Your Family's History Book

Preserve Family Photos and Heirlooms

Maybe a relative sent you old letters, certificates, and family photographs and you are not sure what to do. Maybe you’re wondering how to save your child’s pictures and other mementos.

Digitizing your originals can allow you to view and share your items without handling, which can cause damage. Keep your originals after you digitize them, because digital files have their own preservation risks and can easily be lost. Whether digitizing your family papers yourself or having a company do it, it is important that the originals be handled carefully so they are not damaged in the process.

Your Family's Oral History

Oral histories are stories that your family tells about your past. Preserving oral history is critical to the creation of the family history book. Because those who provide the information are generally older members of the family, both their lives and their memories are at risk of being lost to time. Therefore, it should always be the first priority of a family historian to find these patriarchs and matriarchs of the family, be they grandparents, great-grandparents, granduncles, grandaunts, great-granduncles, great-grandaunts, older first and second cousins, and even older neighbors and acquaintances of these people.

Prior to any interview with your elders, your family members should write down their own understanding of family history and explore their own cultural background, attitudes, and beliefs.

• General background, i.e., cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, customs
• Courting
• Informal/Family support
• Experience with disease/illness
• Political and Military service
• Belief systems
• Traditions of Celebration
• Historical experiences of cohorts
• Food
• What events in history have helped shape the attitudes and beliefs of the family?

History, after all, is all about the human experience. Through oral history, family members come together in conversation about a commonly shared interest — as with all human interactions, this has the potential to be tremendously rewarding for both parties.

Connect Your Family Historians

Each family tends to have one or two individuals who enjoy studying and recording their history.

Creating this family history book provides you an opportunity to combine efforts and unite.

Many people desire to know where they come from, but a sense of belonging is especially important for children and youth. A knowledge about their family history gives children of all ages a sense of their place in the world. It can also give young people something to live up to—a legacy to respect. Family historians working together can help create an opportunity for your children and teenagers to make a meaningful contribution to something bigger than themselves, than any single line of the family could alone.