Family Folklore: Fiction or Fact?

How do we identify, research, and report family lore and legends in our stories and histories? What can we do when we’re wondering, “Is a ‘fact’ really fact? Or is it fiction? Or a blend of fact and fiction?”

Below are some tips related to reasoning, researching, and reporting whether family lore is indeed fact, a mix of fact and fiction, or fiction.

Family lore may trigger our delight or dismay. No matter how much we want something to be true or false, let’s agree that it can provide a good clue to follow up with more reasoning, researching, and reporting.

Reasoning

Consider a few questions. Is the legend/lore/story plausible? Do I need more context to form a judgment based on logic? Can I set aside my emotional response to this bit of my family’s lore?

Researching

As with all research, objectivity and intellectual honesty matter.

Brainstorming questions

• Who can I ask if they have more information or documentation?
• What ways can I trace back to the possible source of information?
• Is the event widely known and reported through different individuals in the same or multiple collateral branches of the family tree?
• Are there recorded oral interviews held by family members? If so, are they in a usable format, or do I need to have them updated to current technology?
• Did other people write or record information about the event in their history, diary, letters, audio/video at the time or soon after the event?
• Did family members save photos, diaries, letters, audio/video recorded interviews?
• Do written records corroborate the story?
• Depending on the family story, might DNA results be available?

Initial research

• Search and review your digital or physical treasure trove and past research to see what you might already have. Some of it might make more sense to you now than when you found it, and some might apply to your research question.
• Ask other family members, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues for their remembrances and any documentation.
• Ask others if they have the written documentation or records that were contemporary to the event.
• List everything you know or think you know. Include citations.

Draft research questions

• Break down the story into parts and brainstorm research approaches.
• Write a research question or questions. Revise as necessary.
  • For instance, I heard bits of family oral history about an ancestor’s mining adventures that had been passed down at least four generations. Peter went to the Black Hills of South Dakota rather than join the military during the Civil War. At some unspecified time, he mined in Montana with two of his brothers-in-law. At another unspecified time, he went to the Yukon. “He made enough money he didn’t have to work another day in his life.”
  • My research question became: “Can we confidently say, ‘Peter struck it rich while prospecting for precious metals’”?

Timelines

• Life timeline: Identify what you know or think you know about the person. I’d already drafted a timeline of what I knew about Peter’s life, which helped me identify gaps in years he may have been prospecting.
• Topical timeline: To analyze dates/places/information from family lore, I built another timeline focused on the three locations Peter possibly prospected. My first draft included the Dakotas (sample below), as well as Montana, the Yukon Territory (not included below). I’ve added just two of many citations in this example:

Possible Places Peter Prospected 1860s-1890s
Unproven family stories	Year	Possible Locations	Some relevant local, regional, national, and world history to help make sense of it
Family oral and written history: “Sometime during the Civil War, Peter lost himself in the Dakotas.”	Sometime during Civil War (1861-1865)	Dakotas	-12 Apr 1861, Civil War began -09 Apr 1865, Civil War ends -1874, First rush in Black Hills after Custer expedition, but rumors of precious metals before that[1] -The Black Hills are in current South Dakota and Wyoming -02 Nov 1889, South Dakota statehood -10 Jul 1890, Wyoming statehood -gold and silver mining not likely in North Dakota during the Civil War[2]

• Revise as necessary. For instance, after asking an aunt more questions and doing more research, I added to Peter’s prospecting timeline:
  • The year 1862 to the possibility of Peter mining in Montana.
  • Peter was listed as “Miner” in the 1880 census in Colorado.

Context

• Learn more about the period and location(s) involved.
  • I’d initially wondered if Peter prospected in the Black Hills of current-day South Dakota.
    • Then I learned that in 1862 the Dakota Territory also encompassed a great deal of present-day Montana, Wyoming, and a sliver of Nebraska.
    • I revised my research focus and shifted from looking for records in South Dakota to those in current-day Montana.
• Learn more about the histories of individuals, families, groups, communities, churches, associations, institutions, organizations, or governmental agencies. This may include local, community, county, state, regional, national, and international histories.
• Search encyclopedias and well-documented, reliable histories for context.
• Look for documentation and information that wasn’t previously available.

Different approaches

• Attack your research question from different directions.
  • I switched from concentrating my search on mining activities in four locatons to analyzing Peter’s possible wealth. Finding no will, probate, tax, land, or other property records, I analyzed his occupation listed on censuses between 1860 and 1910.

Practice patience

• If you run out of ideas, time, or resources, write up your most current understanding and give the research a rest.
  • Sometimes additional records will become available. Our understanding of the time, places, and people may change. We may later better understand information we’ve already gathered.
  • Sometimes answers arrive serendipitously.

Reporting

• Write with honesty and kindness as you report your most current understanding of the veracity of the family lore
• Choose words and phrases, when necessary, that convey the idea of unproven family lore. For example, according to what _____ said (or wrote), allegedly, apparently, as reported, announced, asserted, assumed, claimed, declared, insinuated, implied, in name only, inferred, predicated, presumed, professed, purported, repeated, reported, rumored, said to be, so-called, stated, supposedly.
• Write your current understanding, which may include choosing words like:
  • Nothing I found proved or disproved this family story.
  • My research yielded nothing that confirmed this family oral history.
  • Research showed the family legacy is based on the following reliable records and historical context.
  • Research proved that X did such and such.
  • DNA indicated A is related to B.
  • The family story might contain a grain of truth for the following reasons:…
  • While there may be some basis for the story, it’s unlikely because…

As an example, I concluded my research question with: My current (2026) understanding, reflections, and summary:

• Peter and two of his brothers-in-law were linked in several ways, including their shared prospecting adventures.
• Perhaps Peter traveled to current North Dakota or South Dakota in the early 1860s. However, according to notes of an interview with a descendant of Peter’s brother-in-law, I believe it’s much more likely that in 1862 Peter prospected in the Dakota Territory in an area that became part of Montana Territory in 1864 and the State of Montana in 1889.
• The interview notes about claim jumpers indicated fleeting ownership of rights to minerals. Currently, 164 years later, the mining claim may have no monetary value to the descendant who holds the paper. However, the family history associated with it is priceless.
• In 1865 and 1866, officials in Montana Territory recorded various lode claims and county records in the names of Peter and his two brothers-in-law.
• If Peter struck it rich from prospecting, perhaps it was at one location. Or maybe his wealth accumulated as he added earnings from several mining adventures. Alternatively, perhaps during decades of marriage, Peter and his wife managed their money well, had good business sense, and/or good luck buying real estate low and selling high. By whatever manner they earned their wealth, by the date of the 1910 US census, they lived on an independent income.
• Records showed Peter and his two brothers-in-law prospected in Montana in the mid-1860s, and he mined in Colorado in 1880. Other information would be needed to ascertain if Peter struck it rich prospecting for precious metals. But given the information above, he very well may have.

Questions

• Which of your family legends or lore interests or fascinates you?
• What is your draft research question?
• What steps can you take to learn more about the context of your family lore?

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[1] Watson Parker, Gold in the Black Hills, Google Books, Chapters 1-3, Google (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gold_in_the_Black_Hills/aHs922gcTikC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=black+hills+history&printsec=frontcover), from printed book South Dakota State Historical Society Press, Pierre, South Dakota, 1966, 2003,

[2] John P. Bluemle, “Gold in North Dakota,” North Dakota Notes No. 6, North Dakota Geological Survey, para 2, last modified 31 Aug 2007, (https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/ndnotes/ndn6_h.htm : accessed 11 Sep 2026).