Carol Baxter is one of a host of speakers for Unlock the Past. After conducting seminars on the theme of ‘Turning Dry Facts into Exciting Narrative’, Carol Baxter recognised the need for a book that covered and expanded upon the topics discussed in her talk.

In other ‘Writing Family History’ books, most of the interesting examples included material extracted from anecdotes, letters, diaries or photographs, sources that, in general, have only survived for those in recent times. Many family historians want to know how to turn sparse information into interesting stories as she has done in her ‘popular histories’.

Writing INTERESTING Family Histories‘ covers these areas and more. It explains how to structure and begin a family history. It challenges genealogists to rethink what facts truly are. It describes how to evoke drama and tension even when little information is known, and to draw ‘dialogue’ from original records. It proves that family histories don’t need to be fictionalised to be riveting.

Within 5 weeks of raising the possibility of turning her talks into booklets she has produced her first. Amazing! A 100 page book titled Writing INTERESTING Family Histories. You can read more about it on the Unlock the Past blog.