Tracing Your Roots — Creating a family history can be as enriching as it is informative.

By Chrystle Fiedler

When she was in the fourth grade, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans member Jamie Pinkelman of Berkley, Ohio, was a blue-ribbon hopeful at the county fair—not with a prize heifer or an apple pie, but with a family history project. "I was in 4-H and looking for a project, and it caught my eye," says Pinkelman, now 19. "I always wanted to find out where my family came from and what our story was. I did it to get to know my family better."

Tracing genealogical roots is more popular than ever. Thrivent Financial member Mike Ransom, 57, of Rochester, Minnesota, a retired technical writer, specializes in creating family memoirs. He has seen an increased demand from all over the United States "A family history is something to hold on to when someone is gone," he says. "It's invaluable."

For this reason, Sanda Gibson, 51, of Hilliard, Ohio, made her 93-year-old Korean-born grandmother the focus of her family history project. "Her story is quite remarkable," says the Thrivent Financial member. Gibson's grandmother was widowed and left to raise five children. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, she moved her family three times to stay out of harm's way. Later, her oldest daughter married an American serviceman and moved to the United States. Eventually, the whole family emigrated. Recently, with the help of Gibson's mother, who acted as a translator, Sanda began to write down her grandmother's story. "It's a combination of a memoir and narrative told through me," she says. "It honors my grandmother because I'm telling her story for future generations. It tells who we are."

Getting Started

There are many ways to create a family history. Ransom, who considers his projects with clients "sacred work," sets up a family-events timeline when he begins a project. Most importantly, he asks clients to think about whom they are writing to, what their purpose is in writing, and what they want to write about. "A memoir doesn't have to be about every day of your life. It can be a slice of your life," Ransom explains. "Think, for example, if you had one year of your life to live over again, what would it be and why? Write about that to start."

To give your story focus, says Gibson, a freelance writer, look for the themes that run throughout your family's history. "For example, our family really values education," she explains. It can also help to set a deadline (Christmas or the next family reunion, perhaps) to keep you focused on completing your task.

Pinkelman, who is now a sophomore at the University of Toledo, found that talking to members of her family who had done their own research gave her a big head start when it came to creating a history. "The more you network with members of your family, the more you learn," she says. In addition to local courthouses and libraries, you can track your ancestors online at www.lutheransonline.com and www.familysearch.org. Software programs such as Legacy make it easy to categorize and store information once you have it.

Ultimately, Pinkelman traced her roots back to the 1700s in Germany. Today she acts as an ad hoc family historian. "People still call and ask if there are any updates in our family's genealogy," she says. She plans to revisit the practice of writing a family history once she starts a family of her own.

In the hustle and bustle of life, it can be easy to put off, but Gibson says creating a family history is about persistence. "Just do it," she says. "You postpone things but you don't know how much time you have."

She plans to self-publish her memoir, complete with photos. "I think it's a story that needs to be told," says Gibson, who advises others to not be self-conscious about the process or product. "It doesn't have to be perfect. Telling someone's story is a labor of love."

Chrystle Fiedler is a previous contributor to Thrivent magazine whose work also has appeared in Woman's Day and Better Homes & Gardens.

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