Family History Template

A template for preserving a parent's, grandparent's, or family elder's life story. Use this for a single-document biography, or expand each section into a chapter for a printed family book.

When to use this template

• Family biography books
• Birthday and anniversary tributes
• Gifts for relatives
• Heritage and immigration narratives
• Supplements to genealogy and family-tree projects

The structure (medium-length, ~1,500 words)

1. Opening line — one sentence that places them in the world.
2. Origins — where and when born, family of origin.
3. Childhood — the town, the house, the school.
4. Coming of age — leaving home, education, military service, first work.
5. Family — marriage / partnership, children, home.
6. Work — what they did, professionally and otherwise.
7. Character — habits, sayings, opinions, the texture of their days.
8. Aging and later years — what changed, what stayed.
9. Legacy — what they leave behind.

A filled example (opening section)

Margaret Ellen O'Connor was born in 1936 in County Mayo, Ireland — the youngest of seven children, the only one who would remember the place. Her family emigrated to New York in 1948, the year she turned twelve, and Margaret spent the rest of her life within a half-mile of the Astoria apartment her parents first rented. She used to say that she had two childhoods — the Irish one, which she only half remembered, and the American one, which she remembered too well.

>

Margaret was the youngest by nine years. She remembered her older brothers Patrick and Sean leaving for the war in Korea before she fully understood what war meant; she remembered the smell of her mother's kitchen at six in the morning; she remembered the long Atlantic crossing in 1948 in the way children remember the parts of journeys they cannot yet name.

Drafting from interviews

The strongest family biographies are drafted from interviews, not from memory. If the person is living, interview them. If they have passed, interview the family members who knew them best.

Workflow:

1. Record at least one 60–90 minute conversation.
2. Pull every concrete detail out of the transcript into a notes document.
3. Group the details into the structural sections above.
4. Draft each section.
5. Include one or two direct quotes from the transcript, used sparingly.

Use Biography.co's Life Story Interview Questions tool to generate a starter question set.

Common mistakes

1. Compressing everything into a chronology. "Born here, moved there, married this person, worked this job." A list of facts is not a biography.
2. Even pacing. Give 80% of the words to the 20% of the life that holds the most material.
3. Skipping the small specifics. The dish, the saying, the route, the chair — these are what make a family biography feel like a person.
4. Family conflict. Don't try to settle unresolved family conflicts in a family biography.

Or auto-fill it

Biography.co's Family Biography Generator writes a draft, a timeline outline, chapter suggestions, and follow-up interview questions from the details you provide. Use it after your first interview, not before.