Margaret Ann Gethers Scott, Ph.D. is the vision behind The Family History Place. She has served as historian for the Ford Family of Walterboro (Colleton County), South Carolina since 1996. She has further contributed to the field of life story capture as a certified Guided Autobiography (GAB) instructor, workshop facilitator, speaker/lecturer, obituary writer, and author of two books on family history.

Margaret has presented lectures and conducted workshops on both family history and personal history. Her presentations have occurred at public libraries, senior centers, retirement communities, and private homes. With The Family History Place, she expects to reach a larger audience as she uses email and conference calls to deliver her life story writing programs.

Margaret especially enjoys speaking to audiences about the importance (and urgency) of capturing and preserving family history. A fortuitous life story capture moment came when Margaret was the guest speaker in a private home at the monthly meeting of a Dinner Club. The lively Q&A session which followed her talk, “Seven Reasons to Write Your Family History,” convinced Margaret that there was an audience yearning for information on family history as stories. She seized the opportunity provided by the isolation associated with Covid-19 and over the course of the pandemic wrote the book, I Come from Bowman Lane: A Family History Memoir. 

In her capacity as family historian, Margaret compiled and edited eight volumes (photocopied & spiral-bound) of “From Whence We Came: The Ford Family of Colleton County (Walterboro), South Carolina.” Information gathered for these volumes proved invaluable in the writing of I Come from Bowman Lane: A Family History Memoir.  Margaret has also combined her mother’s previously unpublished 2013 memoir and a 2015 interview into an edited work titled, Mother Dear: The Life and Times of Nettie Mariah Ford Gethers. Mother Dear: The Life and Times of Nettie Mariah Ford Gethers was published as a companion to I Come from Bowman Lane: A Family History Memoir. 

At The Family History Place, Margaret is joined by her sisters Jell E. Ford Priester and Anna M. Ford. Jell, a retired social worker, serves as research assistant and publicist. Anna, a retired teacher, serves as course advisor. Contact us to discuss how we might help you produce a prideworthy family history project.