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| Family Mementoes Hold the Key to your Ancestral Search |
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| Written by Chad Cook | |
| Thursday, 11 January 2007 | |
Family Mementoes Hold the Key to your Ancestral SearchFamily mementoes can be very helpful in your ancestral search. You can utilise almost anything that has been passed down through the family over the years. One of the most frequently used items is the family bible. Many family bibles list family names, birth dates of children and their names, the family place of worship, and a wealth of other information. Sometimes they also include information about marriages, divorces, and even deaths. Many people also took the time to draw up a family tree. If the family church is noted, you can use this information to get baptism certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and lots of other primary evidence. If you can actually go to the church, it could be helpful to ask around. There's always an off chance that someone may recall your family and give you some information about them. Another place worthy of exploration is old photo albums. Sometimes, people will have labelled the backs of pictures or the bottom of Polaroids. Many are not labeled though, and you will have to ask your parents, grandparents or other family members about them. Pictures are the best thing to evoke faded memories and help older people to recall surrounding people and events. You can gather details about family members, family friends, family and non family events. You can usually find wedding pictures, birthday pictures, anniversary pictures, and a lot of other pictures that may be helpful. Some people, especially those of a war generation, save letters. If your parents or grandparents saved any of these letters, ask if you might see them. They will often give them to you, and if you peruse them together, they may have some tales to tell about that time. Doing so will allow you to get the information you need, and give them an opportunity to reminisce. You'll both get the extra bonus of quality time spent together. Going through this written history of family, events, places,and names, can provide many clues to follow up on. Question as many family members as possible. Someone may have birth certificates and/or death certificates of family members. These will usually have parents and spouse information on it that can help guide you. These can often be verified at family churches, census bureaus , or with elderly family members, etc Heirlooms and inherited jewelry are also excellent things to check. Most things are engraved or have certificates of authenticity. Ask around. Someone is bound to have some history on the ring which belonged to your mother, or the watch you inherited from your grandfather. It never hurts to ask. Additionally if you take jewelry to a reputable jeweler, they might be willing to do some research in regard to the original owners and possibly provide a bit of history about the item. Often there are clippings still around concerning past accomplishments or family honours. Bringing them up with relatives is another good way to provoke memories that can even involve other family members. Just like photos, these can be a very powerful resource in your quest to uncover the past. Within a family, one can usually unearth a wide collection of old photographs (sometimes unlabelled, but sometimes you can be lucky), newspaper clippings birth, marriage, and death certificates, and other mementoes. These help to stimulate interest and are helpful things to have when talking to elderly people whose memories are not as good as they used to be, but can often stimulated by such memorable things. Document everything, remain skeptical about accounts that the family is descended from King Charles, the Duke of Somewhere, Baron Someone, the fellow who invented this or that, or is famous for something or other, or all of these people, and follow the clues that promise to uncover your family's genuine history. Do not start with some celebrity who had the same surname as yours five hundred years ago. The golden rule is to work backwards from the known to the unknown. The records of civil registration, the census returns dating back to the eighteen hundreds, and church parish registers should be the starting points for beginners. You may very well find that you are a direct descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, but you can't just take Grandma's word for it. |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 January 2007 ) |
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