Many of us have attics and basements filled with keepsakes of our family. We look at old photo albums and yearbooks and think we should try to organize all our family pictures and documents and put them in one place.

The older we become the more important our past and our family history becomes. We want to remember and treasure the knowledge we have and to learn more about our family.

As you sit amongst the rubble of your family memorabilia you start to ask yourself, "how can I possible put all this in some kind of order"?

What you need to do is begin a family tree

You will need charts and templates to help you know how to begin. They are easy to obtain from various websites.

You may not realize it yet, but you have chosen to take on the …show more content…
What kinds of family tree are you interested in doing. Many people want a very detailed record with dates and facts and names.

Others enjoy the stories that go along with each generation. Some may have been exaggerated over the years but are still fun to hear about.

Families tend to gossip, that is nothing new. Your job as family historian is to try to separate fact from fiction but still keep it interesting.

You will have to acquire quite a few skills in your new position. Just the complying of all the paper work and filing it, then filling out your charts and templates to keep all your information organized.

That is where sometimes is worth investing in a genealogy software program that can help you with all your research.

What ever kind you end up with is entirely up to you. You should decide from the beginning of how deep you want to dig and how far back you intend to go.

When it is completed, what form you want it to be in is another question. You can have it on book form, which is nice because you can leave it out for everyone to see.

Of course, in the electronic age we live in, you can make it on a DVD and send out to your relatives. You can add voice and music and make a mini