Do you know your family history or your family origin?
If you asked your parents where your grandma or your grandpa were born would they be able to tell you? If your child asked you about their family’s origin would you be able to tell them?
I became very interested in this topic after recently attending a memorial for a close family member. At the memorial several members of my family ask me questions about my dad’s family. I was asked if my father was still alive and if so where he was living, and other questions about his parents. Most of the questions I could not answer because my mom never shared with me details about my dad, his parents or my grandma and I never thought to ask until now. After the memorial, we decided to stay with my cousin overnight and drive home the next day and while sitting around the table talking with my niece she asked me if we could meet in two months for a weekend as a family to share family photos and put together photo albums for each of our families so we set a date for July 6th.
old photo album
When I arrived back home from our trip I was encouraged by the barrage of questions about my family’s heritage to research tools to help me learn more about where my family came from, where they are now and how long ago they came to the United States of America.
I had heard about websites like http://ancestry.com and http://myheritage.com but I did not want to pay a monthly subscription. I recently heard about a free family history program called Legacy from a customer of mine. She went on to tell me that it was the best program she found for documenting your family history, that it was very easy to use and if you wanted to add more features you paid a small price and the program was yours to own. So I decided to give Legacy a try and I have been very impressed with how much information I learned about my dad’s parents and their origin all the way back to the 1700s using the free version. As I learned about each family member I became more excited to continue learning realized the importance of creating my family tree and be sure to share my findings with our entire family and one day pass it down to my son, his wife and my two granddaughters.
Yesterday I was in the process of looking for information about my grandpa when remembered my brother in law had done a lot of research on my wife’s family so I asked him if he would do a little research for me on my grandpa and he sent me some photos of my grandpa and I immediately noticed a resemblance to my sister. I have decided to focus on one family member a week and eventually share it with my family in a couple of months.
What about your family tree? Do you have one to pass on to your children? I read a great article on how family stories shape our identity at https://www.familysearch.org.
Family stories help us establish our core identity, increase empathy, and testify of truth. Share your heritage with your children and encourage them to pass it on to their kids.
You can read about the Legacy program at https://legacyfamilytree.com/
You can find templates like the one below for your family tree at family-tree-template
Leave me a comment about your family history.
Mike