ABSTRACT
This is a tale about how a group of family researchers came to study family stories. We were brought together under the auspices of the MacArthur Foundation to develop systematic methods to evaluate family processes associated with child outcome. Our focus was on how family meaning is transmitted across generations. We believed that families are faced with many challenges in raising children as well as continuing the socialization of the adults. As a group, they must make sense of per-sonal experiences and define what it means to be a member of their family. Although there is an extensive literature documenting generational effects on children (e.g., Benoit & Parker, 1994; Downey & Coyne, 1990), many of the existing methodologies focused on structural
aspects of the family without considering family process variables that may be a part of family genealogy. We felt that family process could be tapped directly by observing how individuals make sense of their family of origin experiences that in turn influences how they make sense of current family experiences. Several areas seemed ripe for investigation: the study of family traditions, the planned preservation of family of origin strengths, the deliberate avoidance of family of origin weaknesses, and the transmission of family values and belief systems through family stories. We took as our starting point the study of family stories and established the Family Narrative Consortium (FNC).
