A couple of weeks ago, I stood with my daughter, son-in-law, and week-old baby grandson on a windy, lonely hill in rural Pennsylvania. We could have gone to an art museum, or out to dinner, or stayed home with snacks and Netflix. But instead we drove two hours outside the city, newborn in tow, to look at the grave of a dead person we’ve never met.

We have helped people of all ages to record their life stories. But to be honest, life story writing is more often done by those "of a certain age." Why?

It was a red-letter day for us in our career as personal historians: last week it was our great privilege to interview Stephen Rockwood, the brand-new CEO of FamilySearch International.

The idea of interviewing the leader of the largest genealogical organization in the world might have been just a teensy bit intimidating, but Rockwood immediately made us comfortable with his warm smile and easy manner.

This morning, Tom and I bundled up for our morning walk and headed out to the beautiful cemetery overlooking downtown Salt Lake City. As we walked around the veterans' portion of the park, I was struck by the precision and order in the arrangement of the markers. 

Party time! At our house, Family History Month is a time to celebrate (and an excuse for me to stay up way too late messing about in Ancestry.com.) October is a great time to do a little bit of something toward preserving and sharing your family's history. Here are a few ideas:

1. Trace an ancestor's journey on Google Maps.

I have heard my whole life of the journey of my colonial pioneer ancestors, Thomas and Alice Armstrong, and their journey via flatboat from Pennsylvania to settle in the Ohio Territory about 1799. But I didn't have a sense of how far it was, or how long it would take. So I used the Create My Map feature in Google Maps, where you can make custom maps. Imagine how shocked I was when I realized that they would have floated right through downtown Pittsburgh (a thriving metropolis of 1,000 in 1799), where my daughter is living now. Just a year ago I stood on a bridge overlooking that exact spot, at the confluence of the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, with no idea they had  been there over 200 years earlier. 

My issue with this exercise is not the time limit imposed. (In fact, I think forcing oneself to complete something staggeringly complex in a very small amount of time has a laser-focusing effect that can be very helpful, whether your destruction is imminent or simply postponed.)

My problem with this particular exercise is what it tells you to write about in that hour.

Really? You only have an hour to speak (or forever hold your peace) - and you're going to list the names of your elementary school teachers?

From our keynote speech at the Riverton Family Search Center today: we are talking about ten of the most common obstacles people have when it comes to writing their life stories, and how to get around them! In a nutshell:

You rarely walk out the door, get in your car, and just drive without knowing why. You usually have someplace to go--a reason for the trip, and a destination. It's the same with your life stories. You need to think about where you want to end up. What do you want your story to do? What do you want to accomplish with it?