1) Ask your parents and grandparents to give you their family photos. The further back they go, the better. Maybe offer to digitize and clean up the old prints and slides. The equipment to do that costs about $100. Interfaces with your laptop.
Make sure you preserve notes handwritten on the photos. Dates, names, events.
2) Get a subscription to newspapers dot com. It’s free with Ancestry premium version. Start digging, one person at a time. That site only has stuff that’s public domain, so 1929 and prior. Maybe good first check would be 10/29/1929-12/31/1929. What happened to [Family Member’s Name] after the horrific stock market crash?
You’ll find both good and bad surprises about your family members. My best surprise, bar none: My great-grandfather was the only white man who participated in Houston’s 1899 Juneteenth parade.
This will make history come alive for you.
For me, just reading newspapers from 100-150 years ago or more, even when there’s nothing in them about my great-grandparents, is better than a history book.
That's an amazing fact! Definitely worth taking pride in. I've gotten more and more curious about exploring ancestry.com lately. The idea of my family's ancient past didn't used to intrigue me at all, but I can only imagine what sorts of gems could be unearthed if I did one of those.
Suggestion - actually two - for you.
1) Ask your parents and grandparents to give you their family photos. The further back they go, the better. Maybe offer to digitize and clean up the old prints and slides. The equipment to do that costs about $100. Interfaces with your laptop.
Make sure you preserve notes handwritten on the photos. Dates, names, events.
2) Get a subscription to newspapers dot com. It’s free with Ancestry premium version. Start digging, one person at a time. That site only has stuff that’s public domain, so 1929 and prior. Maybe good first check would be 10/29/1929-12/31/1929. What happened to [Family Member’s Name] after the horrific stock market crash?
You’ll find both good and bad surprises about your family members. My best surprise, bar none: My great-grandfather was the only white man who participated in Houston’s 1899 Juneteenth parade.
This will make history come alive for you.
For me, just reading newspapers from 100-150 years ago or more, even when there’s nothing in them about my great-grandparents, is better than a history book.
That's an amazing fact! Definitely worth taking pride in. I've gotten more and more curious about exploring ancestry.com lately. The idea of my family's ancient past didn't used to intrigue me at all, but I can only imagine what sorts of gems could be unearthed if I did one of those.
Thanks as always for reading, Denise!