Over the years I have enjoyed putting my printed photos in albums. However, when it came to the old black and white family heritage photos, I was stumped. I certainly did not want to scrapbook them as I did with my own photos; the stories behind my ancestors’ photos I felt were not mine to tell. I was hesitant about what to do.

I’d been handed down my grandmother’s albums and many black & white photos; I needed to find the best way to preserve these treasures. I was inspired by many genealogy scrapbook layouts I had seen depicting a single photo and telling the story on one page; I thought, “I can do that!”

Since I was already a FOREVER Artisan® user creating digital pages, the world of FOREVER quickly opened up to me. I learned how all of the programs integrate to make my memory-keeping come alive all in one place. This was pretty intriguing!

At first, I wondered why I would need a FOREVER® permanent cloud storage account. I already backed up my photos and my projects. But the reality is, no one is ever going to look at my back up drives but me! Paying for a storage account that is accessible to my family and easily sharable is a tremendous relief. As the family historian (dare I say genealogist!) I am thrilled to have these records online and not in a box that may never be seen.

BUT, back to my original thoughts on these treasures: are my ancestors’ stories mine to tell? Yes, in fact - they are. They’re part of mine, too.