Marriage certificates,wedding invitations, CLAN REUNION ATTENDANCE BOOKs & marriage announcements

There are a few documents that you may have at home that can help you with your search, that you wouldn’t think would be important in your Genealogical Search.

A good example of this would be a marriage certificate . Marriage Certificates as they give you the

Brides Maiden name

Grooms Name

The person who performed the marriage

and the parties invited ( usually parents, siblings, maybe children )

When someone passes you will want to look and save the ” funeral or mass card ” this may be able to give you a date of Birth, date of death and place of both.

Have you ever opened a box and found old photos, a Diary or Journal kept by your family member?!? Well dont forget to keep or ask about them if someone in the family still has them. These are a list of facts documented by previous family members and usually name family members and include information about their births, marriages, and deaths. Letters written from one family member to another can also have information about family births, deaths, weddings, christenings and things of that nature.. so save all your letters!!!!!

A Newspaper clipping is a great resource to have. Sometimes you have to watch as a name may be misspelled, but they information that is collected is usual factual and are a great collection of

obituaries

birth and marriage announcements

and other articles about older generations of your family.

Photographs are, of course, valuable family heirlooms. On the backs of some photographs you may find the name of the person in the photograph with other identifying information. The name and location of the photographer may suggest where you should look for vital records.

The Clan Reunion Attendance Books are great as everyone that is attending will state their names,where they live and who is their ancestor, so others will have the chance to get to know their other family members. A Comittee Secretary who is inattendance will input the information into the record. A few years ago my relatives attended and the information from the registry attendance book helped us to make better family connections. There was an article in the local newspaper about our clan attendance and we were really surprised to find out that there were more than 1000 people who attended.

Please involve younger children say from the age of 3 to visit and have their photo’s taken with their Gran or Pop, this helps them to have strong family ties. It would make their eyes shine and light up if there was a photo taken of their special day, when Gran walks into the dining room brandishing a mouthwatering birthday cake which you helped her make. Being close to family and staying close is very important.

I would suggest persuading the childen to make up collages or do up a family scrapbook that they could present to a loved one for a special occassion. This could involve little notes of love and special comments that would be memorable for the times that they had spent with their grandparents etc., Doing up a this is your life book is also a great thing to do for when the older generation are near the end of their years. Memories of good times should outweigh those of bad.

Conducting an interview into the life of an old aunt or great uncle who is still alive, also screams bonus points when they are interviewed by a younger person that they love. Showing interest into their previous and current lives and being genuine and sincere about it will make all that attempt to do it surprised at the outcome.