The holidays are a great time to catch up with family. You can share the research you’ve done and listen to the family stories that put the research in context.
Scan and share old photos.
You can show how family members and the holiday celebration has changed over the years. You can share photos of family members that everyone hasn’t seen in years.
This year I scanned slides my father had gotten from his father. Since my parents never had a slide projector, we never saw these images growing up. I used an adapter that we had for our older Epson scanner.
I then imported these files into Power Point and sorted by event and date as much as I could.
I was able to have these running in a repeating slide show this weekend at a family gathering.
Many of the younger generation had not seen these photos.
My Aunt was also able to add names that my Father hadn’t remembered.
I’ll add the photos and descriptions to a Google Drive folder so all my cousins can access them and we can add in a few more names.
Listen For Stories
My Dad and Uncle talked about when their father enlisted in the Navy in WWII and when Dad enlisted in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. Dad described being called to stand on top of the Armory at several points during the conflict. I had heard a little bit about this time, but now have more details to help me understand what was going on.
Another moment that I’ve though more about since this weekend was the story that my Uncle told. He said that his grandmother said that the Hays family dropped the “E” from Hayes when the family left Kentucky. I was maybe a little too quick to correct the story by saying that his grandmother had been from Tennessee, but his grandfather’s family had originally been from Maryland. Since I’ve had trouble tracing Hays before some land records in the 1840’s and 50’s in Washington County, Maryland. Maybe the Hays family were in Kentucky before Maryland and that is why I haven’t yet been able to connect them to other Hays families in Washington County, Maryland. Instead of discounting this story, due diligence says I should investigate and test this theory.
Share your research
When family members discuss names and relationships of the generations past, share the research you’ve done and how the names fit into your tree.
The stories we share and the new stories we create strengthen our families.