For genealogy groups & researchers
You already have the documents.
What is missing is the narrative.
Trees, manifests, photographs, interview notes and family papers are not the same thing as a history someone will actually read. I write the continuous narrative that sits beside the research — honest about gaps, free of invention, and written in a voice that belongs to the family rather than to a database.
The boundary, stated first
I do not do genealogical research.
No archives, no ancestry databases, no record searches, no family-tree construction. If what you need is more evidence, you already know the people who do that work. What I do is take the material you already hold — interviews, papers, photographs, the living memory that remains — and turn it into a continuous piece of writing that can stand next to the research file without pretending the gaps are smaller than they are.
Genealogy answers “who and when.” Narrative answers “what it was like, and what it meant to the people who lived it.” Both are necessary. They are not the same job.
What groups and researchers use this for
A genealogy society refers members who have done the research and now want a readable history for their children and grandchildren. Clean hand-off. Clear scope.
Recorded interviews and notes that have sat for years. I structure them into narrative chapters while preserving the voice of the speakers and marking what cannot be verified.
When a family or a society wants something that can be given, read aloud, or placed in a library — not just stored in a binder of printouts.
How to move from evidence to narrative without inventing, how to handle contradictory testimony, and how to leave honest gaps visible. Available for societies and annual meetings.
Proof of the writing
Judge the sentences, not the claims.
The closest published example of the family-history voice is “The Last Injection” (Minyan Magazine, Pushcart nominee). The literary range and control are clearest in “When Lindy Saved My Life” (Missouri Review, top ten Editors’ Prize). A shorter, more accessible piece is the Chicken Soup essay The Day I Stopped Calling Everything a Big Deal.
Read those. Then decide whether the discipline on the page matches what your members or clients need.