Why Tell Life Stories
Each person is part of an ongoing legacy. / Photo by Patricia Prudente via Unsplash
Share your unique experiences. Pay tribute to someone special. Tell the human story of an ancestor’s life. Leave a legacy of memories and family history.
There are plenty of reasons to tell stories from your life – or about family and ancestors – sooner rather than later.
Share Your Voice
Some say: I’m too young, I’m too old, I’m too busy, my life is ordinary, I’m not a writer, my family isn’t interested, it’s too big a project, I don’t know any stories from my family history. Sound familiar?
How about: I wish I’d asked my parent or grandparent more questions, I wish they’d left me their stories, I wish I knew more about my family history.
No matter your stage of life or storytelling, you can start from here to learn and share more about yourself, and your ancestors. Take a step at a time. Choose from a variety of ways that suit you and your audience.
“Don’t die with your music still in you.”
It feels good to express yourself, help someone else tell their stories, and discover and share family history. It’s rewarding for you to share and for others to hear.
Each Person is Unique
You’re the only one to live your experiences, and carry your unique point of view. Maybe you think your family already knows and nobody else cares. But you might be surprised!
Your listeners might get to hear what life was like in another place and time. They may imagine themselves in your situation, and relate to what you went through. Or if you’ve had a rare experience, you could share a window into a world most don’t enter.
You have your unique way of talking, which those who know you will recognize and like to hear. This will come through in your writing as well. Take the chance to tell your stories.
What stories will you tell about your life and family? / Photo by Askar Abayev via Pexels
Your family members, friends and others each have their own unique life – beyond their role in yours. They have their own personality, qualities and memories worth sharing.
You might be asked to highlight someone’s character at a ceremony: graduation, wedding, retirement, or funeral. It’s an honour to sum up a person’s life, accomplishments and qualities – and fun to include a couple of quirks to round out their real-life personality.
Every ancestor was a person who lived within the context of their time and place. They made life choices based on their character and situation. The deeper you dig into the details of an ancestor’s life, the more you’ll see them as an individual.
Capture Memories
Remember the special people in your life. Shed a light on their qualities, deeds, and personality traits. Their roles in the world, at work, their community or in your life are worth mention. It’s good to let people know what this individual did, stood for, or other aspects of their life.
It’s beneficial to help someone share their memories and tell their stories. Even if the person is a parent, grandparent or other person in your life, you’ll find out new things through life-story interviews. Maybe you have a general notion, but not the details behind a life event.
Capture your own memories too! If you make notes, you can come back to them later. They might become the seeds of stories, or even a memoir one day. It seems there are some things you’ll never forget, but memories of details fade over time.
Give the Gift of Story
When you give the gift of story to someone, it’s heartwarming for both of you. You might help them tell their stories, or share memories you have about times spent together.
It's rewarding to share life stories between generations. / Photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
It's a gift to your children, grandchildren and others to leave stories of times in your life.
In the final weeks of his life, my father kept a family photo-essay I made for him at his bedside. My mother kept a collection of ‘happy memories’ from friends and family close at hand after she moved to a seniors’ residence. I find my experiences sharing someone’s stories to be so rewarding.
Share Family History
When you research your family history, you likely discover much you never knew before. You find ‘new’ people, and maybe some remarkable events, turns of fate, and surprising geographical origins. Perhaps you uncover things that gave rise to your situation today.
Sharing family history can be rewarding for all – whether close or distant relatives, or others interested in that part of history and the human experience. Help people see and remember the untold stories of your ancestors. They form part of your existence, as well as the human community.
Some family history is hard to find, or hard to look at, but it’s worth knowing your past as a foundation. The more we each reclaim our heritage, the more everyone can recognize parts of our history.
Show the Human Side
You’re not a résumé, your elder is not a list of milestones, and your ancestor is not a statistic! When you tell life stories, you can show more about a person.
Your audience (listener, reader or viewer) can sense your personality, goals, perhaps fears and what is important to you. Some troubles and failures make us human – nobody’s perfect.
Whether the story is about you, someone in your life, or your ancestors, it’s the human side that attracts and holds a reader’s attention. What motivates a person? What were their struggles? What was most special to them?
Wheatfarmer, Whitman County, Washington 1941. / Photo by Russell Lee via Library of Congress
There are some things you’ll never know about an ancestor, nor even about a close relative. But you can take what you do know and tell a story that shows their human side.
Engage Through Story
At root, stories connect us – the storyteller, and the people in the audience (including readers, listeners and viewers). This holds true from ancient times around a campfire, to a cinema today.
Stories entertain! Like other people, you’ve had funny times, sad times, challenging events and maybe some strange occurrences. Perhaps some adventures – whether a small one near home, a wilderness outing, or an inner journey.
People like to hear what others have been up to, especially if the story’s well-told. Get them invested in your tale by using ways to tell an engaging story. They may laugh, cry, be curious, and wonder what will happen next. Your stories might connect you with others who share your interests.
Telling your family stories might inspire someone to ask an aging relative some questions, versus facing regret that they missed that opportunity.
Even factual stories of your ancestors can intrigue a reader, as they learn what happened in other times, places and situations. It may encourage someone else to research their heritage – and possibly embark on a life-changing voyage of discovery.
Understand More
You might discover more about yourself in telling your stories. You may see patterns in your life, and which decisions made a big difference.
You may get a bigger picture of the lives of your parents and other key people, beyond their role in your life. As you learn more about someone else and tie it into their storyline, you may understand why they made certain choices. It might not serve as an excuse, but could help explain some things.
At first when you learn about your ancestors, you may not be able to relate to their actions. As you look deeper into their situation, religion, culture, and historic events of the time, you may get an idea why they behaved as they did (such as: leave their home country, enlist for war, or change their religion).
"It's a Small World After All" (my fave childhood song from Disney, 1960s). / Photo by Kyle Glenn via Unsplash
You may come to understand what other cultures and groups were – and still are – impacted by choices your ancestors made.
In my case, I learned that I have colonial ancestors who were among the first European settlers in America. They helped set the stage for the huge impacts on indigenous peoples that continue to this day. I am reading, writing and reflecting on this as I come to terms with this part of my heritage.
Tell More of the Whole Story
There may be parts of your life you wish to talk about, and leave other things out. It’s good to choose what to share. Yet if you include more about yourself, such as some struggles alongside success, people can relate.
You may tend to focus on one aspect of someone’s life, such as their career or family. When you bring other things in, people can get a more rounded view of the person.
Résumés, bios and eulogies focus on the positive: highlights, accomplishments, and favourable traits.
There are times we have the chance, and might even feel a responsibility, to tell more of the whole story. There may be the shadow side of a person or situation, which is part of the picture but has gone untold.
Or it may be a community narrative that is outside the mainstream. Maybe you or others in your group took a different path and faced more obstacles than the norm. Or the people in power told the stories their way, and you’re just now finding your voice.
Much of recorded history is told by and about men from dominant cultures. There are more sides that have yet to be told, about women, minorities, and other people kept to the margins.
In recent times, people who rose to prominence in the past have been shown to have held slaves. This may have been a norm in their day, but as values change it casts a different light. There’s more to the story than their name on a monument, street or building.
Help to Heal
Life storytelling can be healing. If you express your thoughts and stories to others in a safe-for-you way, you may feel better for being heard. Through memoir, a person tries to make meaning of some of their life experiences and how they connect over time.
The most vivid memories may arise when there is trauma. This sears it into the mind, perhaps along with a sight, scent or sound from the time. A piece of music may bring up a special time or a tragic time. Memories of war, accidents, abuse, or disasters may not leave a person.
It’s wise to take care when you lift the lid off such deep memories – if yours, or when you interview someone. It might be best to avoid certain topics that trigger trauma. Yet if you are able to look deeper and tell a story, it might help lift a burden and get some closure.
If you write about meeting a challenge, working hard to succeed, or just getting up to try again, this may inspire others. It might encourage them to face a similar challenge – or just to see they’re not alone. Telling your stories may enable them to share theirs.
It helps to share stories from your life and hear other experiences. / Photo by Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels
Your stories may console, provide insight, or help someone in other ways. You might not know how your story has touched someone. It could be a friend, someone online, or member of the public – depending where your story is shared.
Leave a Legacy
When you write your memories, stories, reflections and family history, you can leave a legacy for future generations.
To capture and present life stories of your parents, grandparents and others is to leave a legacy for those who follow. To uncover and share family history is a gift for relatives – close and distant – also for others interested in genealogy.
Your own stories become part of your family history. These could be anything from notes and short stories to a full memoir.
I was thrilled and grateful to find that my great great-grandfather wrote a memoir, “The Story of My Life”. I was able to read personal stories about his life in Scotland, and share our family history with my uncle before he died.
A Washington Post article on adopting a legacy mindset suggests “don’t wait” to share, in ways like: a legacy letter to family expressing your values and what you appreciate, life lessons in story form, scrapbooks and photo albums along with written memories, and a family tree based on research into your ancestry.
written by Barbara L Campbell, 2024