16 Facts to Write Down About Yourself and “Memoir Mad Libs”

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Genealogists are often so busy trying to find and record all the details about our ancestors’ lives, that we forget our own history will eventually become family history.

We forget to preserve information about our own lives. Thus, in 100 or 200 years, our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews will be struggling to understand our lives and what we were really like.

Of course, it’s also often personally beneficial to reflect on your own life and experiences. In Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy, Sunny Jane Morton has worksheets and writing prompts to help you get started preserving your own memories—even if you don’t think you’re a writer.

Here’s a list of topics to consider writing about for the future generations of your family tree. Not all apply to every person, but they’re adaptable to fit your unique life:

Your full name, birth date and birthplace
Your siblings’ names, birth dates and birthplaces
Your parents’ names, birth dates, birthplaces and occupations
The same for your grandparents and great-grandparents, if you knew them
How, when and where your parents met
Your favorites as a child: games, books, hobbies, sports, extracurricular activities, school subjects, and career ambitions
The names of your schools and what years you graduated from them
Highlights from your teen years: friends and romantic relationships, milestones like learning how to drive, early jobs, and so on
Highlights from early adulthood: college or professional education, friends, activities, transition into working life
Experience serving in the military and/or in your occupation
How you met your spouse, plus marriage date and place
Where you lived as an adult, and any travel or significant moves you made
Notes about parenthood: when and where your children were born, their names and how you chose them, how becoming a parent affected you
Life lessons you’ve learned and advice you’d like to share
Notes about your spiritual life: what tradition you practiced and at what place of worship, what communities you are part of, and what your faith means to you
Medical struggles that might also impact others in your family

And, of course, record your genealogy discoveries and the family stories passed down to you.

Memoir Mad Libs

Another easy, fun way to get started writing about your life is with Sunny’s Memoir Mad Lib. Just fill in the blanks as indicated, with a person, place, event or adjective.

Fill in the second blank based on your answer in the first, then tell whatever story comes to mind. You can reuse the prompts by filling in the blanks differently. Here are some examples of ways you can fill in the blanks:

person: yourself, a relative, friend, teacher, enemy
place: the backyard, church, high school, summer cottage, in your first car
event: high school reunion, wedding, graduation, fishing trip, vacation
adjective: funny, strange, sad, crazy, scary

Example

Mad lib: It was a(n) [adjective] night with [person] when…
Answer: It was an unforgettable night with Matt when we spread out a blanket for a midnight picnic in the woods.