Fruits of their Love -AKA- Descendants book

When working on your family history it is only natural to start with what you know which is usually you, your parents, and when in luck, your grandparents.
Fact is, this is not all your immediate Family History. You are part of your grandparents family tree, you are part of the "History of their Future", and so are any of your siblings and their descendants and any of your cousins, their parents and their descendants.
It will have to come a point when you have all of these Family Histories together, because they are indeed part of your own.

I have decided to create a Descendant book for both my set of grandparents. Each descendant is indeed a Fruit of their Love, a fruit of the Santoriello and/or Iannone Family tree.
Since I am going to share it with my cousins in Italy, it is written in  Italian.
It is going to have a page with some genealogical info and some Family History, and a page with the family cluster for each descendant.
Here is how it is going to look:
Nonno Vincenzo Santoriello and Antonia Bottiglieri descendants book:

 "I Frutti del Loro Amore" in Italian means "The Fruits of their Love"

My dad's parents had 6 children, and sadly my grandma died of childbirth, together with her baby, hence I put an angel in place of the baby.

This is part of the page with some of the Family history/ wedding and kids birthday info.

Gerardo Iannone and Michelina Sannazzaro descendats book:

 

My mom's parents had 7 children, and 5 of them had 3 children each who also had an average of 2-3 children each. You can tell that this book is going to have quite a few pages!

 Thanks to the import feature I was able to make the pages for my parents and me and my siblings' family clusters only once in one book, and then import it in the other, since we are descendants of both sets of grandparents:

Naturally this is just a draft, but it gives you the idea.
Right now I am creating it in a softbound 8x8 book, but thanks to the new import feature, I will be able to transform it in any format I want:
8x8 hardcover book,
12x12 hard cover book
or if I want to add new family clusters as my younger cousins start getting married and having children, I could create a post bound album to then fill with 12x12 pages.
To make it more portable, I could make a 5x5 book out of it, or even a 5x5 flipbook or swatchbook(I would need more than one since they come only in 10 pages).
As you can see, I have options;)
The best part of these books, though, it is their purpose as a tool to help me entice my cousins and their families to share photos and info that I haven't been able to get yet, and that for sure I will not find in civil or parish records any time soon.
Here is how:

I created a facebook group for the descendants of my grandparents on my dad side, and one for the descendants of my grandparents on my mom's side.

I added any cousin I know on facebook from each line, and I shared a few pages of the book asking for help in finding the missing info.
In just a day, I got some info on my grandparents and a whole video full of pictures that my cousins made for their dad, which has all of his children and grand children. Not bad!
I still need more pictures and info, but I can already see that my idea is working!!!
Stay tuned if you are curious to know when I will have completed my grandparents' descendants books, and which one is going to be completed first.

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All because 2 people fell in love...

I am so grateful for my children, and I love them more than anything. I never cease to be amazed at how these sweet spirits that once weren't here on earth, are now here to bring joy and love in my life...
It is such a miracle!
All because one day (7 years ago) their daddy and I fell in love...
I am here because one day my mom and dad fell in love, and my husband is here because one day his mom and dad fell in love...
Same goes for his parents, grandparents and so on, as far as I know...
While I was reflecting on this simple and at the same time wonderful fact yesterday, I realized I need to make a swatch book to tell exactly how our family tree is a product of Love.
This is what came out of that little inspiration of mine:

 

And I have done the same for our parents and grandparents.

At the end I have put 2 diagrams, one starting from my husband, one starting from me, with our parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

  

And then I listed the dates of marriage of our great grandparents

  

You might have noticed that my diagram is missing  the pictures of 5 of my greatgrandparents...

This is literally killing me, and  I want to take the opportunity to ask, if ever any of the descendants of Giuseppe Bottiglieri and Genoveffa Santoriello from Salerno/Cava de' Tirreni , or the descendants of Antonio Iannone and Francesca Iannone from Mercato San Severino, or the descendants of Antonio Sannazzaro and Margherita Giliberti from Solofra will find themselves reading this blog, and have any family pictures, please, PLEASE, contact me and let me know!

This is the back of my "Family Love Tree" swatchbook:

 

I am probably going to do something like this with a 7x5 Storybook, and then use these kind of diagrams in an ongoing project of mine, a Family history storybook, which will contain much more detailed info about my family's love stories...
Another idea that came to me while creating this swatchbook was to make a huge poster with a family tree where I will then hang a swatchbook for each branch, with the story of their family...
I just can't wait to order this with all the other swatchbooks I am working on, and find it on my doorstep!
This will allow me to have my extended genealogy at hand everywhere I go, since it will be in my bag all the time!
I hope this will inspire some of you to look for the love stories in your family, and honor them by putting them together and preserving them for all the "branches of Love" that will sprout from the main tree...

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You can get a free Publishing account by signing up at http://www.preservemyheritage.com and start creating unlimited projects at once!
Love my Creative Genealogy templates and ideas? 

My HM club members can have their favorite template transferred to their account for personal use, or  can have it completely personalized by me for them  for a reasonable fee.

Want more for less? Check out our incredible host rewards and My Club HM!

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Tombstone Tuesday: Oreste Santoriello and family

One of the great things about cemeteries in Italy is that you will find pictures of the deceased on almost any tombstone, and this is true for my family's tomb.

My dad bought the piece of land in the Cava de' Tirreni cemetery(in Italy) and build it in 1963 to host his family members' remains. I consider it a blessing and I will always be grateful to him for the sacrifices he did to make this happen.

While I feel that my dad is always with me, going to the cemetery and offering a prayer in front of  these tombstones gives me an opportunity to feel even closer to them.

The picture of me and 2 of my boys on the tomb was taken in March 2008, which was the last time I was able to go to Italy. Even if you don't see it, my third born was there too, still floating in my belly.

I deeply desire to go back to Italy to visit my family and pay my respect to my ancestors, and I am working hard to make this happen as soon as possible.