You may already have something that you can add to the Biography section about yourself. If so, just type in your name and email address in the spaces provided below, and "Copy+Paste" whatever you'd like to add in the field under question #1.

If you haven't got a biography ready to go, perhaps you have a resumé or a newletter write-up about yourself that you can send? You can attach it to an email.

Or, you can just start typing your life story into any "answer" space below and hit "Submit" at the bottom of the page, and we'll sort it out on this end.

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Most of us aren't ready to just sit down and write an autobiography or have something appropriate already done, though. After all, a job-related profile may not paint the complete portrait of you that you want to leave for all posterity. Push-comes-to-shove, most of us don't know what-all our kids or grandkids (actual or metaphorical) would be interested in knowing about us, years from now. We've found that most folks are like Granddad Zina, whose few letters we've saved are treasured by us no less than a Gutenberg Bible would be prized by a shut-in bibliophile. But Granddad wasn't very prolific when writeing about himself. Zina's missives are so short you kind of wonder why he bothered to spend 6¢ on a stamp!

If you haven't got something already done up, or if you'd like some guidance as to just how interesting your life and times have actually been, go ahead and launch into answering the questions below. When you're done you'll find that you've written your own story with many details that are just interesting in and of themselves to us armchair historians — but you will have told your story on your own terms!

So go ahead: play 20 Questions -- you can answer with as few or many words as you like.

NOTE: CLICK HERE to download a MS Word ".doc" with the questions so's you can answer them over as much time as you'd like to take, when you have time. After you've expanded upon your answers right into the document, go ahead and attach it to an email to us. If, and when, you change or add to your answers, please send the revised ".doc," and keep on re-writing your own autobiography til the cows come home.

Write about yourself and/or your family memories:

Your Name

Your Email:

(Every question is optional: just answer those that stir memories or remind you of some bit of family lore.)

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1. Do you know anything about the family's history from the days before you were born?

Any "family lore" you heard growing up will help. We'll sort out the actual facts, later.

1.

2. Where and when were you born?

Go ahead and describe the first house you remember and the city-town-farm where you lived ... a few words:

2.

3. What is your own earliest memory?

Whatever occurs to you.

3.

4. Can you give a quick physical description and comment about your parents, brothers &, sisters, or grandparents, if they were close to you?

4.

5. Where did you go to school and what year(s) did you graduate from high school?

Do you have anything to say about what it was like, especially compared to today?

5.

6. What special memories do you have about your "growing up"– holidays, vacations, hunting-fishing-camping trips, school plays; other "big events"?

6.

7. Were there any significant storms or natural disasters that you or people close to you were caught up in?

7.

8. Growing up, was money tight? Or, were you pretty comfortable?

Can you give examples? For instance, did you get all-new clothes at the start of school; did you always have the latest gadgets or a yearly vacation trip; did your family get a new car every two- or three years; what did you get for Christmas?

8.

9. What did you do for fun, growing up? Did you have any special places you went to on your own?

A tree house or play-house, a creek or swimming hole you loved; did you go to a shopping mall to meet friends?

9.

10. What kind of a kid were you?

Were you very social, with a large group of friends, or did you have a small, tight-knit group? Did you play organized sports, paint, play music or act in plays at school and hang out with the other kids that did those things, or did you play guitar in your bedroom by yourself for hours on end?

10.

11. Did you or someone very close to you have any serious accidents or illnesses?

11.

12. Who was your first love? Your first kiss? First date? How did you meet your spouse?

12.

13. What's up now with you now? What is your work or side passions that occupy your time? What are your children up to, and etcetera.

13.

14. What were your brothers & sisters, or your cousins like, as you remember them? What kind of things did you do with them?

14.

15. What was the single biggest "redirection" event or change of your life so far? Have there been more than one?

15.

16. Whose influence changed how you think about your own life the most, so far? Say a few words about that person.

16.

17. Was there was a move of residence or a new "signifant other" or other turning point that opened a new direction for you. What happened, then?

17.

18. What was the one thing you did in your life that made you most happy?

18. Alternate Question: What do you most regret not doing, when you had the chance?

18.

19. What social organizations, religious philosphies, political interests, and/or professional organizations are you active in today?

19.

20. What advice or philosophy of life would you want to pass on to your children and grandchildren?

20.

 

Let us know if you found these questions helpful -- or have ones we should add or change -- and of course, you can just EMAIL us with what ever you'd like to say.

* These questions are adapted from A Family Remembers by Paul McLaughlin, published by Self-Counsel Press, Bellingham, Washington.

PLEASE remember to include your name (and your parents names would be helpful) and your email so that we can confirm how you'd like us to handle the info you give us.

© 2010, R Templeton & Associates

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