Once upon a family tree
The Women Who Made Me project
The Women Who Made Me project seeks to bring the lives of real women from the past into focus, against a family history background traditionally populated by their male contemporaries.
Historical records are reflective of the society at the time, when women enjoyed little rights of their own, and therefore their stories are harder to come by as they are eclipsed by the rather more obviously available information of men.
Their lives may be harder to find, but not impossible. Their stories are researched through documents and oral histories – for example folk songs – and brought to a modern audience to give a record of ordinary women’s experiences at different times through history.
Some come from my own research, others are submitted (see the identifying criteria, below), all are true.
Identifying criteria
To include the life of a woman in The Women Who Made Me, there has to be a story to tell beyond the bare details that she was born, she married, she died. The barest oral details of her life, or facts identified from records, can flesh out her story and bring her life into focus.
Exact identifying details are blurred (no surnames, exact addresses, exact years of birth or death) to protect the data of living family.
If you are unsure whether a woman – be she your mother, aunt, sister, daughter, second cousin once removed, godmother, or family friend – qualifies to have her story told, please contact me for advice.