Holidays with Your Family

With Christmas fast approaching, families near and far are preparing to gather together to participate in holiday festivities. It is the perfect time for you to gather genealogical information and bring your family closer together.

Interview your family

A few weeks ago, we offered tips on interviewing your relatives. The holidays are the perfect time to put these tips into action. You may want to make sure you have your tape recorder on hand to capture your relative’s responses. Or if you prefer the old school tradition of the pen and paper, take a moment to write down stories told by your relatives. Not only is it a fun activity, story telling is a great way to learn about your family’s history. Even the smallest anecdote may prove to be quite useful later on.

Share photographs

Everyone has boxes or albums filled with old family photographs, many times with unidentified relatives. Why not work together with your family in identifying and organizing these photographs? Maureen Taylor over at Genealogy.com has some great tips on how to organize, share and preserve these memories. Some of these tips include:

• A Little Advanced Planning: Encourage your relatives beforehand to bring along any old photographs they may have lying around.

• Have Fun with the Identifications: Make it a game! Who can guess who’s in this baby photo? Who can identify the most people?

• Add to the Family Genealogy: Photographs are a great way to trigger old memories and draw out stories, especially from older family members.

• Copying Photographs: If you can, make copies or scan the images into your computer. And don’t forget to upload these to your tree on Geni to share with other relatives!