There's the grade school math book of my maternal grandmother that she signed her name in. The surname she used wasn't her own but that of a step-father. That signature reminds me to look for her in those few childhood years, under a different surname.
There's a postcard for a Reader's Digest subscription my great-grandmother send to my parents in the 1970s. Tucked away in a family history book and used as a bookmark, when I open the book, it falls out and provides me the address she was living at at the time of the gift.
And then there's the beautiful hand-painted china bowl, that was given to my great-grandmother on her 50th wedding anniversary that provides her date of marriage. It's beautiful but one side provides that date and my great-grandparent's names.
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| Photo by Gena Philibert-Ortega (c) 2017 |
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| Photo by Gena Philibert-Ortega (c) 2017 |
So, looking around your house, what do you have? May I suggest that you photograph and document those home sources? I wrote recently about being evacuated for a nearby fire and it was difficult because I couldn't take everything. If I had documented these treasures and stored that documentation in the cloud, I would have at least had a copy should everything that was left behind was destroyed. Also, some genealogically/heirloom items of importance won't seem important to my kids. Like the piece of soap my grandmother made as a young woman or the Holly Hobby quilt she made me as a young girl so documenting their importance is crucial.
Home sources are easily forgotten but help us document and tell the stories of our female ancestor's lives.
Resources
GenealogyBank Blog: Genealogy 101 Home Sources
GenealogyBank Blog: What Would You Take? Evacuating Your Genealogy in an Emergency
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