Developing Setting: Tips for Writing Historical Context to Your Genealogy Story

Devon Noel Lee

6 min read

Text says "Simple Steps to Add Historical Context to Your Ancestor’s Story." Black-and-white Cincinnati, Ohio street in 1880s with horse-drawn carriages.

Let’s be honest: many of the stories we write from our genealogy research can feel dry, with just a list of dates and facts. Adding historical context — or as I like to call it, setting the scene — is the easiest way to turn those boring details into engaging stories your family will want to read.

Let me show you how simple it is by using the story of my ancestor, Dr. Elmira Y. Howard, a female doctor in Cincinnati in the late 1800s. The process I’m about to share can work for any story you’re writing.

As you incorporate historical context, you actively place your family stories within a broader societal context. But you must be careful not to interject your bias, or presentism into the stories.

Step 1: Pick One Event or Document About Your Ancestor

As you incorporate historical details into the genealogical facts you’ve gathered about your ancestors, you actively place your family stories within a broader societal context. But you must be careful not to interject your bias, or presentism into the stories. How do you do that?

Start with one event or document.

In this case, I have a newspaper article from 1878 about Dr. Elmira’s medical practice in Cincinnati.

Newspaper article about a female doctor in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1878.

“The practice of Dr. Elmira Y Howard, 459 West 6th St, is one of the most extensive and successful in Cincinnati.”

I have much more to say about the discovery of Elmira being a doctor in 1878, but that’s for a video on the Family History Fanatics channel.

For, now, this genealogy gem is a lovely little nugget that needs more depth that a little historical context.

Step 2: Decide What Kind of Historical Context to Add to Your Genealogy Writing

When I think about historical context that makes a genealogy writing non-boring, I break it into three categories:

Greater Family Structure — How does the your ancestor fit into their larger family structure or picture?
Location Context — What was the place like when your ancestor lived there?
Social Context — What were the cultural norms, major events, or social causes at the time?

Not every story that you write warrants all of these categories. For this story, For this story, I’m going to focus on Location.

Step 3: Research Location Context

When researching the location where your ancestor lived, here are some sub-topics that you could research.

Geography
Amenities
Culture
Distance
Economic
Political
Population
Distance

The sub-category that I’ll focus on in this post deals with population. It’s amazing how quickly you can add the element of setting to your story by talking about the size of the village or city your ancestors lived in.

searching Historical Population Data

When I’m looking for quick population information, I do a Google Search. While you could possibly have an AI tool to tell you about the population of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1880s, best practices suggest not using AI tools for something you can “Google” or “Bing.” Besides, there are AI tools within search engines now, so just use a browser to access this information.

Results of Google Search for the topic "population of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1880s" — Google tells me that Cincinnati has a population of over 250,000 persons in 1880.

That’s a helpful fact!

We can update the sentence from the newspaper article to say,

“In 1878, Dr. Elmira Y. Howard’s practice at 459 West 6th St. was one of the most extensive and successful in Cincinnati. Cincinnati had a population of about 250,000 persons.”

Ta-da! We’ve added historical context.

But is this finished?

I hope you said no.

Adding Context to Historical Data

Numbers need context to be meaningful. We need some comparisons in order to understand that question.

I found a cool page on Wikipedia that compares populations by state which I didn’t know existed entitled, "List of U.S. states and territories by historical population." Have you seen it?

When you scroll down to 1870–1950, census data, you can use the column heading sort option for the 1880.

Population data for the 6 most populated states in the United States in 1880 with data from 1870-1900

Soon, I see that Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, South Dakota, New Mexico, Utah, Delaware, Oregon, D.C., and Colorado have smaller populations than Cincinnati. The state of Florida has about 10,000 more persons that the city as well.

While this is helpful information, I’m still not understanding the scale of Cincinnati. What else can help me understand the population in perspective?

How about I compare the size of Cincinnati’s population with other populations of the day?

I found another page on Wikipedia called, 1880 United States census. Lo and behold, now I have some more context for the population numbers.

Rankings of the most populated cities n the United States as recorded in the 1880 Census

With that bit of information, I now understand that the article is saying that not only is Elmira working as a doctor, but she had one of the city’s most successful medical practices in the eighth largest cities in the US. That’s pretty amazing!

So now, I’m going to add that information to the story in this fashion:

“In 1878, Dr. Elmira Y. Howard’s practice at 459 West 6th St. was one of the most extensive and successful in Cincinnati. Elmira served patients in the eighth largest city in the United States, with a population of about 250,000 persons!”

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Step 4: Keep It Simple

Now that we’ve added a small detail about Elmira, we can return to the list of possible location sub-topics to continue expanding our understanding of Cincinnati in 1878. Or we can return to the other two categories mentioned above:

Greater Family Structure — How does the your ancestor fit into their larger family structure or picture?
Social Context — What were the cultural norms, major events, or social causes at the time?

Or, you can use your additional genealogical records to add more context and find clues for your next ‘social history’ research question. For instance, I found an article that stated that in 1884, Elmira earned an annual income of $7,000.

When I add $7,000 per year to the sentence above, we can see how successful she is.

“In 1878, Dr. Elmira Y. Howard’s practice at 459 West 6th St. was one of the most extensive and successful in Cincinnati, earning an income of $7,000 per year. Elmira served patients in the eighth largest city in the United States, with a population of about 250,000 persons”

But is that enough?

In the comments, tell me what you would research to make $7,000 become more meaningful for your readers. (Yes, I just gave you some homework. Spoken like a true teacher!)

I hope through this small example you’ll see that in most cases, you’re not looking to do a deep dive into history archives or a do lengthy historical research project. You don’t need to overwhelm your readers with too many details. Write just enough to make the story feel anchored in time.

Why Historical Context Matters in Family History Writing

When we don’t add historical context, we don’t connect our family members to their ancestors. In the case of Elmira,

Our family members could say unenthusiastically, “Whoop-de-do! Some old lady Elmira was a doctor. Yay.”
Or, they could say, “Wait. Elmira was a female doctor in the late 1880s one of the largest cities in the US? She made a huge income for that day, and she was a female. What did her husband have to say about that? Was she the only doctor? Where did she train? Seriously, that’s so cool to have this ‘strong female’ ancestor in my family tree. Maybe I could be like her in whatever I decide to do."

When we pique curiosity, we “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” so to speak. And we can do this with ancestors that are not so ‘amazing’ like Elmira. When we add historical context to their story, maybe we have more understanding, if not compassion, for the lives they lived and the choices they made.

Share Your Thoughts About Adding Historical Context To Your Stories

Now it’s your turn to try adding historical context to your ancestor’s story. By small and simple things, great stories are written.

Start with one document and ask yourself:

What was happening in the world at that time?
What was life like in that location?
How did your ancestor’s family structure impact their daily life?

It’s easier than you think. However, if you are stuck with an ancestor and how to improve the setting of their story, I’m here to help. Leave a comment below describing your ancestor’s story and your current writing challenge.