I used to think memoir consists of three things: (1) writing, (2) in the first person, (3) about a thin slice of a person’s life. “The reader doesn’t want the whole iceberg, just the tip,” to paraphrase Russell Baker.

Now I realize memoir is much broader. First of all, you have a lot of other objectives–besides the act of writing itself–when you create memoirs. You want to: 

• record family stories
• research family history
• find lost relatives
• socialize with lost relatives once you've found them
• discover your DNA
• collect and preserve family data
• get over something traumatic
• tell the story behind a family memento
• create personal documents (video, audio, shadow boxes, etc.)
• get rid of something heavy which you've been carrying around (secret, imposition, demand)
• catalogue, organize, and archive family documents, photos, and memorabilia
• take the sting out of something painful
• save and identify family heirlooms
• capture family information that would otherwise be lost.

I now have a working definition of memoir which is much more broad. Memoir is the communication of what you want to remember and what you want to be remembered. Which leads me to two more points. First, you can get really creative and use any of the following as the basis of a memoir:  

• letters you quote
• recipes
• random memories
• your hopes for the future
• a secret you no longer want to keep
• family sayings
• something that always got on your last nerve
• a mystery you never figured out
• funny family anecdotes
• what you want your legacy to be
• describing what’s going on in an iconic family photo
• a list of your favorite things and why
• describing how you got around a long time ago
• how a business used to make money
• your worst vacation
• how you kept the house cool in the summer
• the most expensive thing you ever bought
• a portrait of a relative using your five senses (see, hear, feel, taste, smell).

Second point. You don’t have to write at all. Lots of your "stuff" can be turned into a memoir:    

• Photographs
• Video
• Audio
• What things cost
• Collages
• Political buttons and pins
• Jewelry
• Fabrics
• A telephone bill
• “Shrines” you create
• Scrapbooks
• Songs
• Guns
• Music
• Portraits
• Paintings
• Statues
• Pottery
• Drawings
• Furniture
• Clothing
• Games
• Puzzles
• Tools
• Maps
• Drawings
• Self-portraits

Even a packing list from 50 years ago could be the basis for a great memoir. So, I ask you:

• What do you want to remember?
• What do you want others to remember?

Tell me about the memoir you create. Send me a photo.

When I moved to Japan, my name changed to Maa-sa Jyu-e-tto, and was written in katakana (not Roman letters), the alphabet reserved for foreign words imported into Japanese. Out of deference to the exigencies of Japanese, I (mis)pronounced my name the way the Japanese did.

Immigrants in the big wave of American immigration (1880-1911) often had their names changed by English-speaking officials. “The Census taker’s ability to understand the non-English speaker is the key to how the name gets spelled,” says Sara Weissman. Sara is a research department librarian, who offered a class on genealogy research at the Morris County Library in Whippany, New Jersey, which I attended last week.

When you're doing family research, you have to look for other spellings of family names. Misspellings were common and depended on the country of origin of the official. When reviewing ship manifests and other shipping records, keep in mind that the different shipping lines used different transliterations. The German lines had the most thorough information and the best understanding of languages that don't use Roman letters. The US and British shipping lines were the worst. The Dutch somewhere in the middle. In official records, one name could be spelled Dansick, Danzig, and Dangiz.

The names are slippery. Don’t think of the name the way it is spelled now. You have to try non-Roman-alphabet spellings of names and use a name that sounds like the name, but is not an exact match. Try name variations. Use the transliteration system called Soundex Indexing System in Census (soundex, as in, sounds like). See link below. If your ancestor’s name includes a German O, use O. In the case of an  umlatted O, use an O and U. “My great-great grandmother’s name is spelled JohannA in her sons’ baptismal records in Norway. But I couldn’t find her marriage record until I used the older spelling JohannE,” said Weissman.

Officials also took it upon themselves to change names. We saw an example from Sara’s ancestors. When her Irish paternal grandfather boarded the ship to come to America, the ship’s official wrote Kenney but then changed his mind, crossed it out, and wrote O’Kenney. She showed us the record: Kenney was crossed out and in the margin was O’Kenney. Her grandfather kept the O’ through his naturalization, after which he reclaimed his actual name.  

Be creative and resourceful. Your immigrant ancestors were.

Association of Professional Genealogists

Soundex Indexing System

Although there is more than one DNA lab, Dr. Bettinger (www.thegeneticgenealogist.com) recommends www.familytreeDNA.com because it has the largest database–one-half million people have been tested using it. (The larger the database, the easier to find a match to your DNA ancestry.) Women test only the “female DNA,” or mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA), which is passed down from their mothers. Men can test both the mtDNA from their mothers, and the “surname DNA,” or male DYA (YDNA) from their fathers.

Who knew that 90% of Europeans are descended from seven women, known as the seven daughters of Eve? Check out The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes (W. W. Norton, 2001 hardcover, 2002 trade paperback). According to Nielsen Bookscan, the book has sold 100,000 copies in hardcover and paperback combined.

Have you had your DNA analyzed? Do you know where your ancient ancestors came from?  Who said we can’t time travel?