Late in December 2025, I came across a reel from Family Tree Notebooks. She (Carly) has designed a template for a Family Tree Book that I just loved!! It re-ignited my longstanding interest in my own genealogy as it provides a beautiful way to document family histories. Also, I have inherited family photos (and many documents) both from my own family as well as Mark’s.

So over the holidays, I started gathering photos and set up templates to create my own Family Tree Notebook. This process is going to be ongoing over the next several years, but I’ve already made huge progress in sorting through and digitizing many of the older photos that I have here.

What I will end up with is a book for Alex that goes back 4 (or 5) generations, a separate book of raw data, and a directory of digitized photos and relevant documents, sorted by ancestor. I have also created a website to temporarily hold information as I gather it. For those of you who want more details, they can be found here. Family Tree Website

This process has been nostalgic, recalling a lot of memories of my growing up years and thinking about my Dad. He was also very interested in genealogy and collected books and records that I am now referring to. He would have loved the progress being made on documenting our family history. (He’s been gone 5 years now. I miss him).

Is there a history-keeper in your family? How important is it to you to preserve documents, photos and stories of your past?