FAMILY HISTORY

WRITING COMPETITION

Celebrate BIFHSGO’s 30th Anniversary in 2024!

Write a story from your British Isles family history and

Win a Prize!

• You must be a BIFHSGO member on 31 May 2024.
• You may only enter one family story, which hasn’t been published elsewhere.
• If you are writing about your family after they left the British Isles, you must clearly show your family’s origins in the British Isles.
• You may write a story about the origins of your British Isles family, the process of discovering a person/family, or an interesting fact/event in your family history; the story must be true and the facts not fictionalized in your account.
• You must submit your entry digitally as a PDF file.
• Your story must be written in English.
• The maximum length of the entry is 4,000 words, including bibliographies and endnotes.
• Illustrations (photos, drawings, charts, maps) are encouraged.
• A family tree chart for the family/individual in the story must accompany your entry as an aid to the judges but will not be included as part of the entry evaluation. Hand-drawn tree charts are acceptable but must be digitized/scanned and submitted electronically.
• Entries, winning or not, may be published in BIFHSGO’s journal Anglo-Celtic Roots (following the usual editing process with the ACR editorial team).
• Competition organizers and the judges are excluded from entering.

Entries will be judged on:

• the appeal and impact of the topic/story
• the quality of the language: facts conveyed in a concise, grammatical and interesting style
• the organization and presentation: easy to follow, with a central focus and logical flow
• the writing “mechanics”: proficient grammar, word choice and sentence structure
• the effective use of images to enhance the subject matter

The deadline for submitting your story and the extract of your family tree is midnight on 31 May 2024.

1. You can submit your story by completing the submission form below and attaching your documents to the upload.
2. You can print out these details with the form, complete the form, scan it and attach it to your email when you submit your entry to competition@bifhsgo.ca.
3. You can send an email with the entry information requested on the form in the text of the email and send your documents as attachments.

The Guide to Authors for Anglo-Celtic Roots provides general instructions for writing for BIFHSGO.

If you have any questions, please send them by email to the organizers, Christine Jackson and Barbara Tose, at competition@bifhsgo.ca.  If you would like to speak to an organizer, please send a message with your phone number to this email address and you will be contacted.