Writing Challenge: Choose Your Own Adventure Genealogy Style

First crossroads. Heaven, hell or purgatory. Your choice.

Second crossroad. Which ancestor will you choose?

Third quest. You will have 20 minutes to come up with a list of questions to ask your chosen ancestor. This may be a brick wall ancestor and your first question is where were you born? Or who were your parents? Or it might be a parent or grandparent that you forgot to ask important things and this is your second chance. It’s your ancestor, your questions. For the purposes of this exercise assume that they are willing to answer you and that they are up to speed with where the world is today. [Trying to ask questions within the confines of the time period they lived could be a second more challenging option].

Once you have your list of questions you can proceed in one of two ways.

1. Have someone else ask you the questions and you respond. That is you assume your ancestors identity and wing it. Guess, surmise or just plain make it up.
2. The second option is to do this with yourself. Assume both identities and have a conversation and record the results.

Why this exercise? To get your creative juices flowing. To think more deeply about your ancestor and what you would like to know. To get you started on crafting a reasonable story for them and perhaps giving you some insight into where to look.

SAMPLE QUESTION IDEAS TO PRIME THE PUMP:

• What color are your eyes?
• How did your propose to —-?
• How did you fell when you arrived in —-?
• What was your favorite color?
• Who was your favorite ancestor and why?
• Did you have a favorite book or author?
• What was the biggest trouble you ever got into?
• When did you first vote?
• Where did you learn your trade?
  
  
  

Feel free to share your questions or how this worked out for you in the comments.

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