Martha: While doing genealogy research on my father’s side of the family, I came across some fascinating information. When I asked my dad about my grandparents and great-grandparents, he handed me a packet of letters his father had given him. Those letters dated back to 1860 and started me on the hunt for even more information.
What I found led me to the desire to write about my great-grandparents and their love story during the Civil War. I wanted to use not only their story, but also all the facts of things that happened around that time. The first story was for my cousins and other family members only, but as my aunts began to add information and show me pictures they had from their youth and my grandparents, the more I wanted to include in the novel.
Taking real information and facts and turning them into a fictional account was both fun and daunting at the same time. I wanted to stay true to the character of my great-grandparents, but I also wanted to portray the times in which they lived in a realistic manner. That meant more hours of research and visiting the places where they lived.
Using the letters and parts of a journal, I wove the information into a story using real characters in real places but with fictional situations. When given just enough information to make a story, I could then let my imagination take over and create a plot that would take my characters on a journey to love while incorporating real events and facts about those months following the war.
The most difficult part was knowing how much to embellish the truth and where to stick to the facts. If you know anything about your ancestors, look at the time in which they lived and what their life may have been like. From there you may find the story that sparks your imagination and leads to a novel.
Have you ever turned family history into a story? Have you used genealogy research in any of plots?
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Martha Rogers is a free-lance
writer and the author of the Winds Across
the Prairie and Seasons of the
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