Family history
From Freepedia
- For the medical family history, see Family history (medicine).
A family history is the documented facts, history, family tree, and stories of an individual or family, designed to become a historical document of that family or individual. Family history can either be in the form of a printed document, electronic document, oral or video recording. Generally the people creating the family history are concerned with describing where the family originated from, members of that family, marriages and preserving this history for future generations.
Family Histories are often created as a memorial for deceased individual descendants and are written to be passed down to future generations of that family and is closely tied to the field of Genealogy.
Before the 16th century most family histories included only royal families, or influential or powerful families. However in the 16th century as governments increasingly kept track of its citizens, more and more records were left behind in local, regional, or national offices or archives to recreate the family histories of most families in Europe.
Some records that are used to create family histories are:
- Baptism or Christening records
- Birth certificates
- Cemetery records and tombstones
- Census records
- Death records
- Diaries, personal letters and family Bibles
- Newspapers - both news items and advertisements
- Wills and probate records
Today many people are using these old records to recover their family history. But most of these records include only technical details of a persons life, such as their birth date, whom they married, the job’s they did, and so forth, but they contain very little about the person themselves such as their likes, dislikes, hobbies, hopes and dreams.
A good family history connects with young children and includes as young children generally enjoy hearing stories about their relatives such as how one met another, why they took a job or took up a hobby. Countless children have been encouraged to take up a hobby or sport, do better in school or life in general, when told of a relative who did the same.
Strong families cherish their family history and when family members get together, they discuss and endlessly swap these stories. Unfortunately today, family members are dispersed over the country and globe, and keeping these stories becomes difficult. Other times, even if the extended family is centrally located, there is a central person, a grandmother/father, uncle/aunt, who is the central figure in keeping the family history (and hence) the extended family unit alive. When they pass away, if the history is not documented, the history of the family often times dies with them.
An effective family historical document does not need to be elaborate to be successful. It can be as simple as members of a family answering stock question keeping a family journal, the creation of a scrapbook that includes personal notes, or it can be as complicated as creating a time capsule.
Many public, private, and non profit organizations assist people in the creation and preservation of their families history.
