Friday, July 17, 2015

Follow Friday: The Patient Genealogist's The Narrative Project: Did You Start?

I have been wanting to start writing the stories of my ancestors but did not really know how to start. I recently came across the post on the Patient Genealogist's blog entitled, Narrative Project: Did You Start?  I read further to see how this was done, she had steps for writing a simple birth story, a marriage story and a death story. All you need to do is take the information you have and make a simple sentence. http://patientgen.blogspot.com/2015/03/narrative-project-writing-simple-birth.html

 I decided that sounded simple enough, so I pulled out my dad's birth certificate and looked at the information that was included, and there was surprising a lot of information.  So this is what I came up with.



On December 29, 1929 at 8:00 p.m., a son was born to Mr. and Mrs. Frank P. Smith, ages 33 and 30,  at the Rockwood Clinic Hospital in Spokane with the assistance of Dr. Robert Stewart.   The Parents, Frank and Viola Smith, named him Don Kennedy Smith. However, a few days later they decided to change his middle name to Francis.  Don's father, Frank, was born in DeKalb, Illinois and was working as a mechanic at Riegel Bros. Dodge. His mother, Viola, was born in Winona, Minnesota. They lived at 3120 W. Providence Avenue in Spokane.

I then got adventurous and I took the 1930 US Census with my dad and his parents on it and crafted another narrative.

On April 2, 1930,  Frank, 32, along with is wife, Viola, 28 and son, Don, 3 months, were living in Ward 4 block 504 in Spokane, Washington.  They owned a home valued at $3600 at 3120 W. Providence Avenue. Frank, a veteran of World War I, was employed as an assistant manager of an auto repair shop.

Of course, I need to work on the proper grammar and sentence structure, but I have a good start in writing my family story thanks to the Patient Genealogist.