COLLECTING FAMILY DOCUMENTS

Home Sources

After learning how to record family information accurately, a beginning researcher needs take a look at the available sources of this info. The place to begin is with herself. She needs to dig through all her files, boxes in the closet, scrapbooks, photograph albums, safe-deposit boxes, and any other places that will give clues to her family's history. Don't forget the family Bible, for many Bibles have places to record marriages and deaths.

Family Event Books

Another good source is baby books-which are especially great if she is beginning her search with your children or grandchildren. Baby books have become quite popular in the past twenty or thirty years. Wedding books are also a good source, Her family may even have books commemorating other important family events. Once I purchased First Communion Book for one of my daughters. It has pages that ask for relatives and their relationships to the child. Bookstores sell books that detail a child's school years, a person's personal memories of childhood, and books to fill out about family history. There is even a book to leave your heirs about where to find important papers once the book owner is deceased. Any book like those listed here can be valuable.

More Home Sources

Be sure not overlook old address books. These will provide names and addresses of distant family members, and cousins with which to correspond. Don't forget those Christmas lists as well. And, if any one in the family is a pack rat, they may still have old letters and Christmas cards. These treasures often contain signatures, and notes of "news" and happenings throughout the years.

Newspaper Clippings

Any old newspaper clippings pertaining to the family can be gold mines as well. People usually keep birth notices, marriage announcements, and obituaries stashed away somewhere.

Holy Cards

If the family is or was Catholic, they may have old Mass or Prayer Books with small bookmarks know as Holy Cards. These cards have a religious picture on one side, and the birth and death information of a deceased person, with a prayer, on the back, Sometimes, even a picture of the deceased is included.

Encouraging Other Relatives to Help

In addition to old letters, one may be fortunate enough to find old diaries and journals. These are usually the most detailed sources for determining family lifestyle; and may contain exact dates, recorded at the time of the event. Some families may even have Family History Books, Memory Books or Scrapbooks. Ask all known relatives to help. They may have valuable information stashed away in their drawers and attics. In return, promise to give them a copy of the Family Tree when it is finished.

Use imagination when researching the family for ideas of where to look. Each family will have its own unique conglomeration of family papers.

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Return to:

• Table of Contents
  
• Collecting Family Documents

• Documents at Home
• Vital Records
• Government Records

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This website written and designed by:
Sharon Marie Centanne,
Genealogy Research Instructor and Internet Trainer
Please direct any questions to:
Sharon.

This page updated April 11, 2008

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