RootsTech 2023 | The Anatomy of a Story

Making family history discoveries is one thing. Learning how to craft those discoveries into stories that will capture the attention of the next generation is another matter entirely. #rootstech #familyhistory #genealogy

[@talbotlag]

Crista, this is life-changing.

[@sundayjoe4310]

Thanks for granting this comment platform to share. I love Family History and working on my family tree help me become more fantastic with my ancestors. They appears to be physically present when mentioning their names. I thank God for my father to be able tofeed me with the information i needed to build on my tree. I thank God for this revelation giving to the prophet Joseph Smith about our ancestors. I know that am the seventh generation of my great, great, great grandfather. ATANG AKWAWEGH whose name am yet include in my Tree.

[@JamieShrumNetwork]

What a fantastic presentation!! Loved every minute and learned so much. Thank you.

[@CristaCowan]

You are so welcome!

[@Michelle_Ellen87]

Thank you for doing this! Saving to favorites now!

[@rajnigounder8936]

❤️😊❤️

[@myfamilygenealogystory]

I'm so lucky that i record my conversation with my dad a few years before he passed. He was telling me various stories about his childhood, about school time in war, aboit his first marriage, and so much more. Now, almost 10 years after that special day, i would not remember about those stories if i didn't record it

[@CristaCowan]

I love that you were able to do that.

[@arseniotedra4573]

#roots#anatomy#family❤❤❤

[@arseniotedra4573]

#storyteller#believeinyourself#thankyou#Godbless thanks ma'am stay safe always 💕😘 🌎

[@junebutka6571]

I love your story telling.

[@CristaCowan]

Thank you!

[@Dana-cv1gf]

I cannot find your story online yet but I am looking. I think you are fabulous and you are so authentic and genuine when you speak; your stories and your warmth and emotion bring tears to my eyes (and your sense of humour always cracks me up). Keep up the excellent work.

[@CristaCowan]

Thank you, Dana.

[@suzannechalifoux8587]

Wow! Thank you for this video! It’s funny I just realized that I AM the storyteller of my family. I wrote the memories of my mother-in-law with her help, five years ago. But not every member (nieces and nephews) wanted the printed documents. At that time, I told myself it’s okay, they work and have young children, they don’t have time. But with the Ancestry’s story maker, this would be a great opportunity for them to have shorts stories to read it! That is also another great opportunity to keep a family contact, so thank you for this application!

[@CristaCowan]

You are so welcome! I'm excited to hear back from you about how it's going.

[@alicezellhuber-smith]

On my

[@arseniotedra4573]

#familyhistory#believeinyourself❤

[@leslieneville4043]

Thank you!! I am the family storyteller and needed help knowing how to get family interested. Excellent activity I'll use in my next family zoom:) and practice stopping when their eyes glaze over lol.

[@CristaCowan]

"Stop talking." It's the greatest advice anyone ever gave me as it relates to family history story telling. 😉

[@famlinx]

Oh Crista. I think you're absolutely fabulous 🌹

[@CGDepp]

As one Storyteller to another: Great Job! Humor, Helpfulness, and Heritage. A winning combination. Thanks!!

[@CristaCowan]

Thank you for that meaningful compliment, Carolyn.

[@terrym5786]

Such a great woman.

[@CristaCowan]

Thank you!

[@ellis984]

I’ll include a link to this in my ward’s monthly family history news letter. Most of the time I feel like I’m talking to a wall. Perhaps this will awaken some to be interested. Thanks.

[@CristaCowan]

Great idea. 😉

[@sharontabor7718]

My story for my grandparents: Prison Honeymoon. Neither of them was in jail, but the TN State Penitentiary had just purchased an electric chair (1924), so they took the 70 mile trip in a model A to see the contraption. I have seen a photo of my grandmother in the prison yard, but the photos in my uncle's attic disappeared, and that was one of them. Oh, and they met at a box social. The single women in the rural community made lunch baskets that the single men bid on to raise money for a new schoolhouse. My siblings Sister 1. After meeting on a blind date, he heard she wanted to go out again, and he had nothing better to do. (BTW - they were engaged 4 weeks later) Sister 2: She made a deposit at the bank, and the next day received a call from the branch manager (They were engaged 6 weeks later) Brother: My brother went to the VA benefits office to check on his GI bill and 3 months later was married to the secretary.

[@CristaCowan]

Those are fantastic stories worth telling. Love it! Thanks for sharing, Sharon. 😉

[@annafranks4529]

Love watching all your videos! Gets me so excited to dive back into my genealogy. Can’t wait to try writing a few love stories about myself, my parents and grand parents. Thank you!

[@bigmamadebbie]

Very nice! Thank you!

[@franceslohoy-franco7874]

I love it very very interesting.

[@debbieburns5014]

Crista, I love listening to your talks and hearing your stories! Thank you for your inspiration.

[@CristaCowan]

You are so welcome.

[@arseniotedra4573]

#mylovestory#business#investments

[@joyce7892]

We need to tell our own story too. Otherwise our children and grandchildren may, and it just won't be the same...Great session! Fantastic ideas.

[@CristaCowan]

I'm so pleased to hear you enjoyed it.

[@AnittaMuhlestein-pi4tv]

I agree with your mother. Lovely color

[@DorisHaskell]

One of my grandsons is the spitting image of my maternal grandfather. So handsome!

[@CristaCowan]

I love that - when we can see the generations in each other's eyes.

[@nursejools1]

That was so well told - wonderful - what a great story - inspired me for sure. I love your ideas for inspiring her. By the way - you are awesome - followed you for a long time. Bless you.

[@broughps]

I have my mom writing her story for me and before my grandmother died I had her write about her life. Every time my mom talks to her brother on the phone and I'm getting her side of the story, I ask her about it later and then tell her to write it down. I've always meant to ask you, when you and your dad work on your matches together I'm assuming you've done the Leeds Method or something similar to sort your matches into the correct family lines, is this correct?

[@CristaCowan]

Good for you! Capturing those stories when and how we can is so important. I have my own methodology that I created way before the Leeds method - which, I suppose, is a variation on my method. I have assigned a color to each of my 8 great-grandparents (in the order of the rainbow - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Pink). Anyone that matches me through one of them gets assigned to that color. The primary difference in the way that I do it and the way that Dana Leeds does it is that I don't assign the color until after I figure out who the match is and how exactly they are related to me. Then, I use those identified shared matches to figure out how I'm related to the new unassigned matches. Hope that makes sense.

[@broughps]

@@CristaCowan - But how do you know that's how you're DNA related? I've come across matches that have an MRCA for one line, but when I look at the DNA (Leeds Method) that's not the line we actually match on.

[@CristaCowan]

@@broughps The four branches of my family tree are all pretty well documented and all from vastly different places. Plus, I use the "shared matches" feature to understand the matches we have in common.