Write Someone Else's Personal History

So you want to write a personal history for someone special--maybe your grandmother's personal history, or perhaps the personal history of your father. You may have in mind an idea of what you want the personal history to be like. Before you begin, however, let’s talk about what a personal history is not. A personal history is not a book that is filled primarily with names, dates, and places that relate to people in your subject's family. That is a family history. The personal history you write will focus on one individual, explaining, illustrating, and teaching the essence of that person.

This website explains ten easy steps that will enable you to complete a top-notch personal history:

1.    Organize and preserve memorabilia into a working archive
2.    Involve family and friends
3.    Use oral history to collect life stories
4.    Meet with the printer or publisher
5.    Use memory triggers
6.    Write the first draft of the personal history
7.    Add memorabilia
8.    Make the personal history "user friendly"
9.    Edit and finalize the personal history
10. Publish and copyright on a shoestring budget

You do not need to scroll through every page on this website before you actually start. You can read read through and complete the activities described in one step before beginning the next step. You can, of course, read through all ten steps initially in order to get an idea of the whole process, from start to finish.

The process of writing a personal history for someone else (a biography) is essentially the same as the process of writing your own personal history (an autobiography). The steps outlined on the following pages are written from the perspective of assisting visitors to create an autobiography. They are equally applicable to assisting you in writing someone else's biography--where applicable, simply replace "you" with the name of the subject of the biography.

The photographs found on this site are of my ancestors and other important members of my family.

PLEASE NOTE: the material presented on this site is intended to provide general guidance and direction. My book, From Shoeboxes To Books: Writing Great Personal Histories, is a comprehensive, in-depth guide to writing personal histories for yourself and others. The book contains numerous forms, lists, and additional supporting material, and is available for purchase here.

LET'S GET STARTED!