Images of Ancestors for Your Family History Book

Have you watched a person look at a book for the first time? Most of us skip through the pages looking for illustrations before settling down to peruse the text. It’s even more true of  kids who are used to seeing an almost endless string of digital images.

Illustrate your family history book. One of the best things that recent trends in book publishing technology is that it has become relatively inexpensive to fully illustrate a book with scanned family photos, documents and artifacts. The photos allow your readers to meet the ancestors about whom you’re writing face-to-face. So dig out the family albums, or the box of photos in the garage and decide which one you want in your book.

Don’t have a box in the garage? There are some sources that may be able to help you find photos of your ancestors. Her are a few of the top old photo sites we like. Check them out, maybe you’ll find a great aunt smiling back from the screen.

• FamilyOldPhotos.com has a collection with photos for 36,500. You can search and post your own family photos to add to the collection. It’s searchable by surname.
• Dead Fred Genealogy Photo Archive is a similar site for sharing old photos which offers over 100,000 photos. Dead Fred also offers a surname search.
• Ancient Faces offers special collections like military photos, wedding photos and pictures of old family homes as well as search by surname.
• Your Past Connections promises to help you “…locate lost original items and memorabilia from your family’s past.” In addition to photos you can search for a variety of family documents and artifacts.

Have fun with your search and good luck!