Heritage Album Project: Sorting Photos

 

Progress continues on my heritage album project! I'm making family history scrapbooks based on family trees I'm creating on Ancestry. (If you have an interest in family history, Ancestry is a terrific tool! It's easy to use and makes a wealth of information available at your fingertips.)

I've found that having a fleshed out family tree is a huge help in identifying and sorting photos, so that's where I've been spending time lately. 

At the moment, I've set aside the work on my dad's side of the family tree, mainly because I have a ton of very CURLY photos that I'm tying to flatten and identify. Since I took the Ancestry DNA test, I also recognized that I needed to fill out my mom's side of the tree in order to make the most of the test results, so it's time well spent.

I've read -- and it's TRUE -- that focusing on one line at a time is the best way to do family history research, working your way back through one generation before moving to the next. Otherwise it's very easy to get confused! 

Here you can see just my mom's side of the family. This is a "pedigree" chart which only shows direct ancestors: grandparents, great grandparents, etc. (no aunts and uncles are shown, although I do have many of them in the tree). For this one particular line, I've worked all the way back to my 5th great grandparents, with enough documentation to know it's accurate. The other lines are not quite that far along, but I've made good progress focusing on one family at a time.

 With my mom's side of the family tree fleshed out at least somewhat, I turned my attention back to a tub of photos I have for this side of the family. Before I knew all of these names, the photos made little sense to me. Now that I have names, I can easily match up the photos that are labeled with people in my tree. Of course, I still have plenty that aren't labeled and need to be identified. But it's not nearly as daunting as it once was!

 

  I sorted the "known" photos into family groups and made a folder for each married couple (my grandparents, great grandparents, 2nd great grandparents, etc.) and their children. These are just temporary folders which will be used to hold the photos until I can get them into the scrapbooks. I'll scrapbook one family/generation at a time using the information I've found on Ancestry and the photos in the folders.

 Each person in my tree has a "profile", and I'm working on fleshing out all of my grandparents' siblings and children (my aunts and uncles). So if I find a photo with a name written on the back, I can easily search my family tree using the mobile app on my phone, find the person, and drop the photo into the proper folder.

 In sorting through this large tub, I discovered that I have a LOT of photos I had no idea were there. I inherited all of these photos from my mom, my grandma, and my aunts, but I really didn't know what I had. I was delighted to find photos of some grandparents that I've never seen, and now that I have the tree sketched out, I finally understand who these people are and how I'm related to them.

An older relative recently gave me some of his notes and copies of labeled photos, many of which match up to originals I have in my tub. All of this is great information to confirm the family tree I've been putting together. Verifying information through multiple sources is the best/only way to research family history. Without multiple sources, you may find yourself climbing the wrong family tree and not even realize it!

I also have a few framed photos, including this one which is in a small fancy case. I have no idea who these people are but I am optimistic I can figure it out!

I also have a small photo album which is falling apart but includes lots of labeled photos. I don't recognize many of the names, so it will take some sleuthing to figure out who they are.

The great thing about having a family tree is that I can reference it as I look at these photos. 

 In the back of the album are a few very old tintype photos! I do not plan to remove any of these photos from the album at this point; if I want to include them in my scrapbook, I'll just make a copy.

 So once I finish sorting through this tub of photos, I'll put them all into the appropriate folders and then I'll be ready to add them to a brand new album for my mom's side of the family. Once the family tree is complete "enough", I'll print it and add it to the album to give the photos context.

Stay tuned to see the fruits of this labor, hopefully sooner than later! 😊

jp