Tell Your Stiles Story
This year’s 2021 Stiles Family of America (SFA) Virtual Annual Meeting and Conference will feature a 1 ½-hour curated collection of stories about Stiles families past and present told by YOU, our members. The afternoon Zoom session will present a series of 5-minute (or less) stories that all feature a Stiles family and/or its member(s), including appropriate photos, video clips, or whatever creative means you invent to tell YOUR story. You will be responsible for creating and presenting your story live during the Conference. All submissions could also be published in future SFA newsletters or on the SFA website (presenters will be contacted first to confirm). If your story is accepted for presentation or later publication, and you are not yet a member, your 2021 meeting registration and first 6 months’ membership is free!
What we’re looking for:
Stories that feature a Stiles family or member living in a particular time and place, say, Philadelphia in the early 1800s, or today. How does this Stiles story reflect on, or represent that particular time and place in history or today? How does it define what it is to be a Stiles?
Each story should have a beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order.
Stories of well-known or historically significant Stiles, or everyday stories about Stiles living in a particular time and place are all encouraged. You or your ancestor don’t have to have a Wikipedia page to be the subject of a Stiles Story.
Stories that are approximately 5 minutes or less in length, giving you time to show photos or tell a yarn that introduces us to a specific time, place, and cast of characters, possibly including yourself.
Stories that answer some or all of the following questions:
1. Why did a Stiles family move from state to state?
2. What was happening during their lives that aided their decisions to stay or leave?
3. Why did a Stiles come to America?
4. Who are we as a family? As a community of families?
5. How does this story help define the historical or contemporary time and/or place that the Stiles live(d) in?
6. How have Stiles made their mark in history?
7. What stories about Stiles’ actions, beliefs or accomplishments (bad or good) have made a difference in YOUR lives?
8. What are the Stiles stories that have been handed down from one generation to the next in your family?
Deadline and other information:
Please submit a short paragraph description (who, what, when, where) of your proposed 5-minute story by midnight, Sunday, June 13, 2021 to [email protected].
One submission per person.
If your story is selected, we will contact you via email and help you to develop it. Photos and other visual aids are encouraged, but nothing too complicated for Zoom platform, please.