How to write your family history

If you've built a family tree on Ancestry or FamilySearch, you have names, dates and places. A family history adds what the records leave out: why your great-grandparents left their village, what the farm grew, who kept the family going after the mine closed.

You don't need to finish the research before you start writing. Start small, start with the people you knew, and write one story at a time.

Choose a small scope first

Pick one ancestor, one family line, one place, or your own memories of the family. Finish that piece, share it, and then start the next one.

• One ancestor: the one who came over, the one who went west, the grandmother who ran the store.
• One family line: your mother's mother's line, from the earliest woman you can find down to your mother.
• One place: the town, farm or neighborhood where the family lived for three generations.
• Your own memories: the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles you knew.

If you can't decide, start with your own memories. The next section explains why.

Start with what you know firsthand

Write down what you remember about your parents and grandparents before you do anything else. No census or ship list records how your grandfather took his coffee, what your grandmother said when she was mad, or what their kitchen smelled like on a Sunday. If you don't write it down, nobody can look it up later.

Be specific. Describe one moment instead of summing a person up.

Instead of "Grandpa was a hard worker," write: "He left for the rail yard at 5:40 every morning. His lunch pail sat by the back door the night before, and we weren't allowed to touch it."

Prompts to get you started:

• Describe the room you most remember them in.
• What did they do for work, and what did you see of it?
• What did they say often? Write the exact words.
• Tell about one time you got in trouble with them.
• What did they cook, grow, fix or make?
• Describe one holiday at their house, from arrival to the drive home.
• What did they keep in a wallet, purse or dresser drawer?
• What did they never talk about?

Interview the relatives who are still here

Ask living relatives for their memories, starting with the oldest: a parent, an aunt, an older cousin, a family friend. Each one remembers different people, and different versions of the same stories. Use these questions to ask your parents and grandparents to get started.

• Bring a printout of the tree and a stack of photos. Ask "Who is this?" and "What was she like?"
• Ask about people, not dates. "What was Uncle Joe like?" gets you more than "When was Uncle Joe born?"
• Record the conversation on your phone, with their permission.
• Ask who else you should talk to, and whether anyone has letters or photos.
• Write down who told you each story and when: "Told by Aunt Rose, June 2026."

If one of them served in the military, these tips on how to interview a veteran will help.

Use records for context, not only dates

Records show where people lived, who lived with them, what they did for work and what was going on around them. Use them to set scenes and to check family stories, not only to fill in birth dates.

• Census records. From 1850 on, the U.S. census gives details for everyone in the household, such as age, birthplace and often occupation. Earlier censuses name only the head of household. Census records are released after 72 years, so 1950 is the newest you can see. Most of the 1890 census was destroyed in a 1921 fire, so expect a gap there.
• Immigration records. The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation has a free search of arrival records for Ellis Island, the Port of New York and other ports. The lists were filled out at the port of departure, so try other spellings of the family name.
• Military records. Draft cards, service records and discharge papers show where someone was and when. The National Archives explains who can request service records and how.
• Newspapers. The Library of Congress's Chronicling America has millions of digitized newspaper pages from nearly every state, published through 1963. Search the family name with the town, and look for obituaries, wedding notices, accidents, court news and store ads.

Read the whole page, not just the line with your family's name. The neighbors on a census sheet, the ad next to an obituary and the headline on the day they arrived all help you describe their world.

A good place to start is FamilySearch. It's free with a free account, has U.S. censuses from 1790 to 1940 along with billions of other records, and offers in-person help at more than 5,000 FamilySearch centers at no cost. The National Archives has the 1950 census online, searchable by name and place.

Write scenes, and say how you know what you know

Write the way you'd tell it at the table, one scene at a time. Make it clear which parts are documented, which are family lore and which are your guesses, so that nobody later repeats a guess as fact.

• Documented: "The 1910 census lists Anna, 16, as a servant in a doctor's household on Elm Street."
• Family lore: "The family story is that she quit after the doctor's wife accused her of stealing a silver spoon."
• Your guess: "She was 16 and alone in a new country. I imagine she sent most of her wages home, though no letters survive to say so."

Put together, it reads like this:

In 1910, 16-year-old Anna Kowalski was working as a servant for Dr. Henry Price and his wife on Elm Street. The family story is that she quit after Mrs. Price accused her of stealing a silver spoon, and that she said something in Polish none of her children would ever repeat. I haven't found where she worked next. By 1912 she was married to my great-grandfather and living over his brother's bakery.

A few phrases help readers tell these apart: "the census shows," "family story has it," "probably," "I haven't found," "I imagine."

Organize by generation, place or theme

Choose one plan and stick to it, so readers always know where they are.

• By generation. Start with the earliest ancestor you can document and come forward, one chapter per generation or per couple. This suits a single family line.
• By place. Give each town, farm or neighborhood its own chapter. This suits a family that moved, where each move changed their lives.
• By theme. Write chapters on work, faith, food, houses or wars. This suits memories gathered from many relatives.

Put a simple family tree chart at the front so readers can keep people straight, and place old family photos next to the stories they belong to.

Cite your sources simply

Note where each fact came from, in plain words a relative could follow. You don't need a formal citation style.

• 1910 U.S. census, Scranton, Pennsylvania, household of Henry Price, viewed on FamilySearch.
• Obituary of Anna Nowak, Scranton Times, March 3, 1961, page 12.
• Told by Aunt Rose Nowak at her kitchen table, June 2026.

Put the notes at the end of each chapter or at the back, and keep copies of the documents with your draft.

Share it and print it

Send each chapter to relatives as you finish it. They may correct a name, add a story or send a photo you've never seen.

When it's done, email it as a PDF, print copies at an office supply store, or have it bound as a book. See how to print your life story for ways to do it. Offer a copy to the library or historical society in the town where the family lived, too.

If you'd rather talk than write

You can turn your own memories of the people you knew into stories with Biographer, a personal biographer you talk with by typing or speaking in your web browser. It asks follow-up questions about what you just said, such as what your grandmother's house looked like, and when you're ready, it writes the conversation up as a story you can correct. You can add old photos and talk about them, and your stories go into a book you can arrange into chapters and download as a free PDF.

You can also invite a parent, aunt or grandparent to tell their own story. Check names and dates in each story before you share it, since it can get a detail wrong.