The Circus

Maria Markella asked:


I will try to give you some basic tips to get you started but you must remember that you need to research a lot unless there’s already some kind of family tree created by some of your ancestors.

If you are serious, invest on a family tree software that will organize all the information you find. Paperwork may become overwhelming as you will notice.

You will need a lot of paper.

Use a single sheet of paper for every person/ancestor in your family. Then make small family groups of ancestors. You will write information you find for every person in the single piece of paper that belongs to that person. And you will write a summary of the information from all persons who belong to a family group to the sheet of paper that belongs to a certain family group. For example for your family group (e.g. you, your spouse and your 3 children), use 6 sheets of paper one for every member of the family and one for the family group (5 members and 1 family group).

In the ancestor sheet of paper you will write all kinds of information you find about that particular person: Date Born, Birthplace, Marriage Date, Date of Death, Father’s Name, Mother’s Name, Spouse Name and all other information you decide is worth mentioning in the family tree.

In the family group sheet of paper you will write a summary of the information you have gathered from all persons who belong to that family group: Number of members, Husband, Wife, Children and other kind of information you might find and want to include.

Now it’s time to work and research. Start with yourself and your family. Gather information from your parents and their children. Then your grandparents and their children. Remember to keep track of the family groups and the sheets of paper that belong to each ancestor. As you go back in time you may need to contact other relatives, family friends or even researchers. Ask them to help you fill the information on your sheets of paper. Tell them you are creating a family tree for your entire family.

It’s a good idea to keep a family tree log of your actions. For example when you find a birth certificate update your family tree log writing the date that you found that death certificate and the person that death certificate belongs to.

Check out if there’s already someone who has created a family tree for a certain family group. Use that information to save time but verify if the information you find is correct. Look for wedding books, divorce papers, birth or death certificates, funeral cards, awards, diplomas, school books, employment records, military records, medical records and anything that you might find useful. You can obtain a lot of information from such papers like dates, ages, parents, witnesses etc. If you are really motivated and determined to create a family tree, this journey to the past will be fascinating.

And now let’s move on to the fun part. After you have gathered all the information you need, it’s time to design your family tree. You may want to use paper and fill the information so that it is organized and easy to access. But I’m sure after all that paperwork you will definitely need help from a family tree software that will save you a lot of time.



GALEN

John Foster asked:


Throughout several decades now, people have tried out several ways of preserving their family history. Maintaining photo albums, photo collages are some of the ways of maintaining a family history. People generally maintain family history to make the future generations get acquainted with their roots and also to treasure their family members. A comparatively newer way of maintaining family history could be scrapbooking family history. We all do know about scrapbooking. In fact, remember our childhood times, when we had to maintain a scrapbook for our school. Exactly, scrapbooking is a method for preserving a legacy of written history in the form of photographs, printed media, and memorabilia contained in decorated albums, or scrapbooks.

Documenting your family history can be a long process that involves plenty of research. Instead of simply using that information to complete a family tree, consider scrapbooking family history for future generations so that they can come to know about their roots. This allows them to put faces with names of those who they never got a chance to meet. Scrapbooking family history involves making sure you have the right information available before starting. Make sure that you incorporate all the accurate details and information while you go in for scrapbooking family history. You would also not want to exclude any family members during your scrapbooking efforts; therefore, you will have to make sure that you have all the information about all the members of your family. To make the process easier you may want to use loose leaf pages when scrapbooking family history. This way if you discover a mistake or you need to add additional family members you can keep things in chronological order.

At times preserving old photographs become a little tedious as they have the tendency of getting worn out easily, you may find that scrapbooking family history offers a good method for protecting them from further damage or deterioration. Photos can be easily copied at copy centers just as long as they are not professional photos that are copyright protected. If the photos are very old, consider copying them in black and white for scrapbooking family history. This allows you to use a high quality photo while persevering the era of the photo.

Scrapbooking family history can make a wonderful birthday or anniversary gift for parents and grandparents. They will definitely treasure a sentimental gift. Scrapbooking family history may not seem important right now but in the future, it actually has the potential of being one of the most treasured possessions of every family, after all who does not love to remember their family members, especially if they are away from them. Family is the one support system that supports without expecting anything in return. We all make friends but it is our family that supports us without even asking us to do so. Therefore, we should make sure that we know our family members and make our future generations know about them. So just start collecting the materials and start off with scrapbooking family history.



PABLO