Keeping in touch is so much easier with email, blogs, and other social networking tools. The question is do we really stay in touch with family and friends about our memorable moments or do we just share what we remember at the time of the email?
Family newsletters allow the recipients to find out details about other family members and potentially add their stories. Getting family members to contribute regardless of size of entry, allows everyone to have their input recorded for future generations.
Conducting interviews of family members is one of the recommendations in Creating Family Newsletters by Elaine Floyd. Can you image the excitement for future generations to read old family newsletters and get details about the lives of their ancestors?
Newsletters do not have to be fancy. One page to start and once family members start adding content, perhaps even more pages. Consider doing a newsletter online….
Summer is almost over and it’s time for the kids to go back school. I have been going through old school papers trying to determine what to keep for my children. Do I keep their best papers, art projects, report cards? Knowing what to keep for future generations is a challenge. I have thought of scanning the report cards and maybe some papers, but will I keep the files up to date with the latest technology so they can be read?
I have been looking at some ideas in Katherine Scott Sturdevant’s book on Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History. I know it is important now to date the items I keep and record who they belong to. Taking the time now to record who the friends are in the class pictures will be helpful for my children when and if they decide to look at what I have kept for them.
Finding an autobiography of an ancestor, regardless of how distant, can sometimes open the door to new information on an ancestor closer on the tree. I am reading the Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel who is my 5th Great Grand Uncle; which I found using Google Books. My initial thoughts when finding the book were that he would briefly mention his family and then write about his work. Was I ever wrong, the details of his childhood are amazing. Friedrich discusses what his brothers and their children did and how they impacted his life and work.
A simple search in Google Books has opened a door into the life of an ancestor and further details of ancestors I knew nothing of. I will be taking more time searching books online to see what other information is waiting to be found.
I thank my ancestor Friedrich Froebel for writing his autobiography and to Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore for translating and annotating the text.
When researching in Quebec for the period 1621 to 1730, Dictionnaire genealogique des familles du Quebec by Rene Jette is one of those books you need to check out. The details for the families are sorted by last name and marriage dates. Listings may include Parents, parishes for vital records, children (born 1730 or earlier) and spouses of children.
Dit names are listed which helps when researching other sources. Some of the resources used to compile this book are parish records, census records, and notarial records.
As with all research, it is important to check the sources. Please use the lists at the front of the book when determining the full name of the parish abbreviations (some are not clear).
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