Obituaries often contain information helpful to genealogy research. Unfortunately they’re subject to copyright so you can’t legally transcribe nor share them unless they are in the public domain. The next best alternative to transcribing them is to abstract them.

A genealogical abstract is a summary of the pertinent details from the source. While some of them are entertaining and well written, your primary interest as a genealogist is in extracting the evidence from the obituary so that you can analyze it with other evidence and reach sound conclusions. Abstracts help you do that and you can share your abstracts without concern over copyright infringement.

I have a system for abstracting obituaries that I’m going to share with you. It consists of a method and a simple template. In the following series of videos I introduce you to the method and template then walk you through abstracting obituaries from different periods to demonstrate the use of the parts of the template and cement the five step process. Two of the obituaries I abstract in the demonstration are from 1851 and 1875 so a transcription would be more appropriate because the material is excluded from copyright protection. I suggest using the method and template a few times after watching the videos to really get it down.
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One of the best ways to get started writing your genealogy memoirs is to start with a Christmas memory, a few memorable moments from the past. Choose a Christmas Day from your youth; allow your mind to freely wander, recapturing the sweet sounds of carols, bright colors of the season, and gifts of peace, love and hope from the era.

Make a few notes including the year, the place, the people in the memory, and anything else you can remember. Then use your notes to turn your memory into a short story.

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The Plan

Here’s a foolproof 10-step organizational plan for writing your memoirs and life stories. Just follow the steps and they will guide you through the process of starting, developing and completing your personal stories. There’s nothing like true stories to bring your family’s genealogy to life!

Creating a Life Map

To start, make a list of the personal memories or memory fragments that you can recall from your youth. Next to each memory, write your age at the time of the occasion and then organize the list by age. This list will become your Life Map and your invaluable working tool for writing your memoirs.

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Capturing a source citation, abstracting or transcribing information, and making assertions about each piece of information are integral steps in genealogy research. Lineascope.com allows you to store and report the data from all of these steps and use it in creating a proven genealogy. This series of videos shows you how it can be done by taking you click-by-click through the example of citing and abstracting an obituary, capturing the event, characteristic, and relationship information, and recording the evidence in Lineascope.com.
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