It's time for this week's Ancestry Quick Tip Jamboree! Thanks to everyone who has sent in a Quick Tip. Please keep them coming so that we can keep this tradition going. You can send your tips to ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Daily News and Ancestry Weekly Digest, please state so clearly in your message.

Have a great day!

Juliana

Family Pictures

My children (in their 40's) show about the same amount of interest in our family's genealogy that I did when I was their age--polite, but eager to get on with other things.

I have found a way to painlessly distribute some of their heritage to them. I scan and convert old-time family pictures to the .jpeg format to include them into my family tree. (This can also be accomplished with any digital camera with a macro lens.)

I also make heirloom-style note cards using the photos. First, I do my best to remove any bad blemishes and restore them with a photo manipulation program. Then I adjust the size, if necessary, to take up 1/4 of a good matte finish 8 1/2" x 11" photo paper and position them in the upper right hand corner. The next picture or print is made on the diagonal corner by reinserting the paper upside-down in the printer thus making two cards from each sheet of paper. The identity of the person or object in the picture and the approximate date the photo was taken is then printed in place of a logo.

To finish up, I carefully cut the paper's length in half and then fold each half to a finished size of 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" for which envelopes can easily be found.

My wife and I limit the use of these cards to relatives and always mention the relationship of the person in the photograph to the recipient in the context of our letter. Our children, grandchildren, and other relatives seem pleased with them and the amount of background each represents. These cards frequently, albeit briefly, whet their interest in our family history.

George Collier

Memories Revive Communication

A recent tip reminded us to “Record Those Memories”. My mother and I lived about a thousand miles apart in her later years and we could not visit as often as we liked. We never seemed to have enough to write about either. All I got was “everything is fine, wish you were here.”

One day after I started working on my family history, I suggested to my mother that she write and tell me all she could remember from the earliest time forward. After that I received a letter from her at least once a week (for about three years before she got Alzheimer's). She reminisced about her school years, early married years, and even about my brother and I when we were young. She described my grandfather (who died when I was six) and told about what they did, places they lived, and even about the foods they grew and ate.

She also wrote about families of my aunts, uncles, and other relatives, some I had never heard about except by name. She gave me names, dates, and places. When she did not know, she wrote to relatives and got the information for me. She told me in one letter that she was "coming alive again by remembering everything."

Her brothers and sisters thanked me for suggesting this as they had not been hearing from her either. They started calling and writing with other information on their families.

I had hit the right button. I learned a lot that I had not known before and I feel like I made my mother's life happier than she had been since we were apart.

Joyce

Visit Cemetery Offices

When visiting a cemetery check to see if they have an office. Some cemeteries have excellent maps and after looking up your ancestor's burial place, they will mark the site on the map. I found one that will even tell you who is buried nearby, which makes it easier to find the one you are looking for.

Ann Dodds