Close to Home: Creating a Firm Foundation

Firm Foundation, 2016 photo by Midge Frazel, outside my garage

Close to Home: Creating a Firm Foundation

For a few months now, I have been gathering documents and photos together without mentioning this process in any of my blogs. My birth, baptismal and marriage records are scanned, backed up and the originals put away. I am not going to write anymore about that step-by-step process except to report when I "go-over" the ones I have found are of interest to my readers. Just this step for a few generations is a lot of work. Do your own first.

Archived personal documents before they are put away, 2015

I purchased two CDs of Essential Forms from Family Tree Magazine's online shop and I have been looking them over and deciding which ones to use. Volume 2 contains PDFs of forms that you type directly in, save them with another name and archive them.  As the generations go back, I have less and less information but I knew that because when you apply to societies like DAR and Mayflower you need to submit this information to prove your lines. Of course, you know I have been taking gravestone photos since about 2001 and that adds to the vital records I submitted.

I did send for vital records that I didn't need at the time (like my 4th great grandmother's birth record and her marriage record). They are certified records but they are not camera copies of the town books. It was disappointing not to see real originals. If you have originals guard them well. As time goes on they will be hard to get and when you do it will be very expensive.

I will be typing information into this form as it is the easiest one to leave behind in a master book. I hope this will help me organize documents and see what I am missing.

Clip of Ancestor Timeline form, Family Tree Magazine, 2016.