Have you ever thought you’d love to interview a member of your family about their life?  In this episode, personal biographer Francie King shares tips on how to get individuals to talk and the importance of listening as you record. As a former journalist she knows how to refine a story and gather the facts. We chat about ghost writing, the process of putting it all together and the power of hearing our relatives voices. She’s a master at the art of gently encouraging individuals to share their past. 

I love her passion for the topic as expressed in this quote “Personal history and biography,” she says, “are always larger than a single

finished book. The story of an individual, or a family, is the story of us, part

of our shared history, always worth preserving, always deeply valuable for

the next generations. Whenever that history remains untold, then it is lost to

us forever.”

Links: 

• Contact Francie King at HistoryKeep.com 
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• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest: 

Francie King has worked for more than 40 years as a journalist, writer, and

editor, and as a director of nonprofit publications strategic planning and

management. Her workplaces include more than a half dozen major

universities and colleges in New England, as well as the Museum of Fine

Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. She fell in love with

personal biography and memoir around 2007 while editing a book about her

father, a world-renowned nuclear physicist. In 2009, after finding inspiration

in a community of supportive, like-minded writers, she turned her longtime

writing consultancy into a memoir and personal/family biography business,

HistoryKeep, based in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Building on a love of biography and family stories and with long experience

as an interviewer, Francie has written or edited more than 20 bespoke books,

and often teams with other personal historians as a developmental and copy

editor. She works with graphic designers, proofreaders, and printers to create

a book suitable for the coffee table or for sharing around the dinner table

among family and friends. Several of her books are now available on

Amazon.

About Maureen Taylor: 

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historica

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

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