Question of the Week: If you wrote a novel about your family history, what would the title be?

Question

If you wrote a novel about your family history, what would the title be?

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Comments

"The Unknown Quarter - Just a Farmer's Wife from Iowa!"

Answer 1

Well, funny you should  ask!   I am writing a "historical fiction" novel based on true events in my family history! But I can't spill the title of the book just yet! 

That being said, I did consider Raging Tides!  My novel is getting pretty complicated with several sub-plots now interwoven through the history of my family from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War, the family supporting slavery and then fighting against it as abolitionists on the UGRR (Underground Railroad)! 

   Targeted at women, but of interest to men who love a good Western, it will cover a grandmother who was orphaned, split up from her family, with all the emotional trauma that brings, (depression, anxiety, PTSD and how she is wrongly treated, but also how some correctly treat her issues, with love. She will have to face her childhood demons when her family is targeted to be terminated by the pro slavery fractions in Iowa. There are a lot of issues in these turbulent times and that is why the first title was chosen. Raging Tides described that well.  But as the story evolved, and more attention was placed on the emotional issues, a new title describes the events better.  You will just have to wait and see!  

Finding a publisher is harder than being struck by lightning!

Comments

Sigh. Ain't that the truth. Good luck, man. Sounds like a great book!

Answer 2

Why Don’t We Visit Grandpa in the Hospital Anymore? A book about a family keeping secrets. 

Answer 3

I'd call it Stong with NO R. 

There actually is a novel about my family.  My grandfather's first cousin, Phil Stong, wrote Buckskin Breeches (1937), which focus on the early settlement of Iowa:

Most of the book is about his maternal grandfather, who left written memoirs. However, there are also characters based on our common paternal ancestors.

Comments

Or maybe you could go with "I'm so Stong I don't need an R" ;)

Answer 4

I did actually write a family history novel in 2012, titled "30 Novembertage: Familienbriefe an meine Kinder". I wrote it with the help of NaNoWriMo during the 30 days of November 2012 (hence the title), and three copies lay under the Christmas tree three weeks later for my children. As it is written in German and mainly of interest to my immediate family, it is accessible among my images for Trusted List members only.

Comments

My niece tried to get me to do something for NaNoWriMo, (she's trying to get a book published). Even if it's just a one-month effort, it still seems like a lot of work!

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If writing a book didn‘t turn out to be a lot of work, it wouldn’t be a book! :D

NaNoWriMo started with a handful of friends in New England who found November to be the perfect month for a book-writing project (what else can one do in New England in November?!?) … and here we are a couple of decades later with hundreds of thousands every year embarking on writing a book during the 30 days of November. What an inspiration!

P.S.: I started a second novel (again history, but with a time travel twist) in October of 2013 … it‘s still not finished.

Answer 5

Church by the Sea…. About the Church family and the Seay family who are moving out west after the civil war via a wagon train. Young Dr. Church and his mother are traveling to the Washington coast. Dr. Church meets Ginny Seay, the daughter of preacher, and this is about their adventures during the trip.

Answer 6

Use the same title I use for my Family Tree on Ancestry.

"The Riddle of Michael John Compagnoni's Ancestry.  Wouldn't it be good?  A Kind of Magic. Goody Two Shoes.  Four Seasons Spring"

Answer 7

Presently it would be hard to decide. There is so much history among my family members. I had been asked a couple times to write about my life growing up and also my time in the military. So still thinking.

Maybe "Growing up on the Road" I moved average 5 times a year and 4 schools a year until High School. My father was a Grader Operator and especially a Finish Grader Operator building roads, highways, and interstates all over Oregon.

I joined the Army and moved a lot with them all over the United States and to Europe.

Answer 8

How to squat in 3 - 5 years without ever interacting with the community.

Answer 9

Secrets in the Family

Answer 10

My answer's the same as it ever was. "All Roads Lead to Haverhill".

Yes, that's the name of my blog. Why not? =D Debating how I would set it up, though. Obviously I'd talk about the Italian side. But then there's the French-Canadians and a few English sprinkled in for flavoring. 

What I might do is center it around a specific time period like say....Pre or Post World War II? I think that would work. The immigrants were relatively new and both sides of my family were in the city then (aside from those in Newburyport.).

Yeah. That could work!

Comments

I am sure everybody in Haverhill would like the book!

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I'm sure. =D They'd probably like it more if I mention the landmarks like "Mr. Mike's", "Benedetti's" and a few other places.

Answer 11

I Shook the Tree: The Nuts Fell Into the Nuthouse.

Answer 12

I've Got a Circle in My Tree

Answer 13

My sister, Paula, told me while she was going though chemo that I should write the family history.  I told her that was impossible.  She told me I had to and that I call it "Because I Said So!"  Guess she told me!

Answer 14

"Among the Leaves"
[Dust cover photo of a very old cemetery in Autumn.]
Catch-line: "Six families, six generations, the legacy (and secrets) they created together; in their own words through letters and diaries."

("Leaves" refers to pages)

Answer 15

Books have been written about many members of my family, including, to name a few:

• Wesley C. Engstrom (2016). "Liberty’s Last Post Office - A Story of a Gold Mining Camp in Washington State." ScholarWorks@CWU, Central Washington University.
• Leonard Warren (1998), "Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything."  Yale University Press.
• Anna-Maria von Bornsdorff (2008). "Pekka Halonen." Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki.
• Depew, Chauncey M. (1922). "My Memories of Eighty Years of Marching On."  Double 9 Books (January 1, 2024).
• Depew, Chauncey M. (1890). "Titled Americans, 1890: The Real Heiresses' Guide to Marrying An Aristocrat." Old House; Revised edition (October 22, 2013).  (Apologies for doubling up on this author, but I found the title amusing.)

Fortunately for all concerned, I'll cut this here, but while individual family ancestors wrote books or had them written about them, I haven't yet found any books on the family's history other than the various old family histories on the Internet Archive (archive.org), Google Books, etc.  Those books cover Dutch ancestors arriving in the early 1600s, English Separationists in the 1620s, the Germans in the late 1690s, Scots-Irish from the Potato Famines, Finns and Scandinavians in the 1800s, etc.

What's missing is how those isolated migrants from many backgrounds, some paupers and some wealthy, some fleeing religious persecution and others other forms of persecution, met and married from early British Colonial America onwards and pushed westward at the edges of the frontier as the United States was born and pushed west.  They fought America's wars, farmed America's lands, built America's railroads, sold America's merchandise, etc., all while exhibiting a sense of wanderlust and clearing the next free land from NY and NJ, to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, and on to the Oregon Territory.

Of course, many other families did this, too.  I suppose that that's one of the attractive things about genealogy.  So maybe this is a genre best left to historical fiction like the classic 1855 "Westward Ho!" by Charles Kingsley, or to pre-woke history books.

So I asked ChatGPT, who promptly responded:

1. "Frontier Legacy: A Saga of American Pioneers"

2. "Trailblazers: The Story of an American Family's Westward Journey"

3. "From Sea to Shining Sea: The Epic Tale of the [Family Name] Dynasty"

4. "Homestead Chronicles: Generations of Adventure Across America"

5. "Westward Winds: A Family's Odyssey in the Making of America"

6. "Pioneering Spirits: The [Family Name] Legacy"

7. "Beyond the Horizon: A Family's Quest for Manifest Destiny"

8. "Roots of the Nation: The [Family Name] Story"

9. "Wagon Trails and Tall Tales: The Frontier Life of the [Family Name]"

10. "Forging Frontiers: An American Family's Journey Through Time"

The name I like at the moment is:

"Seekers and Settlers: Pulling the American Frontier Westward"

Comments

 I might borrow your "Seekers and Settlers: Pulling the American Frontier Westward"  I think I'd have to add Southward, as the original guy landed in Virginia, and there are now descendants in Georgia and Texas, as well as California.

Answer 16

 I might borrow your "Seekers and Settlers: Pulling the American Frontier Westward"  I think I'd have to add Southward, as the original guy landed in Virginia, and there are now descendants in Georgia and Texas, as well as California.

Answer 17

A Doll With Half It's Hair Left.

Answer 18

Moving West for 400 Years, Until We Fell Off California.

Comments

Same thing for my family (see above if you dare) except that I kept things going and moved to Australia.

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I stopped mid Pacific!  Hawaiʻi.

Our European background and westward adventures are quite similar. But the only book I know about was written by an Atty. Uncle in the 1940s - Trusts and Estates. Pretty dry.

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Been there, got the floral tee shirt (Waipahu).  Interestingly, your 5th GGM married my ex Marti's 5th GGF in 1787 in Rowan Co., NC.  Marti's family and mine had attended many of the same Meetings in Pennsylvania, etc. before her clan moved south and mine west, so there may have been other contacts as well.  Thanks for sharing.

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I could use your title, too; we fell off, or got buried in, California as well. One set of my great grandparents are in Santa Barbara, looking over the Pacific, with another set in Goleta. Their descendants are scattered all over the state; nobody actually went into the Pacific.

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Some of mine got buried in CA also.  My brother and my son are pushing the edge - SF Bay area. A few backed up to AZ, but no farther east!!

The Pacific is pretty nice.  Rains a lot.

Answer 19

Probably something like: _The Rose Family Divorces_

I don't know if I'm particularly sensitive to it, but my Rose line seems to have a fairly large percentage of divorces...

Answer 20

How Accurate Does That Book Have To Be?: My Journey Into Genealogy    My middle brother and his wife were filling in a Baby Book for their eldest child. They were asking my parents questions about their families when my dad asked "How accurate does that book have to be?" He then proceeded to tell us that he was adopted. None of us knew, not even my mom. I was 30 years old at the time. 

Comments

Well, that's a bit of a bombshell!

Answer 21

I wholeheartedly recommend Roots of Darkness, the family history novel of my friend and fellow WikiTree'er Michael Luick-Thrams. He's a social history professor at Erfurt university and an expert on German-American relations and migrations. It's a fascinating read with lots of insights into the culture and society of the times, and of course, there are sequels ... ;-)