Goshen — The Clermont County Genealogical Society (CCGS) announced its first annual writing competition. Children and teens from three age groups will compete for a $100 cash prize and a story feature on the organization’s website.
As the summertime America 250 commemorations draw closer, the CCGS is encouraging students to engage with their nation’s history. This year’s writing competition topic highlights ancestors from the community who lived during the War for Independence.
According to the rules posted on the CCGS website, competitors should imagine the lives of their family members who were active in the colonies during the tumultuous years between 1775 and 1783. Judges task writers to create biographical works of their family members and submit them between May 1 and May 31.
CCGS separates competitors into three age groups:
Older Teens: This group includes high school students ages 15-18 who must submit high-quality pieces that do not exceed 1,000 words.
Early Teens: Competitors aged 11-14 can submit stories up to 750 words.
Children: Anyone aged 10 or below can participate in the children’s group. These stories should not exceed 500 words.
A volunteer panel of three to five judges will read and grade each submission with a standardized rubric. They will notify the highest-scoring entry from each group and notify them via phone on July 4, 2026.
Each submission should include the name of the writer’s family member and some general information about their life, including:
Their occupation
Their home or town of residence
Their allegiance (Rebel or Loyalist)
Difficult choices they may have had to make to survive wartime
The results of their choices
The effect their life had on their family and descendants
The CCGS Young Writers Competition appears to offer creative flexibility for competitors who may not have a reliable record of their family’s history. However, staff encourage writers to take advantage of the Doris Wood Branch of the Clermont County Public Library to research ideas and settings.
Archivists at the CCGS created a physical and online catalog of donated family history notebooks and file items that exist at the library. Though limited resources are available, CCGS staff requests volunteers to help organize and add to the reference list. Writers who have records in their personal possession can contact the CCGS for more information about how archiving this data protects local and family history.
The team at CCGS values original writing and creativity. They will use AI detection tools to scan submissions for generative content. Judges reserve the right to disqualify any AI-generated writing from the competition.
Still, it’s no secret that AI detection tools can be faulty and unreliable. Original writers who want to avoid false-positive AI flags should focus on increasing the perplexity of their work. A few ways to accomplish this method would be to vary sentence structure and infuse anecdotes, historical data, or unique experiences that AI cannot replicate.
For the most part, it's relatively easy to differentiate youth writing against AI outputs from tools like ChatGPT.
Competitors can email their writing to programs@ccgsoh.org. All documents should be in Word Doc or PDF format. Judges request that each submission include double-spaced paragraphs, 12-point Arial or Times New Roman font, and include the applicant's name, age, address, and phone number for announcement notifications.
As with any writing competition, authors should include a unique title to set their work apart from others.
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