I wasn’t sure what to get my only nephew as a wedding gift. You see, he and his fiancée were well established and his house had everything they needed. So I had an idea. How about getting an electronic photo frame with scanned photos of your life and his family over the years? We could even add music to it.

When my mother died, I was left with several boxes of photos and it was always my plan to go through and sort through them, but until this summer that had never happened.

Because the school term was over, I thought maybe my fourteen-year-old grandson could help and was anxious. We agreed that he would come stay with me for a week to do this project. Little did I realize that what had previously been a daunting task would have haphazard results that would hurt many people:

1. A state of organization for me. – I had to go through literally thousands of photos to find the ones of my nephew’s gift. First, I placed several boxes on the dining room table, each with a sticky note naming a specific family group. I had a box for the time before my parents got married, one for my growing up years, one for each of my children after they left home, and one for my life after they left. I also had a box for extended family, one for friends, and one for miscellaneous photos. The piles got smaller as I shredded those photos that were poor quality, unflattering, or duplicates. Even destroying all the old negatives gave a sense of accomplishment! When I was done, there were only a few boxes and each had a theme.
2. Recognition of Justin’s abilities – It was amazing to watch Justin create folders on the computer and then quickly scan and save each photo to the appropriate place on the hard drive. I am so thankful that he was able to do what I definitely did not have the ability to try.
3. Time to share our story – It was fun telling stories and answering Justin’s questions about our roots. As we worked together, he began to better understand his heritage and to know which individuals belonged to each branch of the family tree. He also really enjoyed looking at photos and hearing stories about his father’s childhood!
4. Opportunity to enhance memories. – Because all the photos were saved on the computer, I didn’t need to keep the originals. Therefore, we separate those of extended family members in plastic bags. Taking them to the wedding was a fun way to give photos new homes and spark interesting conversations!
5. building our tree – For the last three years I have been doing genealogy with computer software and now I have almost 5,000 in my family tree. I knew I had many photos and documents that I could add to the tree, but they had been lost in the chaos of photography. Now I have them all sorted and can add them to the tree.
6. leaving a legacy – Many times over the years my children and grandchildren have asked for information about our family and history. My plan now is to buy and give each of my children an external hard drive loaded with family tree and photo memorabilia.
7. Retrench of space – There are still photos that I want to keep in their printed format, but the amount of physical space we have saved is remarkable!
8. Creating a unique gift – I know that Kyle will be delighted to receive the beautiful wedding gift that we have created. (And we don’t have to worry about it being a duplicate!)
9. Add to Justin’s bank account – I paid Justin the same salary that he had at his part-time job. He was delighted and I got a real bargain!
10. Have a new way to cheer you up – Each of us has a story to tell. The sad thing is that if we don’t say it, people might make things up about us. Organizing your photos and preparing your family tree is the best possible legacy that you can leave to those who follow you as it helps them with their identity.

Someone once asked me if I was doing my family tree to see if I was related to royalty or famous people. My answer was “No. I’m looking for people of character who can inspire me!”

Perhaps today is the day to start your search for people of character who will inspire you and provide a sense of identity to your descendants!