Around-the-door Family tree

Thinking again on how to use your space to make that family tree fit, and because I really feel we should always remember the ones whom we came from, I have given a look at my front door:

Every time we go out of our house we give a look at this wall, even if we don't realize it... Wouldn't it be cool if when we shut that door behind us the last memory is in fact one of the members of our family tree. What better way to help us remember to make our family proud that day?
Since the space is very little, I am "splitting" our family tree by  creating these 8x20 canvas prints:

Here is how that door wall could look:

Even better if I added canvases with pictures of our kids on top:

Or even on the sides:

How about adding our Family name on top:

Isn't it cute?

Really, there is no excuse not to have your family tree displayed in some creative way in your home.
We are who we came from, let's always remember it!

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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.

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6 generations typographic family tree

I have been having request about family trees with just names, so I have been getting ideas by looking around, and among a few ones, I really liked the simplicity and classy fee of the typography family chart by Jill Means design.
I decided to make my own version, and let me tell you, it does take quite some time to make it, but I am pretty satisfied of the result.
I used Photoshop elements, then made a JPEG page that I am going to upload on my website to have then printed. I could print it at home, but I really like the archival quality of the prints I get when ordering from Heritage Makers.This Family tree chart can be used as a baby gift, or birthday gift or for any other occasion, and allows you to list up to 6 generations:

This would look great on a 18x24 poster or canvas, but also a 16x20 canvas or 11x14 poster, or 5x7 announcement. 
This is how it would look for a girl:

Here is a possible wedding one:

It can be really made in any color.
If you don't have 6 generations yet, this chart can be brought down to a 5 or 4 generations on a 12x12 page or canvas or also a 20x20 or 18x18 canvas.

So, no need for pictures, you can have a beautiful 6, 5 or 4  generations family tree just like this ones! Just give me a shout if you want to know how!

Please note that due to the nature of names, this is a special project and needs to be adjusted according to the names length, thus I cannot really provide a easy to use template, so I will have to create it for you.

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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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Family tree wall

I have a wall in my house that has a big picture of the Colosseum on it, and while in some way it describes part of my children's heritage (mine), I really want to make that wall our family  Heritage wall, more specifically our Family tree wall.
While I wait for my husband and I to find the time to paint that wall, which will be when we will be painting the whole living room and kitchen, I have been scattering my brain.
First of all, this time I will not have a single tree with my kids as the root persons. I have that nicely framed on another wall in the house, but there is a problem: I made it when I only had 3 kids. Now I have 4, and who knows if the Lord will bless us with more.
I have come to realize that those kind of family tree displays are for families that are done having kids, or that don't mind creating a new display each time a new child enters their lives.

So, what to do, what to do...
My solution is to have a family tree for each of the parents and then have a picture for each of the kids hung under the 2 family trees. This way when a new child comes, a new picture can be added, and when the kids grow up, if wanted, their picture  can be substituted with their grown up ones.
When they get married and have kids, I can either add more pictures, or substitute with  their family picture. (Yeah, I am thinking waaayy ahead!^_^)
As a final touch, the family name can be added.
I am scattering my brain for different ways to assemble the whole project.
Here are the ideas I have been working on:
 
2  20x24 canvases, one for the family tree with me as the root person, one for the one with my husband as the other root person.
a 8x8 canvas with a picture for each of my kids(4) and a 20x8 canvas with our family name (optional).

Cost    as low as  $343  (with a Gold HM Club membership) plus shipping, might save 10% more if I publish when canvas publishing goes on sale in December
Should I want these framed the cost would go up
2 20x20  canvases,4 8x8 canvases and a  20x8 canvas with our family name (optional).

Cost:   as low as  $330   (with a Gold HM Club membership) plus shipping, might save 10% more if I publish when canvas publishing goes on sale in December
A smaller and much less expensive way would be:
2 11x14 posters , 4 8x8 pages, and enough 5x5 greeting cards or 5x7 invitations or 3x3 family folds to fill  with the letters of our family name.

Cost: as low as  $20 (with a Gold HM Club membership) plus shipping.
I could also use the 4x8 photo card for the letters of the last name,, making it even less expensive. 
These can be framed, or modge podged on tiles or wood to give them dimension.

Cost will depend on the sales I can find on frames and/ or coupons I can use.

It would almost be cute if I painted a tree or found something to stencil on the wall, like this:

Once we will finally have this in my house, I think my kids will love it too, because there will be big pictures of them (you know how when they are little it is all about them ) but then there is this big canvas with this family tree, and they will have more opportunities to hear about their ancestors since they will be constantly "looking" at them!
Now, which color should my wall be?

 

Decisions decisions...

Do you have a Heritage wall in your home?

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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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50 Questions Family History interview

I talked about one way to get started on your Family History by focusing on a special couple or generations, using the Heritage Calendar to remind you every month to focus on a new one.

If you lack of ideas on what to do to start writing about this people, and if they or somebody who knew them is still alive, you might find this 50 question list useful:

1. What is your full name? Why did your parents select this name for you? Did you have a nickname?


2. When and where were you born?


3. How did your family come to live there?


4. Were there other family members in the area? Who?


5. What was the house (apartment, farm, etc.) like? How many rooms? Bathrooms? Did it have electricity? Indoor plumbing? Telephones?


6. Were there any special items in the house that you remember?


7. What is your earliest childhood memory?


8. Describe the personalities of your family members.


9. What kind of games did you play growing up?


10. What was your favorite toy and why?


11. What was your favorite thing to do for fun (movies, beach, etc.)?


12. Did you have family chores? What were they? Which was your least favorite?


13. Did you receive an allowance? How much? Did you save your money or spend it?


14. What was school like for you as a child? What were your best and worst subjects? Where did you attend grade school? High school? College?


15. What school activities and sports did you participate in?


16. Do you remember any fads from your youth? Popular hairstyles? Clothes?


17. Who were your childhood heroes?


18. What were your favorite songs and music?


19. Did you have any pets? If so, what kind and what were their names?


20. What was your religion growing up? What church, if any, did you attend?


21. Were you ever mentioned in a newspaper?


22. Who were your friends when you were growing up?


23. What world events had the most impact on you while you were growing up? Did any of them personally affect your family?


24. Describe a typical family dinner. Did you all eat together as a family? Who did the cooking?


25. What were your favorite foods?


26. How were holidays (birthdays, Christmas, etc.) celebrated in your family? Did your family have special traditions?


27. How is the world today different from what it was like when you were a child?


28. Who was the oldest relative you remember as a child? What do you remember about them?


29. What do you know about your family surname?


30. Is there a naming tradition in your family, such as always giving the firstborn son the name of his paternal grandfather?


31. What stories have come down to you about your parents? Grandparents? More distant ancestors?


32. Are there any stories about famous or infamous relatives in your family?


33. Have any recipes been passed down to you from family members?


34. Are there any physical characteristics that run in your family?


35. Are there any special heirlooms, photos, bibles or other memorabilia that have been passed down in your family?


36. What was the full name of your spouse? Siblings? Parents?


37. When and how did you meet your spouse? What did you do on dates?


38. What was it like when you proposed (or were proposed to)? Where and when did it happen? How did you feel?


39. Where and when did you get married?


40. What memory stands out the most from your wedding day?


41. How would you describe your spouse? What do (did) you admire most about them?


42. What do you believe is the key to a successful marriage?


43. How did you find out your were going to be a parent for the first time?


44. Why did you choose your children's names?


45. What was your proudest moment as a parent?


46. What did your family enjoy doing together?


47. What was your profession and how did you choose it?


48. If you could have had any other profession what would it have been? Why wasn't it your first choice?


49. Of all the things you learned from your parents, which do you feel was the most valuable?
    What accomplishments were you the most proud of?

   50.  What is the one thing you most want people to remember about you?

This list is from genealogy.about.com

Calendar idea: Baby's first year

Calendars are very useful as they are, but they are even better when they have extra purpose. One cute idea is to use them to display your baby's 1st year. This way you can then frame the pictures after the year is gone, and/or preserve them in a scrapbook album.

 This could be used also to write down all of the baby's milestones, or for any other purpose you might think.
I have noticed that somebody has already had this idea , in fact they already submitted a template to the Template Gallery:

The colors really don't match my baby's personality, so I am making a total new one, which is also an 11x16 calendar.

As you can see the one I am creating for my baby is has the 3 generation page as cover, just so that even that can be framed!

Most of the pages I am creating completely from scratch, or like the cover, I am importing one of my previous projects and modifying it to fit the calendar pages.
For the month of March I have imported a project that seemed just perfect for the month and my baby, and this was the final result:

 I am loving going through my baby's first year pictures, he has grown so much!

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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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2012 Heritage Calendar

October is Family History month, and I am always looking for ways to help others(and myself) remember to put down their memories and/or find the stories about their family.
I talked about my idea for a Heritage calendar long time ago, but since I am creating a new one for 2012, I wanted to share this version with you.
The cover was inspired by my very colorful Family Tree:

The idea of the calendar is to inspire me to focus on collecting information about a specific couple or generation each month, so that by the end of the year there should be enough material to put together a 4 generations Family History Book.
On January I have all my children, which, by the way, on the cover are in the watering can as a symbol of their ability to give new life to the Family tree.

 February is for me and my husband (perfect, right?;).

 March is for their paternal grandparents.

 April for their  maternal grandparents.

May for their paternal great grandparents on their granddaddy's side.
June for their paternal great grandparents on their Nana's side.
July is for their maternal great grandparents on their nonno's side.
August is for their maternal great grandparents on their nonna's side.
The remaining months can be used to either display the 2nd great grandparents( 4 for each month), or to focus on uncle aunts and cousins (i.e.: September for uncle and aunts on dads side, October for uncle and aunts on mom's side, November for cousins on dad's side, December for cousins on mom's side.).

Once 2012 will be gone by, this calendar can be recycled by framing the picture part of each month  and hanging them on a special Heritage wall in your home. I would put the family tree(trim the bottom, where it has the title of the calendar)

in the center, the pages about the kids on the bottom with their parents on the side, maybe uncles and aunts and cousins further down and grand parents and great grandparents on the top, in a family tree manner. If you like you can purchase one of those cute vinyl wall family trees that you can find online, or if you feel up to it, you can paint your very own.

So, start creating this calendar, and even if you don't have all the pictures, that shouldn't stop you, it just means that this is a incentive for you to actually look for those pictures during 2012!

This calendar could be another way to entice your family members, whether their are immediate or long lost cousins, to share the info and picture that they have with you.
Who wouldn't want to be part of such a cute calendar and of a possibly even cuter Family History book?
It would also be a beautiful Christmas gift, especially for family members that don't really use the internet, to share your passion with them, and why not, plant the "genealogy seed" in their heart!

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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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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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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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