Why is Scrapbooking Important?

By:Judy Gail M.

Scrapbooking is important to me because I am a family historian. I have been doing genealogy for 25 years with my sister, Vicki (who lives in Paso Robles!).

I think it is important to not only take a lot of pictures in every day life but to journal them also. Our descendants can look at pictures all day long and not ever realize what the person was like, what they were doing, where they were doing it and when they were doing it. I look at old family pictures and feel horrible when I don't know who those old people were in those black and white photos.

So much of our family history is lost because we don't know who the person(s) in the photo were. I see old photos for sale on Ebay.com and know there are relatives out there that would pay a very high price to get their ancestors back into their lives, but don't even know they belong to them. Even the person selling the photos might be selling their own history without ever knowing it.

I am building the history of my family for the future generations. I am putting not only pictures but marriage licenses, Thank You notes, letters, marriage programs, death certificates and any other documents that I find pertaining to each person. I keep a copy of all those documents on the computer also to save for posterity. I am in the process of scanning pictures into the computer to save also.

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Necessary Respite, by Sonya W.