family history

[joyah]

Hi
Some background info, I'm relitively new to scrapbooking and just a month ago went to my first crop. My friends basically dragged me kicking and screaming the whole way but now I'm hooked. I've always had my own version of doing the kids books that involved the regular old sticky albums and stickers and such.
Now on to my delima I need/ mother is insisting that I do a family history book for the boys. While some of it will be easy pictures and such I'm having layout issues I know that I want to include a written piece about each person but how and what not is still a little bit of a mystery.

Any ideas and sites to visit they are all appriciated. I may need this little guys help to pull this one off.
Christy

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I have been working on a heritage album for myself, my brothers, and cousins. 9 in all. The beginnings of the albums are all the same.
the first page is a family tree with my grandparents on the trunk and everyone branching from there. We have 4 generations so far.

page 2-3:
was my grandfather from baby to teen. Title was When they were young. And I had a story about why everyone called him boy.
4-5:
grandma - baby to teen. she had 8 brothers and sisters so that was the topic of her journaling.
6 -7:
pictures of them dating and of them in their twenties. My grandfather was in WWII and they split up for the time he was gone so we don't have a ton of pics from that time.
pg 7 was pics of him while he was stationed in Italy. We had some of his travel papers so I scanned them and shrank them to fit the page.

8-9 their wedding pics including their wedding announcement in the paper.

10 - their honeymoon to Canada
11 - pics of them enjoying their hobbies, his were trolley cars, hers where quilts and 2 pics of them at a wedding and the last pic of them taken together.
12-13 pics of their 4 children, through the years.

this is where it breaks off for each family. Mine and my brothers book are the same here too, with our parents. My cousins are of their parents.

14-15 my dad birth to teens
16-17 mom same
18-19: their wedding and pics of them through the years as a couple
branch off again to me
20-21 - me through the years
22-23 my DH through the years
24 -25 our wedding
26-33 2 page layouts of each of my children (I will expand these later)

I haven't added a ton of journaling yet, when the 9 of us opened them for xmas (I knew what they looked like) my older brother, who is the oldest, brought a tape recorder so my Grandmother could help us fill in the blanks.

But a cute story or even some notes of the events in the pics would be good. Ask aunts, uncles, your parents etc... if they have any info. When they see the pics stories and forgotten details will come flooding back. Ask each of them to keep a composition book near by for when they remember things and when you are together record the conversation, that way you can hear the story and not have to keep up notes.

 

[joyah]

That helps alot. Mom dumped a pile of pictures on me the other day and was like go for it. I'm thinking to myself I've done the reseach now how do I put it all together. My family goes back to the mayflower and my husband family has been traced back to pocahauntus. So all those little pieces I'd like to include.

Keep the ideas coming I know that there has to be more than 1 person thats done this.

 

[Lisa]

I started scrapping the same way you did, kicking and screaming but fell hard. Now I am a CM consultant.

I am about to do a heritage album. I've been getting pictures together and also doing genealogy research thru www.ancestry.com and www.familyresearch.org. In December I will be in Salt Lake City so I am planning on doing to LDS to get copies of marriage and birth certificates for great-grandparents as far as I can go back. I have my great grandfather's passport, copies of great grandparents immigration logs and pictures of the ships they came from IRE on.

I've seen Buffy's album and the page layouts run very smoothly.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

That helps alot. Mom dumped a pile of pictures on me the other day and was like go for it. I'm thinking to myself I've done the reseach now how do I put it all together. My family goes back to the mayflower and my husband family has been traced back to pocahauntus. So all those little pieces I'd like to include.

Keep the ideas coming I know that there has to be more than 1 person thats done this.

Well howdy cuz!!! LOL we are related to Pocahontas too!

If mom dumped a bunch of pics on you, the first thing to do is organize them by family and generation. Take notes of anything written on the backs of the pics too. Then pick everyones brains about info on each person.
Also, not sure where you are but if you need timelines there are a very few people out there that can date pics by the clothing and hairstyles.

Thanks for the compliment Lisa, it's not bad except where mom opted to use 1970's color paper for her wedding pics. LOL

 

[Lisa]

Thanks for the compliment Lisa, it's not bad except where mom opted to use 1970's color paper for her wedding pics. LOL

Hey, the 70's were crazy times. Mom wanted to reflect that! lol

 

[pjlla]

I'm interested in hearing about this topic also. I started doing the research and gathering of stuff for a family heritage album about two years ago, but got overwhelmed and put it aside. But it would be a great thing to finish. I have two "double" first cousins (my Mom and her sister married my Dad and his brother), so it would be an album for myself, my DB, and my two cousins. (I would make one original and three copies.)

I think my problem is that I got too ambitious. I wanted to have the entire family tree done before I even did any scrapping.... but I got frustrated with the amount of time it was taking me to find out any info. I think when I start up again (whenever that might be), I should start current (with myself, DB and cousins) and work backwards (my parents and aunt/uncle, then our shared grandparents, and then back from there). I could add more even after I give them the albums.

I'd love to see/hear more about everyone else's heritage albums. Any links to pictures out there?.......................P

 

[pjlla]

Can anyone help me with the ancestry.com website? I had some time here at work this morning so I decided to start working on my family tree (after you all got me thinking about it again!) I even put in my CC # and started my "14-day free trial"! But now I am stuck. I can't seem to get it to find any information on my Dad. I know his DOB, place of birth, etc. And he has lived in MA his entire life! But absolutely nothing is coming up on him or anyone else, except a death record on my Grandfather. What am I doing wrong? It kind of feels like they "enticed" me to enter my CC# with that little bit of info on my Grandfather, but now they are giving me NOTHING! Any search hints or tricks I should know?? THanks...................P

 

[Lisa]

They might be too young, nothing will show in the past 75 years.

What I did for my grandmother, b 1901 was checked census records. You can view census records from 1930 back, 1890s were destroyed.

On the other hand, being that he was born in MA, you can get his info directly from the MA Archives. Check familysearch.org for the MA info. I wrote to there for my great grandparents marriage certificate. There are two archive locations depending on the year. Good luck!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

They might be too young, nothing will show in the past 75 years.

not always though, DH's grandfather past away in 1995 and we have records for him from the SSDI.
My mom is heavily involved in Ancestry if you are looking for specifics. She has the ultimate package so she can access lots of things.

Lisa, she is going to be sooo jealous that you are going to Utah. She wants to go so bad.

 

[piratesmate]

Just a word of caution about using www.familysearch.org I do use that site as well, but there are many glaring errors in some of the info. Some of their records were just user-submitted as opposed to transcriptions of original records. Those user-submitted records are only as good (or bad) as the research that went into them.

For example, I found whole families listed with spouses & siblings that I know to be incorrect. Things like an uncle/nephew with the same name being combined into a single person...or reporting someone as having died in 1931 even though I ate holiday meals with that person as late as 1965.

And if you're viewing the family trees on Ancestry, you'll find that some of those have the same problems...again each individual does his/her research in a different way & not all verify with original records before posting.

Even what Ancestry posts from the SSDI can be suspect. They show my grandfather as having been born on Aug 20th. However, a family Bible from that generation shows he was born on Oct 2nd and that's the date we always celebrated.

 

[joyah]

Sorry I wasn't around yesterday (dh had minor surgery and I was swamped with house and animal chores that he usually does) so I've been reading with interest all of the replies.

Lisa, I'm very lucky that 90% of the tracing back to way to early has been done for me. Husbands side is totally done, on my side I have part of my moms (her moms) side back to the mayflowers sister ship. Her dads side I've got a huge road block with my great-great grandparents and on my dad's side I have to go to england and italy for anything more than great-great's that will never happen. I envy your trip to salt lake. does cm have any page layout books showing these types of pages?

Buffy, that part on my side is done I'm working on husbands side now. on each person's page beside born, marriage and death dates and the obvoius nickname type things what tyope of stuff did you write? number of pics on a page and what not. I've been doing the 8x8 books and this will be the 12x12 and I'm not real sure of the spacial planning are/were the templates helpful or did you just wing it?

 

[Faerie]

I just ordered "Family Tree Maker Version 16 Collector's Edition" from Amazon - $24.99 and it comes with a year of Anestry.com for free.

I have old bibles etc. from my father's side of the family but my mom's side there is far less information available

 

[PrincessNancy96]

We have been researching both sides of the family.. My dd showcases her research at the 4-H fair each year.. Anyway, she has over 5 big 3" binders of information she shows...
I have 4 tubs of information, paperwork, bills, photos.. etc.. I really need a good way to organize and some time... Right now my mom is in the midst of making sure we have all the current family accounted for.. birth dates, marriages etc..because we have found the baby boom in our family in the past 2 years...
Through ancestry.com... I have found several distant cousins throughout the US... and I found the ex-wife of one of the family members..and she had a lot of history to share with us.. SHE even was able to met the last surviving sibling of her ex- husband that everyone had lost contact with before she past.. unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend but she shared all the information..and was able to confirm or deny family tales.. boy there are some big ones! My grandmother on my dad's side was the first generation born in the US... So, our rich Irish history is going to be very hard to come by.. they had a major fire that destroyed lot of old records....
Always verify what you find...
2 years ago.. WE found a photo of the store for which my great-great grandfather use to own..and we found a photo of my great-grandpa and his FIL working at the bank together.. we also have a photo of my great-grandpa when he drove a horse and buggy to the school where he taught.. and get this Buffy.. he is also my guardian angel that visited me with each of my pregnancies and he told me I would have healthy, happy babies..

 

[pjlla]

I just ordered "Family Tree Maker Version 16 Collector's Edition" from Amazon - $24.99 and it comes with a year of Anestry.com for free.

I have old bibles etc. from my father's side of the family but my mom's side there is far less information available

Considering that a year of ancestry.com costs about $155, that is a great deal you got! I'm definitely going tolook into it!...................P

 

[Faerie]

Yep! That's what sealed the deal for me!