I never thought of my parents as my ancestors until now. I have not documented places they lived nor years and places of study. I am aware of these places as they told stories about them and there are photos of some of them yet I treated my parent’s data differently from all my other ancestors.
As I started writing a summary of my father’s life to accompany a donation to the Polytechic school he attended, I realized that I did not have dates written down nor organized his documents and other proofs.
Well, then, there is only one thing to do, get started! I thought back to their stories and wrote where they were born, grew up and went to school. Then, I looked through the family papers and located cradle roll certificates, report cards and graduation notices to start filling in dates.
I had their college yearbooks and some of my father’s old school papers which allowed me to put specific dates on their college years. They got married in 1957.
Visuals
I organized this data in my family book format and searched for scanned photos that matched the time periods I had documented.
Getting exact addresses took a little more work and made me dive into my grandparent’s information. I know the name of the hospital where my maternal grandfather worked but could not remember the address of the house. Thankfully, I had documented my grandparent’s addresses.
Having these dates and places fixed in a central reference place helps put other information into context. Was my great grandmother referring to my mother's high school or college studies when she wrote that letter? Was that school paper my father wrote from Junior High or from Polytech?
I don’t want to reduce my parents to data yet I think that it should be the outline for all the wonderful and warming stories that we can leave our descendants about their ancestors!
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