Issue 44.15
Part 3
October is designated in many places as Family History Month. It has been in the United States since 2001. Genealogists everywhere have adopted the month as their own. If you are new to family history or have devoted years to it, celebrate this Family History Month with your family this October by trying these ideas.
Make this month the month that you finally get the family photos out of the shoeboxes or bags in the back of your closet. Track down the photo you have never seen of your great-grandparents. Ask family members to help you put names to the faces of all of those unmarked photos in your family album. Try your hand at scanning them into your computer or get someone in the younger generation to do it with you. You can hire someone to do it for you, and then store the originals in an acid-free photo box or album. Then share some of your photo finds with the family by creating a family photo calendar or a family photo book. For print projects you generally just need a word processing program where you can do page layout and graphics. Most of these programs will allow you to create a calendar with photos.
Once you have the photos scanned you can make some wonderful projects to do with your children or grandchildren including games, family history and heritage projects and online lessons. I framed photos of each of my ancestors and made a display wall in my entry way. It is by far the most conversational place in my home.
From picture frame Christmas ornaments to heritage quilts, your family history makes a great gift. Homemade gifts are often inexpensive, but are favorites with the recipients. It doesn’t have to be something complicated. Something as simple as a framed photo of a favorite ancestor can bring tears to someone’s eyes. Making a family heritage gift is often more fun than giving one. One gift that excites those who don’t really understand your passion about researching dead people is a record which contains their name. Now that the 1940 census is public, you can find living family members back in the day and frame them a nice copy of the records.
Enjoy family history month!
For more information, contact Shanna Jones at shannasjones@msn.com