Scrapbooking

Maybe you are done creating your family tree and you are now wondering how you can have even more fun with it. Well, there is such a thing as family tree scrap booking.

It's a scrapbook as you know it, but it contains bits and pieces, information that tells the story of your family. For many grown-ups who have completed family trees and are wondering how to get their sons&daughters into learning about their family and their family line, this is a perfect way. They will be learning invaluable history about from where they are descended, and they will also have lots of fun making a scrapbook.

What do you need?

1. A scrapbook or a big plain sheet of paper where you have a tree that you will add your scraps.

2. Some pictures of your family.

3. Some mementos, things that have been passed down the family over the years that you can fit into a scrapbook.

4. A creative and fun attitude.

When family tree scrap booking, decide on how many generations back you want to go, and your family tree can be a great guide for this. The farther back you go, the more information you will need so be prepared for that.

If you use a scrapbook, on each page you can represent a generation. If you use a big sheet, use the family tree as your guide. This is where the fun begins. A generation will have names and the years that the people were born, and you may have photographs, but you want to make a really rich scrapbook so you need to get creative here. Did your great, great, great, great, grandfather live in a castle? How about you try to recreate it from stories that you have heard or even pictures that you have seen? Your personal touch in recreating it will make your scrapbook look much richer.

Find whatever other mementos that you think can go into the scrapbook and put them in there. Make it so that the scrapbook tells the family's story but in very few words. You can add notes around pictures, images and names, but don't write so much that you clutter it up.

There are shops that sell little things that you can add to your scrapbook to make it look more lively. When choosing, so that you keep the theme of your scrapbook, choose 'antiquish' looking things. You can also choose little bits and bobs that help to tell the story of your family even better.

As many people have experienced with a scrapbook, it's a work in progress. You will always find that you have something more that you want to add!

You will find that having a scrapbook is a wonderful way of elaborating upon the information that is displayed on your family tree. So just keep adding to it and making it richer!

Have Fun!!!

You may want to create a family tree scrapbook. After all you will have put a lot of effort into gathering information, on you family. Most of the information you have collected will have been, or will soon be entered into a genealogy software program. But you will also have many original documents, and copies, photos, etc. In creating a family tree scrapbook you can use a three ring binder with pockets and sheet protectors, this will be very helpful in keeping these safe while allowing others to still enjoy what you have found. It would be wise to choose a binder or scrapbook that will hold more pages than you think you will need. Not filling it to capacity is better than not having enough space. You can create multiple family tree scrapbooks, if you have a lot of information, one for each family line, or one for each side of your family lines. Just keep it logical and orderly, with good documentation and clear labeling.

The main objective of family tree scrapbooking, is to preserve the details and documents of the past. One of the main things that can cause documents and photos to deteriorate is acid. All regular paper and tape contains acid. This will cause yellowing in a few short years even if they are kept dry and out of sunlight. Always use acid free everything! This is very important! Over time the acid in paper will leach into anything it comes in contact with, so if you are using acid free paper and a photo printed on acid free paper, but attach it with regular masking tape the acid from the tape will eventually leach into them both and cause yellowing.

When you begin putting together your scrapbook you will want to have an overall idea of the order you want it to progress. Generally starting with the oldest know patriarch or matriarch is a good idea, and continuing on through to the present. In organizing the layout keep the families grouped in sections of the scrapbook, for example starting with the oldest couple on your father's side, and present all the information in that family line down to the present. The next entry should start with the oldest couple on your mother's side of the family, proceeding down to the present. Also include a copy of you printed family tree, for reference in keeping things understandable.

A family tree scrapbook will need to document many different people over a much larger time span, than a personal scrapbook. Also it will help to present the main facts about a person on the first page. Such as birth, marriage and death, and on the following pages can you can go into the details if you have them. Such as writing out stories, youth photos etc. to give more depth and understanding about who the person really was.

Make sure that you label everything that is going into the scrapbook with as much information as you have, even if it seems obvious to you. Much of the information that you will be adding will be word of mouth, with no way to document it, that is okay just state that in your writing and include it. These memories are just as important as the ones you can document, and will add a great deal of realness to the scrapbook. These stories allow the reader to relate to their ancestors and create an emotional bond with them!