WDYTYA? Magazine editor Sarah Williams shares a dozen ideas to keep you busy across the Christmas and New Year period, and ensure you get more from your family history in 2024
ARRANGE A FAMILY GET-TOGETHER
I recently celebrated my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, and it was lovely having all of my cousins and their children together in one place. If you don’t have a similar family event coming up, make your own.
Is there an anniversary of one of your ancestors that deserves celebrating? Why not throw a party for all the descendants of a particular couple? Create a Facebook
Group in advance (see page 15) so that people can share any family photos they have, and you can display your research and pictures at the event.
Organising a family
get-together can feel quite daunting, but the effort really pays off and you can share the organising with others. What better way to create memories and strengthen family bonds. Family history is about family after all.
MAKE A CARD
Most family historians have a stash of old photographic prints tucked away somewhere
(for advice on how to look after them, see Helen Dawkins’ article on our website:
tinyurl.com/wdytya
-preserve-photos).
Keeping them in the dark may be good for their longevity, but it seems a shame not to share them. Of course, there are lots of ways to share photographs digitally and it’s good practice to digitise and label all your family pictures, but I love the idea of turning one into a card – and choosing which photo to use makes you look at them with a fresh eye.
You can go for an image that is aesthetically pleasing or fun, or you can focus on one that tells a story.
There are plenty of companies that let you upload your photo to a card template, and many let you add text inside the card or on the back. You can usually adjust the suggested boxes as
well, so you have space to write a biography of the depicted person on the back of the
card. Companies such as Photobox (photobox.co.uk) and Snapfish (snapfish.co.uk) offer lots of designed templates if you want to give your cards a festive feel. However, it’s worth shopping around because print companies often have special deals running.
VISIT AN ANCESTRAL SITE
Make 2024 the year when you visit an area connected to your family history that you haven’t visited before. We all have places where our family filled the local parish register with th
