Genealogy In Scrapbooks - Preserving Our Past!
More Than a Name!
Unfortunately, even though I am personally addicted to my camera, my ancestors have not always been the best photographers. Luckily for me though (and for you too if you share my dilemma) there's more to scrapbooks than just photographs!
For instance: I have only one photograph of my Granny Pat from a few years before I was born. Due to family dynamics I was never able to meet Granny Pat in person. I occasionally complete a layout with only one photograph, but in trying to capture the essence of a person, only one picture and a few dates and no memorabilia would be a little dry! BUT, I do have letters and cards she had sent me over the years.
So I improvised, enlarged the one measly photograph, and in addition to journaling about her vital statistics (dates and places of birth, marriage, and death) I included a few of the letters she had sent me. Viola! Granny Pat is no longer just the 40-something woman in the grainy photograph, she's a vital human being with feelings and thoughts of her own!
There is another lesson in this story besides creative problem solving, and it is: no one is here forever! You need to seek out older family members and interview them now before it is too late to do so! Illness, family dynamics and death separate us too soon from those who have helped to form our families, and have helped to mould who we are a people. For more information about conducting family interviews, visit The Center for Life Story Preservation website!
In addition to photographs, letters and interviews, there are many more things you can include on a person's page. Some of the ideas I've come up with are: announcements (birth, baptismal, graduation, marriage), newspaper articles including obituaries, writings or artwork created by the individual, family stories told about this person, photographs of their favorite things, journaling about your favorite memory of the individual. Obviously this is just a short list, but it can give you a good foundation!
Happy hunting for your family roots and as always, happy scrapping!
Websites
www.familysearch.org - LDS Website for ancestor search. And best of all it's FREE!
www.ancestry.com - One of my personal favorite genealogy websites, great information, but for a fee.
www.heritagequest.com - Another of my favorite sites. I access this one through my local library for free. Otherwise there is a fee
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