Writing Family Biographies, Geoffrey Lee

Geoffrey Lee illustrated his talk about writing family biographies at our February meeting with examples from his own and his wife’s ancestors. “If you do not record an event that you have discovered about your ancestor,” he said, “it may be lost forever”. To that end, the majority of the talk described the various sources from which the material for family biographies can be collected. The normal sources for the barebones facts such as parish records, civil registration and the census were covered before concentrating on how to “put the flesh on the bones”.
Geoffrey and his wife come from service families and there is a wealth of recorded information about any person who served in the forces. This can be found not only in the wide range of PRO records but also in regimental magazines, books and museums. Re-enactment associations are a more unusual source. From all of these, a full picture of the movements and conditions of life of an ancestor can be built up and, if they were involved in a major incident or battle, detailed descriptions of the event can be found in non-military sources.
The occupations of other ancestors will also provide material for some, such as the examples given of a shoemaker and a fireman, details of their career may be recorded. Where this is not the case, general background material can be found in books, museums and old photographs.
However, the majority of our ancestors, and this includes most of the women, will have left no trace beyond the barebones of birth, marriage and death but there is still flesh to be added. Old maps, old photographs, local history and rural life museums, local archives and books can provide details about where they lived, the church they used and the type of life they would have had. All this can be added to the family photographs, documents and artefacts. Geoffrey finished his talk by outlining the ways that this wealth of biographical information can be recorded and illustrated with these items as well as audio and video tape recordings. He closed by emphasising that we owe it to future generations to do this for our own lives if not for anyone else.
[Sue Paul]