Do you have some family heirlooms that you’re not willing to pass on just yet?  They might be a framed photo, grandma’s teaspoon collection, or grandpa’s war medals.   Most of us have some!  I have little pocket diaries from my Civil War ancestor, Tilton Eastman Smith, old photos, grandma’s china, grandma’s handmade ceramics, a quilt, ancestors’ [...]

Did you come home from Christmas with more family history memorabilia and now wonder what to do with it?  Or maybe you had it all along and still wonder what to do with it? If you walked around my mother’s home, each little shelf or corner is a vignette of things she has collected from [...]

No room for Mary being great with the Christ child to be born in Bethlehem.  That message from the first Christmas resonates for us today and reminds us to make room for others. Here’s an example:  When I was a teenager, my dad had been driving down a street when he spotted a homeless man huddled [...]

My dad flew a B-17 bomber during World War II.  The plane took so much gunfire and flak the crew had to bail out before it crashed.  Dad was captured by the Germans and spent 2 1/2 years in Stalag Luft III, home of the Great Escape. My dad is deceased now, so my family [...]

If you decorate a Christmas tree, you probably remember where or how you got each ornament.  For many of us, we choose Christmas ornaments for the memories they evoke, something we are interested in, or an occasion we want to remember.  How about putting family history ornaments on your tree?  Here’s some ideas: Purchase miniature [...]

Do you have a camera chip full of photos from the year?  I do.  Why not turn them into a photo album, OR create a DVD slideshow to be viewed on the television, OR file them on your desktop/laptop and set your screensaver to scroll through them? I have my desktop screensaver set to scroll [...]

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember a television show called, “This Is Your Life.”  It featured a different person each week and the things they had done.  Why not make a book of life for our loved ones?  When my children ranged from about eight to fourteen I decided to make them two things for [...]

One year Bruce and I traveled to Ireland for genealogy research.  We spent a day in Dublin, then headed west to County Galway.  My second-great grandmother, Sarah Mullin, was from Tuam.  Once in America, she married Thomas Francis Farrell, a tailor, son of Michael Farrell.  His naturalization papers say he is from County Galway, but [...]

Would you like to make Christmas less commercial, and more meaningful this year?  How about including some family history items in your gift list.  You probably don’t have time to make a family quilt or some other big project, but there are some things you can give or do to make this year a Family [...]

Do you have any unidentified photos you’ve inherited?  I think most of us do!  I received a photo album of about ten pictures with NOT ONE LABEL or FAMILY NAME in it.   This album came into my hands years ago.  I took each photo out of the album, looking for names, etc., but then I [...]