Available soon, on Amazon.

Memoirs Today

In the early 1990s, memoirs written by ordinary people experienced a sudden upsurge, as an increasing number of people realized that their ancestors' and their own stories were about to disappear, in part as a result of the opportunities and distractions of technological advances. At the same time, psychology and other research began to show that familiarity with genealogy helps people find their place in the world and that life review helps people come to terms with their own past.

With the advent of inexpensive digital book production in the first decade of the 21st century, the genre exploded. Memoirs written as a way to pass down a personal legacy, rather than as a literary work of art or historical document, are emerging as a personal and family responsibility.

From Wikipedia

Meier Stories

by Mike Meier

Over the years I had done online searches for information about my family, and Family Search and Find-A-Grave were excellent, and free, resources. I was able to collect the names and dates of ancestors, along with documents such as birth certificates, draft registrations, census reports, and much more. Using Newspapers.com I was able to learn even more, enough to be able to tell basic life stories. At that point I figured I was mostly done. But then...

Then my half-brother visited, and he brought with him the complete military history of his father, and with it, wonderful documents and photos from his early life. That brought a whole new dimension to part of our family's story. Oh, and among the things he brought was a partial story of our family that had been compiled by an aunt I had never heard of, much less met. I was unable to get in touch with her, it turns out she had died, but eventually I was able to get in touch with one of my cousins from that wing of the family. Suspicious of me at first, she phoned, and we talked, and not long after she sent me good digitized images of the photos that had been in that family compilation, and with her help, I was able to say something about an arm of the family I had not known existed.

Meier Stories is a 200+ page history, one that goes well beyond listing names and dates. In fact, this book is divided into three sections. In the first each of my past relatives, in the Meier line plus related lines, get their own write-up, and when available, photos are included. In the scond section, are stories related to my ancenstor's lives. Some are from newspapers, and thus were written when the subject was still alive, while others, mostly mine, are reflections on my family's history, covering a few stories in particular in some detail.

And, finally there are the names and dates genealogy section, which goes back to when each line first came to the United States. One goes back as far as 1630 and involves the Puritan exodus from England, but most came from Germany in the 19th century.

I wrote this book with family members and descendents in mind, and I promised raw materials and original photos to relatives who might want to make their own version, one that followed their own particular family line more closely. I also published this book so that others could get a copy, not so much becasue they would want to learn about my family, but to get ideas on how to create books about their families.

This book will be available in paperback and hardback, and in both cases the photos will be in color. The hardback version will be a really beautiful version, one that family members would want to own.