An Article: ~ Reporting your family story: A users guide~

A good friend of mine shared this article with me and I wanted to pass it on, Reporting your family story: A users guide. It is an article written by CNN's managing editor Mark Whitaker, he has a new book out initialed My Long Trip Home: a Family Memoir. The book is about his journey through his family's history and struggles that shaped him. Even if you don't get the book {Which I haven't read, if you do let me know.} read the article, its nice to know that even reporters that make a living from digging into the past find that researching there own family history a learning experience. He also gives a few tips, which I will pass on to you now. {For those folks with a adverse reaction to CNN}

1. Don't take "I don't remember" for an answer.
2. Look for every written document you can find.
3. Explore the surrounding history.

I love his final comment. 

"Was it therapeutic?" people ask me, and the answer is yes, but in a different way from conventional treatment. Call it "contextual therapy": the placement of your own story in a wider human narrative, where every family story is utterly unique yet entirely universal.                

~ Mark Whitaker~

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies. ~Shirley Abbott