Preserving Family History In a Scrapbook

I have such fond memories of my grandmother’s stories to me. She loved to share about life when she was growing up. She had many brothers and sisters, some who lived long lives and some whose lives were cut short.

Whenever we would go through photos, my grandmother always knew who was who and had a story she could share about them.

Technology today is wonderful. Those old photos can be reproduced and enjoyed for many more years to come. Some of my grandmother’s photos were torn, yellowed and falling apart. However any film developer can reproduce new, clean copies and can even remove the discolorations that come with time.

I can’t stress enough to ask questions of those of older generations. I loved to sit and ask my grandmother questions about her growing up years. My own grandmother was born in 1898, so times were very different. She truly enjoyed sharing about being a young child, when she was dating my grandfather and even giving birth to her 3 children.

If your relatives are still alive, ask if you can make copies of things like birth certificates and marriage certificates. If your relatives are deceased write to the hall of records and see if you can get copies of these items. The further back you go, the more difficult it is to obtain these items.

My grandmother was actually born here in the U.S. She was born in Chicago. So I did some research to find out what Chicago was like in 1898. I was able to add this information to the scrapbook about my grandmother.

I know I am not the only one with recipes from my grandmother. She passed down many recipes to my mother, who in turn passed them down to me. These recipes make a wonderful addition to this heritage scrapbook.

I have found many heritage scrapbook kits, stickers and paper to aid in creating this very special scrapbook.

While some of your time might be spent on research, this scrapbook will become one of your most treasured books.

About the author:
Audrey Okaneko has been scrapbooking for several years. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com