter. Allow yourself an hour per page if you’ve already written the news and just need to cut and paste it from your computer file onto a newsletter template that you can email.
Other choices include writing a newsletter as a personal letter. If you use a newsletter template and print out each copy on your laser printer, it takes about six hours just to write the features for a standard newsletter of multiple pages. If your pages increase to the business type of eight-page newsletter, allow yourself at least one full day’s work. This doesn’t include the time it takes to write the articles.
That’s why putting life stories and memoirs on DVDs or CDs and including them in a little paper or plastic envelope in the newsletter, mailed in a protected, rigid mailer could allow you to summarize the events in the paper newsletter. You’d be brief, and let the speaker on the video tell the story in a half hour or even up to an hour. Remember that talking heads are difficult to pay attention to for more than seven minutes without a break or pause between files to click on.

How Many Copies?

Is your annual video and text print newsletter, booklet, or time capsule destined for a small family, extended family, students and teachers, and the archives of a personal history/oral history university library or museum? If you’re sending your newsletter to dozens of people, upload it to the Web and let them download it. Also offer it on a DVD or CD as well as in print as a document that can be emailed as a document file or as a PDF file to be read in Adobe Acrobat software. Readers can download the Adobe Acrobat reader free on the Web at http://www.adobe.com. The software reads PDF files. The good point about PDF files is that you can typeset them like a book or newsletter using your template or saving any document as a PDF file. Otherwise, save your newsletter as a document file.
If you only have a few people to mail to, you can also use a Web site or you can make photo newsletters using an ink jet printer or color copier and mail them as paper newsletters. Include a DVD or CD anyway with talks, life story highlights, or other events that are recorded using video or even audio.
People like to look at other people. For relatives who have disabilities, use the appropriate format—video, audio, or print. For blind relatives, use the services of a Braille transcriber or save the document in a format that can be read on a computer using accessibility technology your relative already has. Ask the person what format he or she prefers in which to receive a document.
If you have too many relatives or clients for the expense of using a color copier for photos, print them out as black and white documents, or print black and white photos on flesh-colored paper. There are such conveniences as pre-printed paper, post card photos, and photos on tee shirts or mugs as gifts.
For short one-page newsletters, you can have newsletters with photos printed on tee shirts and offer them as gifts. Same can be said for framed plaques and other art objects. Poems may be framed.
Short skits and monologues may be put on newsletters ranging from one to eight pages in length. It’s all about your budget.

Budget

Email won’t cost you if you’re sending to many people, unless your email service provider charges for bulk email. Send the email one at a time to relatives or clients if you’re using the relatively ‘free’ email you normally use to send memos. Send the email from home, not from work, unless you work for yourself at home.
Post cards would only cost about $20 or less to design, but you’d have to print them out from a computer or send photos to a film developing or digital photography processing company to put on the postcards. It costs about $35 to write a black and white newsletter and print it out to send to a few relatives. Count on about $75 for pre-printed stationary with color print. Talk to printers who do discount or print-on-demand publishing of newsletters. Take a course in desktop publishing at a local adult education center.
Four-page newsletters, the standard in business for corporate case history success stories cost $100 to $200 to prepare. You also need to fold them for mailing with pre-printed stamps or places for stamps to be pasted, and envelopes. If you’re doing an eight-page newsletter, it will cost you more than double because first class postage is limited to one ounce.
Be sure to check with your post office for current newsletter mailing rates. It might be less expensive to put audio or video clips on a CD or DVD. Save the audio as MP3 files to get more talk on one disc. Photos, video, and text can go on any one DVD. Or, with less information, photos, video, and text can be placed on a CD. With DVDs costing only a dollar or so per disc, you might make frequent use of your camcorder by producing an annual newsletter on a DVD or CD in multimedia. Defined, multimedia means photos, video, audio, text, and sounds such as music or talking all can be saved and played on one DVD or CD. You can play the disc on any computer or save it to the type of file that may be played on usual DVD players that play video.
CDs with audio and photos also can be sent as a newsletter along with text saved on the CD or mailed as print or both. If the person doesn’t have a computer at the other end, use paper, but if they have a DVD player, video brings people to life along with text. And video can be played generations after the relatives are gone. That’s why multimedia is a great time capsule. You can capture video, art, photos, text, music, voices, textures, tones, and moods.

Family Newsletters Are Visual Anthropology: Scrap booking Photos to Video Newsletters

When you crop, size, or edit photos, you trim them on your computer to fit your print or video newsletter template. Don’t waste space in your newsletter with tiny photos that can’t be seen when printed. Print fewer, but larger photos, and don’t make them so large that you can see the grains. It’s best to use your photo digital imaging software to correct red eye or cut off an object above a head.
A photo also can be cut with a scissors and pasted on a sheet of paper, then scanned to get rid of plants growing out of a person’s head or other intrusive objects. Use two photos to tell a story. Edit out of a picture too much sky and crop the photo about a quarter inch over everyone’s head and below their feet. It saves space in your newsletter.
Choose your location before gathering the whole family reunion. Have the lighting in place before the people congregate. Don’t keep children waiting while you’re setting up. You can put a short newsletter on reunion tee shirts and photograph the entire group in the same uniform or dress color or historic costume. For effect, if your ancestors arrived in prehistoric times, 1632, or today, you might photograph an entire reunion group of current descendants in costumes of those eras you choose to emphasize if each can afford to make historical wear—or plan unique food and modern dress.
Staging and photographing family or corporate reunions is a hobby or home-based business that may be done for a variety of clients. Photo scrapbooks may be turned into video, slide, and multimedia productions using templates you can buy from a store that sells software and craft or hobby items related to scrap booking or desktop publishing and digital video production.
Whatever you do for family newsletters, the same may be done for owners of pets who want to share in clubs or animal care. An example would be a club for a certain breed of dogs or cat fancier societies.
What’s important with print newsletters, is selecting the weight and feel of the paper. Talk to your local printer about types of paper used in newsletters. You want to communicate also using a type of paper—color, weight, and texture. Choose bright colors or delicate lace watermarks to convey the emotional tone of the newsletter.
Keep the paper light enough to have contrasting letters easy to see. Don’t let the color of the paper distract the reader from the photos and text. Postcards should be heavy enough to pass through the postal machines without tearing.
To send photos with a few paragraphs of news, use a fold over postcard sealed with a tape sticker. Never staple the card. It rips in the postal machinery. Keep the background paper light enough in color to show off the photos and text.
Collect templates. Some templates allow you to handwrite news and photocopy the handwritten messages in templates such as squares or circles placed decoratively on graphic art. Some look like cartoon bubbles for writing dialogue captions.
Some circles let you write one sentence by hand in each circle. You can write six sentences on a page. Or you can reduce the font size and type a sentence in the template then cut and paste the text within the confines of a square or circle.
The templates for handwritten news usually look like a greeting card with art in the center and circles or squares for you to write one sentence inside the dialogue boxes. It resembles a greeting card or coloring book.
Stationary supply, scrap booking stores, and craft shops sell these types of templates for handwritten news. For mailing newsletters, they also can be folded into origami shapes and mailed in round or unusual shaped mailers that conform to postal regulations for mailing. One example would be tube mailers for calendars and posters or round DVD and CD mailers for video newsletters.



Teachers and Students: Children and the Family Newsletter in the Schools

Illustrate your newsletters and DVDs with art made by children. If you don’t have children, you can ask to obtain written permission of a school or summer camp to let the class draw pictures of artwork on the theme of family and choose those to illustrate your newsletters or DVDs, including the covers for your DVD inserts.
You might want to visit classrooms or camps and talk to school assemblies on how to put together a family newsletter made by children ranging in grades from elementary through high school on the subject of intergenerational writing and illustration or family reunions and newsletter or DVD video design.
Children can make use of desktop publishing software, camcorders, or handwritten templates for family newsletters and greetings. Talk to local parent and teachers associations or the coordinator of authors in the schools projects in case you want to visit a school to give a talk. Have the children interview one another to create a family newsletter section for children.
Ask for the use of children’s art for illustrating and producing annual family newsletters. The outcome of this as a fresh news angle is that it promotes children’s participation in their own family or extended family traditions by helping them create a family newsletter.
These products can be as simple as using a template for handwritten newsletters to producing a newsletter on computers or using camcorders to create video DVDs of family newsletters for high school or community college students’ projects in digital imaging and desktop publishing. The same may be applied to classes for older adults in genealogy for adult education programs. Use home schooling projects for creating annual family newsletters or digital video time capsules as newsletters.
To help children answer questions for newsletters, hand them a list of questions or ask the questions verbally and give them time to think of answers. Then record the spontaneous answers on audio tape or digitally. Save the answers and then move to doing the same on video after the children have decided what to say and how to answer the questions. Give them time to think of answers they want to see on video. Work with teachers if you want to visit a classroom. Or write easy to understand questions with the help of your own children at home.
Record voices on video and audio. Put the clips into a time capsule which may contain many annual video and print family newsletters. Keep them and save them to your computer and to discs. They can be played when the children are older, provided that you transfer the recordings to more evolved technology as the children grow and the old technology becomes obsolete. Example: phonograph players versus DVD and CD players.
Create newsletters to showcase graduation photos and other school pictures. Use themes and events such as presenting the seasons changes through the eyes of children and older adults. Also see chapter 4 on how to make extended family pop-up newsletters, reports, greeting cards, and books.

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Personal History and Creative Genealogy Writing Techniques

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How to Start, Teach, & Franchise a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Club: The Craft of Producing Salable Living Legacies, Celebrations of Life, Genealogy Periodicals, Family Newsletters, Time Capsules, Biographies, Fiction, Memoirs, Ethno-Plays, Skits, Monologues, Autobiographies, Events, Reunion Publications, or Gift Books

Publisher's price: $20.95
Format: Paperback
Size: 6 x 9
Pages: 329
ISBN: 0-595-52212-2
Published: Jun-2008
 

 
International orders:
Call 00-1-402-323-7800
 

It's easy to start, teach, and franchise a creative genealogy writing club, class, or publication. Flesh out each category with your additional research and resources.

Book Description
It’s easy to start, teach, and franchise a creative genealogy writing club, class, or publication. Start by looking at the descriptions of each business and outline a plan for how your group operates. Flesh out each category with your additional research pertaining to your local area and your resources. Your goal always is to solve problems and get measurable results or find accurate records and resources. Or research personal history and DNA-driven genealogy interpretation reporting.

You can make keepsake albums/scrapbooks, put video online or on disc, and create multimedia text and image with sound productions or work with researching records in archives, oral history, or living legacies and time capsules. A living legacy is a celebration of life as it is now.

A time capsule contains projects and products, items, records, and research you want given to future generations such as genograms of medical record family history, family newsletters, or genealogy documents, diaries, photos, and video transcribed as text or oral history for future generations without current technology to play the video discs. Or start and plan a family and/or school reunion project or franchise, business or event. Another alternative is the genealogy-related play or skit, life story, or memoir.