Gill led us through what we needed to think about: chronology, story, how to create an interesting family history, challenges and anomalies, format and structure, and writing in an interesting way. She outlined the importance of the who, what, when, where, why, and how — whether for a person, place, or generation.

She set out some key considerations for starting out: the importance of planning and organization; making it interesting (not just facts and dates); the craft of your writing; goals; readers’ knowledge; and style of presentation (fictional, factual, etc.).

Read the full clipping from the review in the Journal of One-Name Studies, April-June 2016.

“I would like to thank you for arranging this superb course which finished last Saturday. The tutor knew her subject inside out and was an enormously encouraging and engaged facilitator.”

“Thank you for the course day today. It was a great help.”

“Firstly, very many thanks for all your advice on the course. I’ve learnt a huge amount and now feel I have a realistic chance of converting my masses of research into something the next generations will find interesting and readable. We also had some good fun as a group. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and in particular thank you again for all your encouragement.”

“Thank you very much for your detailed and insightful feedback. Beyond this, your summary comments are very positive and give me much encouragement to continue and expand on my writing. I do appreciate the amount of effort you have put into this. Your three classes did much to develop my thinking about how to approach writing about my ancestors in an interesting way.”

“Thank you so much for everything you put into the workshop. I really value all your comments and suggestions, and I’ve now got lots of new ideas for things to include in my next sections – even though it’s bound to lead to more research! It was great to meet all the others with similar interests too, rather than working in a vacuum.”

“Your course was inspiring, rather than having to find time to write my story, it is more a case of making time to do the housework!”

“Thanks again for the writing workshop. I really found it rewarding.”

“Thank you all again for the generous encouragement you gave me during the course.”

“I wanted to say how valuable I found your sessions. It’s got me writing at last and I’m still writing.”

“Many thanks for a fascinating talk. From the feedback I have heard you seem to have galvanized quite a few of our members to finally give this writing thing a go. Many people said to me how much they enjoyed your talk and really felt inspire to get started on writing a book. Many thanks to Gill for a fascinating, informative and very inspiring talk.”

“I recently met you at Caterham when you did a very enjoyable talk on “How to write your family history book” and we spoke afterwards about you giving a talk to a joint meeting of U3A members in our area.” – Alan of Redhill U3A

What part of the programme did you find most helpful/useful/interesting – and why?

“Feedback & the work of other people. Interesting to hear how others have done it, have got ideas from them. It would be helpful to have another follow-up course.”

“All of it. I have come away with more ideas of how to improve my writing.”

“The new input on the presentation of text, feedback on my work and sharing with others.”

“The critique of my work and my critique of other’s work. I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from this whole course.”