When writing an ancestor’s story, photographs provide me with textures, colors, props, clothing styles, hair styles, facial features, and apparent personalities that help my ancestors come to life on the page. Photos prevent histories from feeling stale and boring, so I *must* have visuals for every project that I write!

Just ask Maureen Taylor, the world-renowned Family History Photo Detective.

But when I can’t find photographs of a particular ancestor, I often have to get creative by inserting, instead, small images of ancestral signatures from records, photos/maps of the places they lived, or photographs of their gravestones to my family history narratives.

Imagine my excitement, then, when today I discovered one author whose ancestoir takes this strategy to an even more beautiful and visually appealing level: a photographic essay about ancestors on Narrative.ly:

Photo Essay about ancestors, by Tara Israel; posted on Narrative.ly

I thoroughly enjoyed reading *and* viewing it!! This delicate weaving past, present, and future together in one narrative is the reason I prefer ancestoir to straight-up memoir or biography. In short, I crave the best of both worlds–both the stories of the ancestors AND the people who discovered them!

So please take a moment to read/view Tara Israel’s stunning family history photo essay on Narrative.ly at this link: http://narrative.ly/family-ties/playing-telephone-with-history/ and consider how it might help inspire YOUR family history writing activities. Also, if you haven’t joined already, check out this month’s Family History Writing Challenge.