Researching your family history is an exciting journey into the past. However, leaving a trail for future generations is just as important! Learn how to write and publish a family history book, learn how to use technology for future generations, learn how DNA analysis works with your family tree, and more! Be sure to visit our website at www.coeurbridge.com (http://www.coeurbridge.com).
I had all of the articles, and I presented them word for word. I did use Claude (AI) to help sort through all of the stories and suggest an organizational spine for the book. This episode goes through how I used AI to do this work and how I asked it to research KDP pricing.
11 Jun 2026
Killacranky-Annotated Memoir - Sorting Fact From Fiction
In presenting the articles my great-great-grandfather wrote, I had to separate fact from fiction. He loved to embellish, like any good southerner, with his tall tales. I used the usual sources on ancestry - like census records, etc...but I also had pulled military records, and Claude (AI) worked through various sources, matching up military history with his recollections. This episode explains various steps I took in this process.
10 Jun 2026
Killacranky-What do you Do When an Ancestor Writes Something Controversial?
Almost every family history runs into it eventually: an ancestor who wrote something you can’t defend. This episode is about the hardest editorial decision there is — and why erasing the ugly parts is the real failure. My great-great-grandfather’s writing includes slurs, casual cruelty, and Lost Cause framing. I explain the line I walked — preserve the original, frame it honestly, neither sanitize nor excuse — and why a startling contradiction in the same text turned out to be the most human thing in the whole book. This episode discusses my approach to this sensitivity.
10 Jun 2026
Killacranky-Writing a Civil War Memoir
Names and dates tell you a person existed. They don’t introduce you to who that person was. In this episode about a book I have published on one of my two times great-grandfathers' military writings, I share the moment family history stopped being a chart of dates for me — and became something far more powerful. And why anything an ancestor actually wrote might be the seed of a book. I am publishing four videos on the process of putting this book together and how you, too, can follow the same process.
16 May 2026
How to Answer AI Questions on KDP
KDP (the Amazon self-publishing platform) now asks questions about how AI has helped with a book's content. In writing the Loose Pearls memoir of my paternal grandparents, I definitely used AI for assistance. I walk through how I answered these questions in this episode. 📖
Loose Pearls (https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Pearls-Marriage-1945-1946-Correspondence-ebook/dp/B0GZGG32V5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1YI6OU91A7OCG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5zIALihXq_JUQOYsQEBBwKxGNmpo-qjKw0jFFj4kGTVJ8_mI_2GT95NmJsZT948L7F7SdLcbVdqnrH7IDlnot46sJLojQ38duApOUrEwq2y0ul6oXrhX9Rk4b2unl8zjaRi1d0-oHfRTMwhsd7xssvasKNvL4CX9uobvOZrk4yaN-KRL1h8H5NJESOLaxAsx8igkG4nZ57sgIll6HWHDYOTc0SxmxCkmb9Yvjq_KxLU.31PLxplmfl1nM6m5P9YY0MVOqDX3azmxNiWPdEg7XRw&dib_tag=se&keywords=loose+pearls+book&qid=1778966829&sprefix=loose+pearls+book%2Caps%2C358&sr=8-1): A Marriage in Letters, 1945–1946 — available on Kindle and audiobook. Paperback and hardcover coming soon.
16 May 2026
How to Write the Family Letter Memoir Manuscript
AI did suggest a grouping of parts and the suggested manuscript, but AI makes huge assumptions about the content unless you tell it not to or to force it to notice its own assumptions. This video describes how i, with AI help, built the manuscript of Loose Pearls 📖
Loose Pearls: (https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Pearls-Marriage-1945-1946-Correspondence-ebook/dp/B0GZGG32V5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33D2EUODKOF49&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5zIALihXq_JUQOYsQEBBwKxGNmpo-qjKw0jFFj4kGTVJ8_mI_2GT95NmJsZT948L7F7SdLcbVdqnrH7IDlnotwCcV8XzNJImTKGaFo9EHBUoeLtoyNxfGihhvCLHa0VzaRi1d0-oHfRTMwhsd7xssvasKNvL4CX9uobvOZrk4yaN-KRL1h8H5NJESOLaxAsx8igkG4nZ57sgIll6HWHDYOTc0SxmxCkmb9Yvjq_KxLU.s9SeCEe3ieAfxKlj7qIHTHb0aGcBdC8R3MIzucVOKe4&dib_tag=se&keywords=loose+pearls+book&qid=1778965327&sprefix=loose+pearl+book%2Caps%2C276&sr=8-1) A Marriage in Letters, 1945–1946 — available on Kindle and audiobook. Paperback and hardcover coming soon.
16 May 2026
How to Use AI for a Family Memoir
548 letters is a huge archive. So, yes, it took me 8 years to figure out how to turn all these letters into a book. With the advent of AI tools, I felt I had a way to help me manage them and make them into an interesting book. In this episode I share the actual prompt I pasted at the start of every working session, the batch size that worked best, the approval pattern that kept me in control, the moment I caught a 150-letter mistake, the corrections I had to issue more than once, the line I drew on not marketing the book as AI-generated, and what I disclosed on the KDP publishing form when Amazon asked. If you are thinking about using AI on your own family archive — and I think more people are than will admit it — this is the inside view I wish someone had given me before I started.
📖 Loose Pearls (https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Pearls-Marriage-1945-1946-Correspondence-ebook/dp/B0GZGG32V5/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5zIALihXq_JUQOYsQEBBwKxGNmpo-qjKw0jFFj4kGTVJ8_mI_2GT95NmJsZT948L7F7SdLcbVdqnrH7IDlnotwCcV8XzNJImTKGaFo9EHBUoeLtoyNxfGihhvCLHa0VzaRi1d0-oHfRTMwhsd7xssjD8s3A_rLRrvTSwUJKryA4-WLAWMd8logrdKgtzb4Nu8igkG4nZ57sgIll6HWHDYOTc0SxmxCkmb9Yvjq_KxLU.1Iv5F4yKAkqDKeB5k2F94f6nMKCy_ih0-u5c6Jtv8nc&dib_tag=se&keywords=loose+pearls+book&qid=1778962471&sr=8-1): A Marriage in Letters, 1945–1946 — available on Kindle and audiobook. Paperback and hardcover coming soon.
AI PROMPT: "I am working on a book of letters between my grandparents during World War Two. I am going to upload the master log and a batch of transcribed letters. Please read each letter and propose a row for the log. The columns are letter number, date, author, written from, written to, key quotes, emotional tone, historical details, family details, recommendation of either BOOK or ANCESTRY, notes, source file, and war timeline context. State the BOOK or ANCESTRY recommendation in chat with the full source filename before writing anything to the spreadsheet. Wait for my explicit approval before appending. Make honest BOOK or ANCESTRY calls. Do not oversell weak letters. I need the exact filename of every letter recorded in the source file column. Please remember this for every batch going forward. I cannot match book or ancestry decisions back to specific files without it."
11 May 2026
Digitizing the 548 Fragile WWII Letters
Before the writing, before the organizing — preservation. In this first method episode, Julie shares how she digitized over 500 wartime letters between her grandparents Woodrow and Vera Bonner, written across the Pacific in 1945 and 1946. The free tool she used, why fragile letters and a child's handwriting got photographed before anything else, and the systematic transcription quirks that ended up revealing something about her grandparents she would not have learned any other way. If you have a box of family letters in a closet, this is the episode that tells you where to start. Loose Pearls: A Marriage in Letters, 1945–1946 is available on Kindle and audiobook. Paperback and hardcover coming soon.
LINK TO BOOK ON AMAZON (https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Pearls-Marriage-1945-1946-Correspondence-ebook/dp/B0GZGG32V5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TAWSH7KDAEP8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZmZZh-1gUJWNywDYbRpi11ycgQRhxZMj9wcivAZlJ9iMbad1v5-4Mb0fQtLv3nygYDEzM3PSnzJgL2lOwm38AneOYCshw9oKV2CEHZSNewegpuI43-RhV4DlH10kK5B-YUSDSkG1gdnEoWheZJAIQfO6geJ7Tz_993z46qaMWL4V6rSq0zhw1dMhULBKamd9fp7FrpHZJFRDg5xCkL6skpbylFTZrWlPI4dlCmnDkFIA4c3tHwdx1scL8Ukg_pFPkDEjECV1bCjll60wHyQtHSFu7SUpsp9HJHlrV8ktbUw.I_IthIfeM-9GcMZ1LAAWBzah0XToGkPF6FgLcoLmGN4&dib_tag=se&keywords=julie+bonner+loose+pearls&qid=1778526348&sprefix=julie+bonner+loose+pearls%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-1)
9 May 2026
The Eight Week Pearl Hunt: A WWII Soldier Story
In February 1946, my paternal grandfather, Woodrow Bonner, found a string of cultured pearls in a shop in Kobe and wrote to my grandmother, Vera, that he was going to try to buy them. He couldn't. What followed was an eight-week hunt across occupied Japan, three loose pearls in a wooden crate, and a string of letters that never quite explained. This is the story the book is named after. // Loose Pearls: A Marriage in Letters, 1945–1946 Next episode: how I sorted 548 letters, and you can also do this if you have written documents of your family.
Amazon Book Link: Loose Pearls: https://www.amazon.com/Loose-Pearls-Marriages-1945-1946-Correspondence-ebook/dp/B0GZGG32V5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GU5JQJS9UV0I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hAzeTcXxjnnEilURvb3WqA.tnCbCN1An3CxqxdYjQwphW9E8wdU-aolIKWKvSfqDqc&dib_tag=se&keywords=loose+pearls+julie+bonner&qid=1778350576&sprefix=loose+pearls+julie+bonner%2Caps%2C430&sr=8-1
28 Apr 2024
Preserving Stories are Priceless - My First Book!
If you google the phrase "family history questions" you can find many pages that can give you ideas about what to share with future generations of your family. I was struck by one question that asked - do you have a toy you have kept from your childhood?
When you are preserving the stories of your family, you can use Zoom and other platforms to create videos AND podcast episodes. Future generations will find these priceless!
In this episode, this method is discussed around a story that I preserve for my family. The story is about the influence of my mother on my reading habits and a book I saved!
16 Mar 2024
Episode 5 - Move Me Lord
In 1971, my paternal grandmother, Vera Dors (Harper) Bonner, wrote a song with her niece, Norma (Bonner) Elmore. Norma wrote the music, and Vera wrote the lyrics. Later, the song was recorded as a birthday present to me.
You will hear about the technology I used to pull the audio together and the history passed to me.
I used Zoom to record the audio introduction
The music was on a cassette I pulled off using a USB cassette to digital recorder
I used MixPad to combine the files to preserve it for family history!
If you want to see the video: https://youtu.be/G4WlB2YnhxQ - in the video you can see a picture of Vera and a picture of the original score
29 May 2020
Episode 4 - How to Save Family History Audio
Welcome to Keep the Dash Alive. I’m your host, Julie Bonner, and today we explore recording family voices. These are some of the coolest family history assets you will ever produce! If you have any questions about this episode, you can email me at Julie@coeurbridge.com (mailto:Julie@coeurbridge.com). Please find Keep the Dash Alive on Youtube for videos.
29 Feb 2020
Episode 3 - How DNA Helped Identify a Half Sibling
This the Keep the Dash Alive Podcast. This episode explores how DNA analysis helped me connect to a previously unknown half sibling in my extended family!
20 Feb 2020
Episode 2 - How to Use GPS Technology for Family History
GPS applications on your smartphone can be a great boost to your family history research. Along with this podcast episode, I also have a video about GPS technology and family research on the Keep The Dash Alive YouTube channel. Also, on Amazon, you can find a Kindle book called "Beyond the Dash" that describes many of the technologies that can be useful to you as a family researcher. Enjoy!
18 Feb 2020
Episode 1 - Boots on the Ground Family Research
Technology has brought us great online resources, but, you never know what you might find with your boots on the ground. Follow in your family footsteps to sometimes discover a nugget that would have never have been found in an online database. We also have a Keep the Dash Alive YouTube channel. If video fits your learning style, subscribe to that channel as well as this podcast!
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