Making History Personal

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has a new way to get Americans interested in the nation’s history — by getting them interested in their own personal history. Genealogy is the foundation of My History Is America’s History, a new project created by the NEH to mark the millennium.

“Follow your family’s history and you will discover America’s history,” says William Ferris, chairman of the NEH. “My History offers all of us a way to explore family history as we discover how our own family stories connect to the history of our nation.”

The Web site for the project <www.myhistory.org> encourages individuals to post stories about themselves and their family history so that other researchers can search the growing database for leads. But the project is meant to be more an experiment in social history than a research tool.