Are you currently researching your family and, if you are, do you know the best tools and techniques to use?
Family photos and family stories have always caught my interest, so I decided to research my family tree. It’s great collecting the stories and I plan to compile my findings and the stories in a photo book.
My adult kids are looking forward to seeing it and they’ll be able to share the story collection with their children who are my grandchildren, of course.
Family research is one of the services I provide as a photo coach.
Looking up your family history is a natural fit with digitizing and storing family photos.
Here’s why.
Did you ever look at an old photo and ask, “Who’s in that picture?”
Answering the question can lead to marvelous discoveries.
Using FOREVER® Family Researchers
There are many free tools and techniques to use in digging deeper into your family’s history. Look at this partial listing.
- Your own knowledge
- Interviews with parents, cousins, and other relatives
- County historical societies
- National archives
Scroll to the end of this post for links to a free genealogy event, helpful links, and to contact me.
FORVER®’s highly accomplished genealogists can help you in a few different ways.
Getting started
Do you know what your goals are?
Your goals might be relatively simple, like piecing together a more complete picture of your grandparents and parents’ history to chronicle and pass along to future generations.
Or they might be more complex like tracing your family’s line from the U.S. back to the countries of origin and have a more complete picture of who your ancestors were.
This can give you and your children a stronger sense of identity. And you can leave a record of your family’s story for descendants in the next century or after.
Digging deeper
For me, digging deeper into my family’s history sparks my imagination. The era that people lived in with their fashions and the homes they lived in is discovering a story.
Crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific on ships took days and weeks, compared to flying from the U.S. to countries in Asia or the Middle East within 12 to 15 hours.
In this schematic, FOREVER®’s researchers mark down what records they’ve found like old baptismal records or marriages that are recorded and they’ll note what’s missing.
You run into obstacles the farther back you go. Records from many decades ago may be lost due to building fires or natural disasters.
There can be language barriers, too.
My great grandparents, Domenic Castagno & Mary Reveli Castagno came from Coassolo Torinese, Torino, Piemonte, Italy.
My husband, Gerald, is having family research done on his mother’s side and that links back to Germany on his grandfather’s side and to Switzerland on his grandmother’s side.
FOREVER®’s researchers can translate important documents.
Why FOREVER® is an excellent tool
FOREVER® is the most complete memory-keeping system available. You can bring all your memories from the past into the same place as the photos and videos you’ll capture in the future.
You can digitize:
- Printed photos
- Slide shows
- 8mm home movies, VHS tapes
- Documents like marriage certificates and fragile hand-written letters
You can store your memories in a central location in your FOREVER® account and organize them into albums like I’ve done with my parents’ photos and home movies.
Turn your digital files into keepsakes like photo books and gifts.
I can create photo books of my mother’s line and show a history like:
(left below) My grandmother, Albine, as a four-year-old in 1910
(right) Albine with us in the mid-’90s
(below right) My daughter starting kindergarten more than 25 years ago
You can see an entire family story by turning a few pages and comparing the present with the past.
Why use FOREVER®
FOREVER® is designed as permanent storage. Your files are guaranteed to be stored safely for a lifetime, plus 100 years and even beyond that.
Compare to social media or other companies that store photos online and you’ll see that FOREVER® has a unique business model.
You own your account. The Terms of Service won’t be changed on you and you won’t be locked out since you’re in control.
Your images aren’t compressed and are stored in their original size.
You can put your account in your will so your children, grandchildren, or whoever you designate will have access and be able to enjoy your files and learn their history.
Discover your family’s history
I care deeply that you keep your family history alive and available for future generations to learn from. No one else has a story like you.
Contact me with your questions about looking up your family’s history and using FOREVER®.
Let’s safeguard your story for generations to come.
Free Genealogy Event
Join likeminded friends in the virtual FOREVER® genealogy group, Saturday, August 17.
Click the link for times, the agenda and your Free ticket:
https://www.forever.com/ambassador/melodywhitehead/events
Helpful links
This link from the National Archives has locations around the country where you can do research, including links to the presidential libraries.
The National Genealogical Society has links to 18 free websites.