Home                      Tom Coughlan                                         

            National University of Ireland Certificate in Genealogy and Family History                                       

 

Family Histories

A Family History allows for a much more comprehensive look at the story of a person's ancestry. It contains all the data gathered, presented in booklet or similar format.
While many people researching their ancestry are more than happy to have a drawn Family Tree as their final output, a Family History can add so much more. It puts the leaves on the branches of the Family Tree, and adds the colour to them. By including photographs, copy documents, maps and other illustrations, it gives an insight into the lives of those who otherwise appear as just sets of names and dates on the normal 'Tree'.

What is a Family History and what does it look like?

It is a narrative account of the facts, genealogical and general, relating to the family studied. To see a sample Family History, use the menu buttons below.

Sample Booklet contains photos of an actual Family History booklet, that of The Dennigans of Tomiskey.

Sample History contains the text of the Family History of the Dennigans of Tomiskey.

Sample Illustrations contains some of the images used in illustrating this Dennigan Family History. For copyright reasons, many of these images cannot be shown on this online version.

Please browse these pages freely. Not only do they give an indication of the service provided, they may give you some ideas for producing your own Family History.

Possible Components of a Family History

  • Details and descriptions of the places in which your ancestors lived

  • Maps and photographs of the places in which your ancestors lived

  • Analysis of the origins, numbers and possible variants of your ancestors' surnames

  • A narrative presentation of the history of your family, from the earliest found ancestor

  • Illustration using copies of genealogical documents

  • Relevant Pedigree and other genealogical charts

  • Illustration using copies of any photographs, newspaper cuttings and similar documents.

Every Family History varies, depending on the amount of information available, the number of generations spanned, and the number of families covered. As a guideline, at least three generations of one family should be covered in order to make the document reasonably worthwhile.

 

Sample Booklet Sample History Sample Illustrations

The service provided includes either conducting the research and compiling the History based on the outcome, or simply taking data supplied and producing a document from that. 

 

See my Published Work (listing) for examples of my writing style. Contact me for further details or a quotation.