design, make, and frame a family tree wall hanging

...Again

While I was in Seattle, I did not have the chance to interview anyone. But I did pick up some old diaries, and I found out that Mom is transcribing some letters from WW2.

This project will most likely be on hold for awhile while I focus on archiving materials from my childhood that I just brought back from the parents’ house.

As I was running today I thought a little more about the implementation of the family tree. I decided to fill in the interior of the trunk with facts and stats (the “structure” of the family.) This will include, as applicable: full name, DOB, DOD, siblings, education, line of work, places, lived, etc. Only the first name (or common nickname) will be written large (in calligraphy or print?) so as to be seen from across the room, the rest will be written in small brown print in slightly wavy lines to be like bark. The leaves will consist of various stories from that person’s life, or things they wrote (e.g. letters/diary entries) in small green print as described previously.

I still need to figure out how to separate one person’s details from the next. Perhaps I could use slightly different colors to represent different people (a subtlety that might get lost as the document ages) or I could draw in a “knot” in the tree trunk? This week I also need to come up with a specific list of questions to ask during my genealogy interviews with Mom, Dad, and Aunt E next weekend.

I’ve decided to do some interviews of family members to record their memories and come up with material for my family tree wall hanging. I’ll start with my parents when I visit them in September, since they’re the ones I feel most comfortable with. Then I’ll move on to DH’s parents, and then some other relatives on both sides of the family. I found some good resources on the internet for how to do the interview and what questions to ask. I plan to use my digital voice recorder to record the interviews.

I finally looked at the two files FIL had sent me a few months ago.

1. GFIL’s selected diary entries & letters home during WWII
2. Genealogy file in *.ged format

For #1, it was in wordpad format (supposedly) but it wouldn’t open properly in wordpad. I asked FIL if he could reformat it as a text file. If that doesn’t work, I can still kind of read the file, it’s just not easy. It looks like a really good source of material for my project.

For #2, I downloaded some free genealogy software to look at the file. It’s pretty standard family tree stuff – I don’t think I need most of it for my project. But it is good to have, for future reference. I uninstalled the software.

I’ve been working on this off and on for a few months now. I’ve been able to get most of the pictures I need, except from my in-laws. The format I’m planning to use was inspired by Pottery Barn – here’s the link: http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/sw9551/index.cfm?pkey=xsrd0m1%7C16%7C%7C%7C1%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7Cfamily%20tree&cm%5Fsrc=SCH

Only mine won’t cost $300. Picture should come next week, then I need to get to a craft store for the next step!

to my Dad to find out whether he’s made any progress on getting some of the genealogy materials I wanted. Slow progress, but that’s ok since I wasn’t planning on making the trees for a few months yet.

for awhile.

I have a lot of things going on in my personal development plan, so I won’t actually get around to making this until mid-year. But I will be doing some family research. This week I am supposed to be requesting from Dad and my FIL all the family genealogy materials I can get my hands on.

...it’s the poor man’s scanner.

It’s a little blurry, but I’ve attached the planning mock-up of the tree idea. The bottom left shows roughly how the tree looks with lines instead of individual leaves, and the top right shows what the line will look like when using writing. The picture is too blurry to see the writing itself, but you can see that it adds some interesting texture, and it really is quite legible in real life.

But didn’t really find what I was looking for. I only got one pen (brown) because I couldn’t find one in a shade of green that I liked. But browsing there gave me some ideas, and now I know what to look for. I’m going to order some stuff online (paper sampler, brushes) since it’ll be cheaper. Some stuff I’ll just have to buy in person, though.