This fall, explore the theme of transformation to help you get your personal and family memories on paper. Use the following prompts about transformations to reflect on the times you’ve had personal changes or observed them in the world around you. Also use these prompts to think about relatives and ancestors and what changes they experienced.

Personal Turning Points

Describe when you realized you had outgrown a long-held belief or realized that it was time to give up on a dream. Did it come about in a moment of sudden clarity or was it something that happened over time? How did you feel about it at the time? How has your perspective changed? Are you happy now with the choices you made back then?

Fall brings a change of perspective. Use this to spark your creative writing.

What about your ancestors? Do family traditions or research reveal turning points in their lives? What were the stakes at the time? How did that turning point affect the rest of the family? Future generations?

Nature & Seasonal Changes

Here in Michigan, we enjoy a dramatic color transformation in fall. Septembers are mild and mostly sunny. As October arrives, trees dress in their showiest golds, reds, and oranges, like they’re vying for the award of most transformed.

Brilliantly colored trees line a quiet lake front near Clare, Michigan.

Without fail, it reminds of the autumns of the past.

Over the last couple of years, my favorite maple (technically it’s my neighbor’s tree) has started to decline. It doesn’t leaf out fully or turn brilliant magenta.

This brings home the natural order of things and leaves me nostalgic for after-school sidewalk chalking with the kids, playing with the dog, and reading a book on a carpet of orange underneath the blue sky.

What personal journeys does fall’s changing palette bring to your mind? Changes in a stage of life? Taking on new challenges? Hunkering down for the cold? Relief from the heat?

What about the places you’ve lived? Have they changed or are they immune to the passing of years?

What about your family’s gestalt? Is it the same as it was growing up, or are there younger patriarchs and matriarchs? Are cousins close?
If any of your ancestors’ vocations were impacted by the seasons, research a little to determine how they would have prepared and coped.

Friendship Metamorphosis

Friends often come and go out of our lives, but sometimes they’re as stalwart as family. Write about a friendship that has stayed the same or has significantly changed over the years.

What keeps you close, or what has drawn you apart? Have you each grown stronger? Have you grown in the same ways?

Social and Technology Shifts

The longer you’ve lived, the more changes you’ve experienced. But sadly, that’s something that most of us fail to document.

Seldom do we know how our forebear adjusted to changes.

When I look at a timeline of my maternal grandmother’s first twenty years, I see thing huge societal changes, including women gaining the right to vote. Mentally, I try to juxtapose those against her life on a poor tobacco farm in Virginia. I wonder if she found it exciting or disorienting and what her elders were telling her about it.

Sadly, I can’t know. But I watched my mother change from a very traditional “housewife” to the manager of an all-girl band called “Liberation.” She and my dad believed women could do whatever they dreamed of.

If I think back on my college days, I realize I couldn’t have envisioned today’s world of the Internet and social media as I marched down to the computer lab to create spreadsheets of white on green.

How have your outlooks shifted with the times? Are they social or technological changes? Do you find yourself resistant or do you find yourself a more open to things that would have shocked you in your twenties? Write that down!  It’s something your descendants will find interesting.

Your Turn:

What Transformations and changes would you recommend family historians and memoirists write about? What do you wish you knew about your family members?

Choosing a font for your personal and family stories can be complicated. About a decade ago, I wrote an article entitled “What Font are You?” Looking back, I realize I only touched on how to choose the best font for personal and family stories.

Of course, the old “your mileage may vary” caveat applies. Your decision might differ from mine.

Are you sharing your stories online, through another virtual media, or in print?

Many font choice considerations apply regardless of media type, but there are differences. For starters, some digital platforms, such as blogs, newsletters, and eBooks have built-in templates with recommendations on font family, size, and color. In addition, e-readers and digital devices allow readers to enlarge displays.

Compatibility between Devices

There can also be font availability issues with niche fonts. You many have it on your computer, but if the user doesn’t have it loaded on theirs, their device will pick an alternative. You might not like what they choose.

However, these fonts can make great choices for print materials or presentations.

So how do you decide?

How to Publish your Memories and Stories shows you a lot of the options.

Deciding whether you want to publish your stories in print (hard copy) or digitally is a function of accessibility, reach, and your own comfort level with technology. With a publishing platform such as Amazon, you could also do both.

However, you’ll also have to look at how your website looks on a mobile device or tablet.

Why Font Choices Matter

Think of it this way. If you’ve spent hours and hours on a labor of love, you want to make it easy for your readers to engage with what you’ve written. This is why we spend time editing and proofreading. (You’re doing that, right?)

Choosing a readable font is another step in this process.

Sometimes family historians overlook this. We’re willing to wade through 18th and 18th  century handwriting to find nuggets of information about our ancestors. We forget how important visual appeal can be in keeping readers engaged.

How to Choose a font for your stories and books

As a recent article from Readable.com points out, despite a lot of research and experts weighing in, there is no one-size fits all for font choices. [1]

Which, in a way, is great. Writing is a creative endeavor, and it would be sad if everyone’s stories looked exactly alike. On the other hand, there are arguments for curbing some of your creativity.

Readability & Digestibility

Readability and digestibility don’t depend on font face or what you may think of as typeface alone. It also includes white space (discussed below), word choices, and sentence lengths. In this post, we’ll look more closely at readability.

CreativeMarket.com, a font design website, helps us break that down:

Legibility refers to the ease of distinguishing individual characters from one another, a factor influenced by the specific letterform designs, …

Clarity … pertains to the overall legibility of blocks of text, impacted by factors like line spacing (leading), font contrast (the difference in the thickness of main strokes and embellishments), and the choice of clear fonts.

Readability

Which fonts are the most legible for readers? Which ones facilitate fluid reading?

There are a lot of opinions among the experts. It’s also important to note, the best font for paper might not be the best for screen reading.

It also depends on your audience. For instance, a college professor may read best with a serif font like Times New Roman. (These are fonts with small strokes or lines attached to letters, as you can see in the image below.) It’s what he or she is used to. In contrast, a beginning reader does best with a sans-serif font. There’s less to decipher.

So, it makes sense to look at your target audience. Are they advanced readers? Are they older? More educated? A mix of the above?

Notice the word “target” above. If you want to reach a particular demographic, be careful not to exclude them with your font-choices.

One great way to narrow your choices is to look at what professional print and web designers recommend. Keep in mind though that marketing has different goals than print book publishing. I found the best results searching with “Print book publishing font recommendations 2024.”

Whereas generic recommendations for font size are 10-12 points, for older audiences you might go with 12 points fonts. However, sizing varies between fonts, so be sure to experiment.

Serif or Sans Serif

There’s no hands down right or wrong on those little lines on typefaces.

Research tends to show (there are always arguments on methodology) that those flourishes help the eyes of people with good reading skills and vision move fluidly across the page. [2]

However, what works for some can slow others down. For beginning readers and those with vision impairment, those serifs make it harder and less enjoyable to read. [3]

Inclusivity in fonts

If your potential reading audience includes older generations, it’s important to pay attention to inclusivity recommendations.

Brad Pettengill explains why older people have problems with some fonts.

“… Advancing age causes the pupils to shrink, less light enters the eye, causing vision problems in low-light environments.

…The eye’s lens loses elasticity, becomes less able to focus while reading.

… Age-related eye diseases include macular degeneration, which is vision loss in the center of the visual field; glaucoma, which affects side or peripheral vision; cataracts, which cause blurred vision, faded colors and glare; and diabetic retinopathy, in which damaged retinal blood vessels cause blurred vision, severe vision loss and blindness.”[4]

For these reasons, he and others recommend an especially readable font (typeface), larger font sizes, and good contrasting colors.

ADA recommendations on Choosing a Font

ADA refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990. As a result of this legislation, we get great recommendations on how to best reach individuals with visual and cognitive disabilities in print and online mediums.

Though beautiful, some fonts are hard to read.

For body text, sans-serif is preferred. There are a lot of counter recommendations as well.

• Not italic
• Not oblique
• Not scripts
• Not highly decorative or unusually shaped[5]

In other words, save the more decorative fonts for headlines and sub-titles.

Other Considerations

Writing is a creative pursuit, yet the craft of storytelling calls on us to consider our reader’s experience.

Personal preference

While choosing a font, select one that appeals to you, but will also be good for your readers. For instance, experts rate comic sans  as a highly legible font. However, it doesn’t appeal to me. At all. Maybe it’s the association I have in my head of Microsoft Word’s 1995 annoying paper clip “helper” or it’s over-use or it’s childish look.

Since there are other options, I have the luxury of not using it. For highly legible fonts, my favorites include Lato, Open Sans, and Atkinson’s hyperlegible.

Style

You don’t have to limit yourself to one font-face, but make sure your fonts blend well together. (See Canva’s font paring recommendations.)

Others recommend keeping your choices within the same font family for a more cohesive look.

Alignment

If you’re using the same document for print and electronic devices, chose left alignment for your body and headings. This makes documents easier to read.[6] It’s especially important in electronic documents. Those headings in the middle of the page may be missed by readers paging down on their devices.

Other Recommendations

Spacing, white space, readability, colors, word choices, and sentence length can all impact how readers digest what we write.

I put white space, line spacing, letter spacing, sentence length, and the use of a logical hierarchy of headings and subheadings under the digestibility heading. Readers don’t reward us when we make them work harder to decipher words on a page. In addition to a larger font size, I suggest 1.15 to 1.5 line-spacing.

Also, don’t narrow your margins too much either. That white space helps readers absorb what is written.

Printing Considerations (a case study)

This post came to mind as I am trying to convince my church to stop using Arial Narrow, which I think was originally adopted to cut down on print costs.

However, that goal is in line with other church goals, as we consider good communication paramount. Experts almost unanimously recommend this font in titles only.

The same probably goes for your stories. Print costs are a consideration but think about where it ranks compared to your readers and your family’s enjoyment of your stories.

Try re-reading this paragraph in Atkinson Hyperlegible and Arial Narrow

Licensing

Before using a font, make sure they are free for use you have the appropriate license to use them. If a license says “for personal use only,” you cannot use it if you want to earn money.

Your Turn

What have you learned about choosing a font for your family history and personal storytelling pursuits? Please comment below.

Further Reading

Hilary Palmen, “How type influences readability,” Google Fonts, https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/readability_and_accessibility/how_type_influences_readability.

Footnotes

[1] “New study shows font readability is very individual,” Readble.com, January 26, 2023, https://readable.com/blog/new-study-shows-font-readability-is-very-individual/.

[2] Oksana Tymoshchuk, “Font Readability Research: Key Difference Between Serif Vs Sans Serif Font,” Geniusee, June 30, 2021, https://geniusee.com/single-blog/font-readability-research-famous-designers-vs-scientists#concepointss_legibility_vs_readability.

[3] “Understanding Accessible Fonts and Typography for Section 508 Compliance,” Section508.gov, Accessed April 24, 2024, https://www.section508.gov/develop/fonts-typography/.

[4] Brad Pettengill,” Vision Changes: Typography for Aging Audiences,” March 23, 2017, Marketing Partners, https://www.marketing-partners.com/conversations2/vision-changes-typography-for-aging-audiences

[5] “Understanding Accessible Fonts and Typography for Section 508 Compliance,” Section508.gov, Accessed April 24, 2024, https://www.section508.gov/develop/fonts-typography/.

[6] “Making Your Printed Materials ADA Accessible,” Zag Interactive, Febrauary 20, 2020, https://www.zaginteractive.com/insights/february-2020/making-your-printed-materials-ada-accessible.

Here in the USA, most of us observe Memorial Day, but our traditions and Memorial Day memories differ greatly. What does Memorial Day mean to you? What recollections stand out to you? Take advantage of these ideas for reflecting on the holiday. Put pen to paper and let the memories flow.

Family Traditions

What traditions do you or your family have around Memorial Day? Is it a day of remembrance or a time that the family gets together? Or both?

Do you hang a flag outside? Visit a cemetery? Host or attend a picnic? Attend the Indy500? What does the tradition mean to you?

Here in Michigan, spring is usually just arriving by the end of May. People open swimming pools or go to the lake. After the long winter, a happy vibe prevails. I often wondered if that was unpatriotic or insensitive.

However, after touring the Washington, DC, World War II Memorial on a hot summer day, I felt a little differently. The pools weren’t solemn reflections, but a place toddlers cooled their feet and couples reached in to splash each other. In the shadows, weary tourists rested their feet, taking in the scene.

It occurred to me that the scene personified everything those veterans fought for. A carefree summer day with family steps away from the seats of government.

What do you think?

Memorial Day Parades

Do you have any memories of attending or taking part in a veteran’s day parade? Was it a yearly tradition or a special opportunity? What stands out in your Memorial Day memories about a particular parade?

Veteran Ancestors’ Service

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the official start to what was then known as “Decoration Day” took place on May 5, 1868. The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) decorated the graves of the war dead with flowers.

The Gettysburg National Cemetery, photo dated July 3, 1913

Do you have ancestors who lost their lives in the civil or a foreign war? Do their graves carry an insignia? Have you added photos of their grave markers to your family tree? Describe what you know about their service and what you wish you could know.

Hint: The Veteran’s Association has an online gravesite locater to help find family buried in veteran’s cemeteries.

Veteran Ancestors’ “Rest of the Story”

What else do you know about your ancestors or family members who gave the ultimate sacrifice? Did you have a chance to know them? What were they like?

Write a Tribute to a Veteran in your Life

Is there a military member, retired or active, who is a hero to you? What’s his or her story? How have they served their country? What sacrifices have they made?

Generational Military Service

Does your family have multiple generations of individuals who have served in the military? How did that family legacy start? What do you think motivates them to serve? Why do you think the tradition runs in some families?

Make some Memorial Day Memories

Celebrate Decoration Day

Visit some veterans’ graves, leaving flowers, notes, or other signs of respect.

Afterward, jot down some notes about what you did and how it made you feel.

Spend time with a Veteran

Of course, that alone is a great memory-maker. If your relationship and setting allow for it, ask questions about his or her service. How do they feel about it? How has it shaped their life?

Be sure to record any new perspectives they gave you.

Read Related Posts for More Ideas

7 Ways to Honor Veterans without Leaving Home

Memorializing Veterans on Memorial Day (2015) 

Your Turn: What are your Memorial Day Memories?

Please share them in the comment section. Also, include what ideas you’d add to this list of prompts! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

It’s clear that a focus—if not the focus—of RootsTech 2024 is using AI for research and storytelling.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is inescapable, whether or not we’re ready. As FamilySearch CEO, Steve Rockwood, said in his opening remarks, industry leaders planned to showcase “responsible uses of generative AI to create goodness and connection” at the conference.

That’s a bold statement.

I have some qualms about what I like to call artificial storytelling. Will it stifle creativity? Will AI editors make all our writing sound the same? Here in the US, most musical hits come from a small group of composers. We’re losing the depth and diversity of musical creativity. I would hate to see that happen with personal and family stories.

Advice from Steve Little about Using AI for Research and Storytelling

To explore the topic further, I attended Steve Little’s “Five Tools for your AI Genealogy Toolbox: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”

Steve is the AI Program Director of the National Genealogical Society and the 600-seat room was packed at 8:00 a.m.—the opening hour of RootsTech 2024.

AI for time-consuming data analysis

Research isn’t just collecting facts. It’s analyzing information and drawing conclusions.

Steve Little illustrated using AI and chatbots to look for ancestors who lived in a specific place and time period, or to extract facts from records.

The Limits of AI for research and storytelling

Once he had us all geeked up about harnessing this power, Steve Little segued into the limits of using AI. Some, of course, are technical, but others are ethical.

Historians are limited by the rigors of peer-reviewed scholarship. We can have AI give us great hints, but we humans makesure we’re accurately presenting the past. So, AI may not solve issues of two men by the same name living in the same place for us. We have to analyze the analysis.

Related Reading:  How Legal Context Prevents Misunderstood Family Stories:  An Interview with Judy Russell and Writing Ancestor Stories without Judgment 

Little also stressed that we learn by doing, not by reading. He estimates a newbie needs about 20 hours of working with AI to have enough knowledge to be successful with it.

My takeaway from this session is that we can be both mistrustful and experimental. Perhaps that’s even the best, most ethical way to proceed.

It’s about balance. Excessive trust in algorithms can lead to “accepting information without verification.” Too much mistrust can cause us to miss out on an effective tool.

Impact of AI on Family Storytelling and the Writing Genres in General

Luckily, I was speaking in the same room and was setting up as he answered attendees’ questions. One man asked him what would happen to writers and other creatives. The reply was a mixed bag. Steve Little thinks AI will encourage people who have never thought of themselves as writers to write stories. However, a lot of them will be really bad until people realize the good and ethical uses of AI versus getting a lot of words on a page.

Storytelling Apps

One of the “players” in the genealogy industry is Storied. Their platform brings together genealogical facts, images, as well as family, community, and church contacts to help people tell their stories. Although stories can be written from scratch, they also have an “AI helper.”

I was reassured, however, when Storied CEO Kendall Hulet introduced the text generated as “text to edit.” They envisioned this functionality to eliminate the intimidation of a blank page.

Aside: Kendall confirmed this in the elevator at the hotel. That’s the beauty of attending RootsTech in person. You have tremendous access to vendors!

Where will AI take Genealogists and Writers next?

James Tanner has immersed himself in AI and led several AI sessions at RootsTech2024. His handout for “Using AI Tools to Expand Your Research Universe, Part 1” is 40 pages.

He started his talk by explaining that AI is growing so quickly that the information that we heard on Thursday would likely be obsolete by Friday.

It’s a learning curve that is ever-changing.

IA Tools Impact the Availability of Online Records.

Record availability limits the facts and context that we integrate into our personal and family stories.

AI can “read” and “index” records, including old, handwritten record sets. For instance, Ancestry announced that they had added 18.6 billion records in 2024. To put that in context, it took Ancestry from 1977 to 2023 for Ancestry to amass 41 billion records. They added almost a third more records in one year.

AI is changing the way we search for records.

AI goes way beyond search engine’s capabilities.

On February 29, FamilySearch announced Family Search Labs and full text searches for two selected groups of unindexed records.

Leveraging the power of AI search technology, this experimental FamilySearch assistant is meant to simplify your genealogical journey, allowing you to conduct natural language searches to find what you need among all the resources available on FamilySearch.org. The tool will allow you to type in questions about your ancestors, about available records, or other genealogy-related tasks, such as how to decipher old handwriting. It even has the convenience of follow-up questioning, similar to a Chat GPT interaction.

After watching a couple of minutes of their intro video, I tried it out and Viola! I found a record of my elusive ancestor John Wilkinson and his wife Nancy deeding land to their sons.

Your Turn

Have you tried out AI for research and storytelling? Tell us about your experience.

Thinking about attending the RootsTech 2024 virtual conference? Here’s what you need to know.  (If you’re not, keep reading. It offers some valuable education for family storytellers. And it’s FREE.)

As I pack my bags for a week in beautiful Salt Lake City to attend the in-person RootsTech event, I want to share what’s available for folks at home, or as we call them, the #notatrootstech peeps.

Let’s start at the beginning.

What’s RootsTech? A Brief History

Traditionally RootsTech has been the world’s biggest family history conference, combining technology and family history education with inspiring keynote speakers, an awesome vendor hall, and a fun, friendly environment.

Covid-19 rocked everyone’s world a few days after the lights shut down on the 2020 conference. In 2021, for obvious reasons, RootsTech went virtual. FamilySearch, the sponsors of the conference, realized the incredible reach of a virtual conference.

So what’s the difference between the RootsTech 2024 virtual conference and the in-person one?

During last year’s conference, FamilySearch’s CEO promised that although in-person experience is back, the virtual conference will continue to be a major focus. Of course, there are some differences in the speakers. Some are online only and some are in-person only.  I’ve never toured the expo hall virtually, but I’ll bet the virtual one is warmer!

If this is new to you, read 8 Things to Know about RootsTech2023. Though the keynotes are different, it covers the structure of the conference for in-person and virtual attendees.

This year’s theme is REMEMBER—perfect for personal and family storytellers and writers.

How do I attend RootsTech 2024 online?

RootsTech.org is your virtual base camp.

Your first step if a free registration. This will give you access to;

• 200+ new online sessions in over 26 languages
• Livestreamed keynote sessions
• Chat online with other attendees worldwide, as well as with instructors
• Digital handouts for educations sessions

Don’t let the 200+ number scare you away. Most of these will become part of the RootsTech On-Demand Library. FamilySearch keeps these available for a while, assuming the information in them remains relevant.

How to find the RootsTech 2024 Virtual Conference Sessions you want to view

On the main page of Rootstech.org , click or tap on “RootsTech Event” at the top. You’ll get a drop-down menu. Click on “Class Schedule.”

You can also use the blue box on the main page with “Create Your RootsTech 2024 Schedule” or navigate directly to https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/schedule?day=2024-02-29

On the left of the class schedule page, you’ll see filters that let you sort by skill level or speaker.

Family Search will add the 2024 online videos to the RootsTech OnDemand Library on Wednesday afternoon. You’ll find the search and filter functions are much more robust on that part of the website. I think this is because they simply add to it and don’t have to reprogram it each year.

In the meantime, though, you can peruse each days’ classes and add them to your “playlist.”

Note: My three sessions are in-person only, so unfortunately you won’t find me in this online search.

Don’t Miss the Keynotes

The way the RootsTech 2024 Virtual Conference is structured, #notatrootstech views can watch the keynotes as the live audience sees them. This way, you get a feel for the excitement in the room.

Thursday

Comedian Henry Cho will open the both the in-person and online conference with humor and storytelling. I’m hoping to hear more about how he uses his comedy to educate audiences about the Korean-American experience.

Friday

Lynne Jackson is the President and Founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. She’s the  great-great granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott of the Dred Scott Decision of 1857. She’s also the great-great-great niece of Oscar Charleston, Negro League Superstar

But wait, there’s more!

Nancy Borowick, a world-renowned Sony artisan photographer, speaker, and teacher, has a unique gift and talent for capturing the moments to not be forgotten. I can’t wait to see what wisdom she has for wordsmiths on capturing those same moments.

Saturday

Kristin Chenoweth –Yes, Glinda from Wicked, not to mention her roles in Your’re a Good Man Charlie Brown The West Wing, Pushing Daisies Glee, and Hairspray Live! Will share her adoption story.

Don’t Miss Connecting via Social Media

Look for the hashtags #notatrootstech and #rootstech and #rootstech2024.

Your Turn

What are you looking forward to about RootsTech 2024 Virtual Conference. What have I forgotten to share?

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