From Sister Bunn: Ideas for connecting your family with their heritage:
-Share stories of your ancestors with your children
-Look at and talk about family trees and family albums with your family. If possible, display photos of your ancestors.
-Keep Books of Rememberance for your family members (contain pedigree charts, vital records and records of church ordinances).
-Display family heirlooms & artifacts, share stories about items and who they belonged to.
“Your ancestors have a face, and they have a story.” “Inspire your kids to get to know your ancestors.”
From Sister Krahenbuhl: Thoughts & ideas on keeping a family history:
- Family History does not equal Genealogy. Family History is your family records.
- It’s never too late to start keeping a journal, whether it’s paper or electronic. Try it--the rewards are great and far reaching.
-Keep a journal between your child where you have written conversations. This can be helpful with topics that are difficult to talk about.
-For old photo albums, you can scan the pages or photograph them & have a digital copy that can be easily stored, preserved, and shared with other family members.
-There are many websites available where you can upload your photos and print them into hardbound books. Costs and levels of quality vary. This is a great gift idea.
-Keep a baby book for your child’s first few years. Write a letter to them each year with a summary of the milestones they’ve reached and things they’ve experienced during the past year.
-Have a family photo taken annually and keep them in an album as the years go by.
-Keep albums of school years, missions, weddings, other family experiences.
-When one book gets full, start another one! *Note: albums don’t have to be elaborate, and you don’t have to be skilled at ‘scrapbooking’ to keep one. Keep it simple to save time and expense. The photos and memorabilia are what’s important.
-Blogs can be a great way to keep a family record or journal, and can even be printed into books.
-Digital photos can be made into slideshows. Add a little music & make a great keepsake!
-Don’t forget to take movies of your family! Another fun way to preserve memories and easy to share.
***Always back up your digital photos on a portable hard drive, and be sure to print out some hard copies here and there, even if you do mostly digital.
-Websites & software mentioned in Sister Krahenbuhl's presentation: Blurb.com , a website for making photo books or publishing your blog in book form. Their downloadable software is called ‘Booksmart.’ Dropbox.com is a website that allows you to store and share digital photos, videos, and other files. Windows Movie Maker is a downloadable program that allow you to create, edit, and share home movies. (Note: we are not endorsing any of these sites or programs—they were mentioned in the presentation, and are examples of many types of resources available to you. There are plenty of other similar tools available. Use your best judgement.)
