Recounting Family History

I visit lots of ancestry sites, and when I visited "Teach Me Genealogy" to get ideas for recording our family's stories, I saw this wonderful opening statement. I have to share the poem,  and I will share the web address at the end of this blog--it's a good one.

Yes, I'm at it again--creating little mini-books on our family's ancestors and putting them in a box. This oppressive Texas heat has me staying inside and returning to my crafts and writing. Most of my readers (I'm guessing since it's a "grandmothers' blog") are my age, and we're at a stage in our lives wherein we want to tell OUR stories and those of our parents and grandparents. Our children and grandchildren should know these stories. The way I've chosen to do it, is with little mini-books, but there are endless ways to record those stories. I plan to cover all the ways to do it in future blogs. Stay tuned.

​But I have to show you the old photo my husband found that so intrigued me. Take a look at this guy, my husband's Great-uncle Charlie. How can you not want to include him in a box or scrapbook of ancestor stories? Here he is:

Great-Uncle Charlie--I had to do a mini-book about him.

I'll admit, we didn't know much about him. But as we researched, two important facts came to light. He was able to purchase a car in 1917, and he died in the Great Pandemic of 1918. Now while that might not seem important to you, I realized I wanted my grandkids to read about that. They study the invention of the automobile in school, as well as the terrible world-wide pandemic of 1918. By recording Uncle Charlie's story, those wouldn't be just myriad facts in a history book. They actually had ancestors who died in that pandemic or lost loved ones. And buying a car in the early days of the automobile industry was no small feat. Uncle Charlie, who farmed in Oklahoma and Texas, was able to afford one.

Charlie in his roadster circa 1917.

By telling these stories, I want my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to know that their forebears quite often suffered through hardships and difficult times. And they made it! Children need to know they come from strong stock, and no matter their own difficulties, they can survive those things too. 

My box of ancestor stories and stories of grit. This is simply the format in which I chose to share our family's stories.

A peek inside the box of little six-page, 4 1/2x6 inch books.

I added Charlie's book with that great photograph.

A peek inside Charlie's book. It does include pages of the few facts we had on Charlie's life.

Lastly, my mini-books--the format I've chosen to record my stories and my ancestor stories. It works for me as quite often, I don't have a lot to tell about some of these people. I taught with a woman who would often include the item "Fun," in her rubric for an assigned project or piece of writing. I liked that. She tried to convey to her students that they should make it fun, make it eye-catching, include something to entice their readers to want to pick it up and read it. As I said, I liked that. I liked the idea of my grand kids going through my story box--such a fun concept. And choosing a mini-book that caught their eye! I've done a blog about these mini-books before, but here are some photos to recap. I've also included a youtube video with instructions on how to make these little books. If you're a grandmother looking for a new craft, these are quite fun!

A mini-book is made from a single sheet of 12x18 construction paper. No need to staple. Instructions in youtube video at the end of this blog.

I mostly included this photo, so that you could see it's really quite simple. More accurate steps in youtube video.

And those websites as promised:

​www.tmgenealogy.com

​www.gigisseasonings.com/blog/a-box-of-ancestor-stories​

​www.youtube.com/watch?v=21qi9ZcQVto