Tips on Scrapbooking Your Family Tree

Ever since my fiance treated me to an Ancestry membership last Christmas, our family photos and findings have been shared amongst close ones on Facebook.

We've found it extremely fascinating,  discovered secrets, tragedies and long lost relatives also looking for the same goals which is history.

The saying "it's a gift that keeps on giving" couldn't be any truer.

And it is my Mum's 60th birthday today and this is what I've been working on for weeks.

It's a family tree scrapbook, featuring family photos, censuses, war documents, fact sheets from Ancestry, and births, deaths and marriages that I know my mum would love.

I'm sure she wouldn't deny me saying she's a very difficult woman to buy gifts for.  And she's incredibly nosy and likes to reminisce over old photographs.  So I couldn't think of a more perfect gift.

All it cost me was my time and some stationary supplies (below).  If you've talked yourself out of paying a Ancestry membership like I have in the past, it really has paid for itself.

All the ancestry documents are downloadable and think they make great gifts for framing and story building.

Another big help was the kindest of distant relatives who I discovered as we had the same people in our tree.

I'll be eternally grateful to the family members who emailed and posted me photographs, newspaper clippings and confirmed who's who.  Between us, we've been able to build a bigger picture and shared everything we have between us.

If you are interested in doing something similar,  then here's a few sites that have helped me:

• Freebmd - a free search for births, marriages & deaths
• Gro.gov - a free service to find maiden names before you order & pay for birth certificates etc. (Birth certificates can give you the address, father's name and profession).
• Ancestry.co.uk A two week free trial with Ancestry, giving you access to documents, other relatives' tree if not made private and a tree building app.
• A two week trial with FindMyPast (they have some exclusive documents.  *Why not stagger the trials to give you a month for research? 
• Facebook groups if you ask nicely.  You may be stuck on the 1939 census which is only exclusive to yearly paying members of FindMyPast.
• Google - searching for names and dates.  In my last Ancestry post, I found a young great Aunt had died in Sunderland's Victoria Disaster and found where she and many other children were buried.
• Google Maps - for finding old locations and printscreening.  Or searching for old maps.

I can't wait to see my mum's face when I give it to her this weekend to celebrate, but it's been extremely fascinating for me too.

I'll be eternally grateful to the family members I've never met, who have emailed and posted me photographs, newspaper clippings and confirmed who's who.  Between us, we've been able to build a bigger picture and shared everything we have between us.

Things I Used

• A Scrapbook
• Paper
• Ink
• Pritt stick
• Guillotine

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