You Do You

Have you ever avidly read a story about a family member, perused a photo album, or watched a video of a now-deceased ancestor speak about times past? Did you think, “I could never put together something like that.” Or, “This would have been better if they had only done _____ (you fill in the blank).”

Maybe you could. Maybe you couldn’t. But what others have or haven’t done or can or can’t do is irrelevant.

Q: So, what’s relevant?

A: That you do you.

If you’re interested in sharing family histories and heritage, let’s brainstorm about ways you can make that happen in the way only you can do it. Below are some questions and a few examples you can use as a springboard for you doing you.

First, what do you enjoy most, and what interests you?

Does a specific ancestor, place, time, or experience interest you? Does the 250^th birthday of the USA pique your curiosity enough to search for ancestors, on either side of the conflict, who fought in the Revolutionary War?

Are you captivated by records of relatives who lived in the same place for decades, but jurisdictional boundary changes showed them living in different towns, counties/parishes, states, or even countries?

Barb is fascinated with “Firsts” in her family. Who was her first family member to graduate from college? Who were the first of her ancestors to be born in US territories? Who was the first woman in her family to ride a bicycle?[1]

Pat wrote about her uncle who was Killed In Action during WWII and buried in the Netherlands. Her research led her to the Foundation for Adopting Graves at the American Cemetery Margraten and the touching story about generations of the Dutch family who continue to tend his grave.[2]

Second, what motivates and drives you? In our January 2026 blog article, What Motivates You to Share Family Stories and Histories?, we explore this very question.

Curiosity about a family history mystery? Fun? Challenges? Solving puzzles? Connecting with your heritage or your family members? Wanting to share your genealogical research findings with generations yet to be born?

Do you desire to memorialize an upcoming milestone in the life of a parent, child, or grandchild? Will you be attending an upcoming family gathering to celebrate a birth, marriage, or a life well lived? When my grandmother died, words flowed from my heart onto paper about how she had blessed me. I shared my short eulogy during the family tributes at her funeral.

Are you attending a family reunion? While researching family trees, I realized I’d only heard a great-grandmother referred to as Ma and that I knew little about her. At the next family reunion, I interviewed her two surviving daughters, a daughter-in-law, and two grandsons, all in their 80s and 90s, who had known Ma personally. That year for Christmas, I wrote up the stories and research I’d done about my great-grandmother Alice and shared them with my family.

Do you want to make an upcoming holiday dinner memorable? I’m envious of John, because for years his aunt asked relatives attending the Thanksgiving dinner to write and bring a family story. Each person, down to the youngest child who could write, told their story during the meal. Afterwards, John’s aunt collected their written stories.

Do cut-and-paste perpetrations of errors in family trees drive you crazy? While researching another great-grandmother, I unraveled her first husband’s conflated identity. He was not my ancestor. He had no known descendants. But I spent time and effort researching and writing my findings because for some unexplained reason, I felt like a voice for the voiceless. The public tree at FamilySearch now correctly identifies him, along with supporting documentation to dissuade others from conflating his identity again.[3]

Have you pieced together, heard, or read a family story that is too good not to share?

Third, what are your gifts, skills, education, training, natural leanings, and tendencies?

Researching? Wordsmithing? Drawing?

Decades ago, as one of my odd jobs, I occasionally assisted a landman researching land records held at a county courthouse. This on-the-job training helped me become fairly comfortable reading the legal descriptions that use the rectangular system of surveys. These days, I use that training when researching some land records and pinpointing ancestors’ names on community and plat maps. In a related post, Focus on Finding Earlier Transaction Dates Connected to Ancestors’ Federal Land Patents, I walk through how this kind of research works in practice.

Are you analytical? Observant?

Does your truth detector sniff out family oral histories that border on the unbelievable, smack of fantasy, or convey more fiction than fact?

Do you listen well? Do you enjoy taking photos? Writing poetry? Collecting or recreating family recipes?

Do you have a sense of design, color, format, and layout? Do you have a sense of humor?

Do you see the concept of “you do you” all around?

Beginning in the late-1970s, my sisters and I gathered recipes from almost 100 kinfolk and some shirt-tail relatives who represented five generations of family. We dubbed the collection In-laws and Outlaws and Three Kinds of Cheeses: The Frame Family Cookbook. My sisters and I checked ingredients, typed and formatted recipes, made plenty of copies, and added them to three-ring binders. In 1987, we gave the first copy to our grandparents as a gift before we attended our yearly family reunion.

About twenty-five years later, at a patio restaurant in Gig Harbor, Washington, I and the woman at the table next to me were each waiting for someone to join us. I don’t remember her name, but she was interesting and kind, and I wish I could have kept in touch with her.

While chatting, I told her I wrote a family story to give to family members each Christmas. She showed me a beautifully penned recipe and accompanying watercolor she had made as a gift to give one of her adult children. Her artwork and lettering were stunning. She regularly gave each of her children a favorite family recipe, along with some context and her original artwork.

Shaped by our natural tendencies and skills, our two cookbooks and gifts looked very different. But they were similar in our desire to preserve and share our ancestry and heritage. We each filled our family cookbook with love as we concentrated on a small piece of our respective family’s history and gave it our best.

Look inside, do. And consider how you can do you.

Look around. Examples of “you do you” abound.

Questions:

• What stories and histories do you feel most strongly about right now that you want to share with your family?

• How freeing is it to consider how you can collect, preserve, and give family stories and histories in ways that are enjoyable and interesting to you?

• What are your gifts, skills, education, training, natural leanings, and tendencies that will shape what you will share and how you will share it with your family?

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[1] Barbara Whittlesey, Pieces & Stems: Family History, “Categories,” “Family Firsts” (https://piecesandstems.wordpress.com).

[2] Patricia Walsh, “Lest We Forget,” Amy Newmark, Editor-in-Chief, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Military Families: 101 Stories about the Force Behind the Forces, (Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC, 2017), 311-313.

[3] Stephen F Draper (~1849, Canada West – 11 Sep 1875, Jackson County, Iowa, USA), (FamilySearch.org Profile GRW3-8CP).