It is family reunion time! Take advantage of these reunions in order to gather information about your ancestors in creating memorable albums for all to enjoy. Here are some tips to help you get started or ways to capture the past that you may not have thought of.

1. Take a tape recorder and have your elderly relatives recount stories of when they were younger. You can then go home and type up one two of your favorite stories along side a picture of them now or of years ago.

2. Ask a relative if they would let you come and see their old photos of your ancestors and ask permission to take them to a copy center to make a copy of them. They might be a little apprehensive to give them to you so you might need to take them some where locally and bring them right back. Better yet they may have high quality print/copy machine. You could even take a picture of them with a digital camera and edit the picture if they will not let you take them.

3. Find out if anyone has a journal, letters or diary that you can copy or borrow. This is a great way to find out more about your ancestors.

4. Create a questionnaire for your family members to fill out. You can then create a book of these documents that will be fun for all to read to get to know each of them better. You could even plan ahead and have them bring a picture of their immediate family or individual pictures to put with each page. You could even make copies for those who would like one.

5. Have elderly relatives recount their fondest childhood memory on a journal page or just listen in to their "remember when" stories and take notes or use a tape recorder. This would be a great theme book as well. You could even send them a journal page to be filled out before they get to the reunion in order to give them more time to reflect.

There are so many fun ideas that would become a priceless part of your library. Try to think of your own ideas as well in order to take advantage of these precious family reunion times.