Editing biographical documentary - creative advice needed

Hello.

I'm just starting out on the road of making videos and I wondered if someone could help a beginner with some creative input.

I am editing a video about a woman's life (1930 to present). I have lots of "head and shoulders" interviews with different family members and friends. I was going to intercut this with stills and clips from the subject's lifetime and from a video library of international news events.

The obvious concept is to make a chronological journey from birth to old age. This has a problem though in that important stories about the subject's parents and grandparents feature heavily and much of this precedes the subject's birth.

In short, I've got to tell this lady's life story and include her relation to the two family generations that preceded her and the two generations (children and grandchildren) after her.

I know that this is a bit sketchy but I wondered if anyone had any conceptual ideas on how I could approach the editing process?