THE PRINCIPLES OF Writing Ancestor Stories
‘Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts …’
Principles and moral considerations when writing ancestors ’ stories.
It is a strange and humbling thought that whilst the living population of the world today is the largest it has ever been at circa 7.7 billion; it represents but 6.7% of those who ever lived. So, whilst Arthur C Clarke’s immortal quote of 1968 is pure fiction, he would not have been far from the fact. As of mid-2020, the actual number of potential ‘ghosts’ for every person alive was 15.
Unearthing the stories of our ancestors and sharing them with family or even the wider public is a primary goal of many family historians. A traditional way of achieving this is to write their stories as biographical narratives. During a recent Faber workshop, guest author, Svenja O’Donnell, of Inge’s War described herself as a ‘portal’ through which her grandmother’s life in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath could be told. The analogy of the ‘portal’ is an effective one, as family historians are the channel through which knowledge of ancestors is transferred and perpetuated for descendants in generations to come.
There are many parallels between writing a biography or memoir and writing a biographical account of a deceased ancestor. Not least, that both genres demand a true account of the individuals and events they represent. In many ways family historians, (vocational, avocational and hobbyists) face the same moral dilemmas too; what information to include and what to gloss over or omit altogether. The
