The Family Bible

I was going through my notes on genealogy yesterday and came across a reference to a family bible. I know that somewhere in my family one of the branches is the keeper of the family bible. I do know my family is not that branch. Is your branch, the keeper for your family?

The way you can find out is to ask your family. Now you may be wondering why it is important to know who is the keeper of the family bible. This is because in the family bible is where all of the births, marriages and deaths are listed for the family. If you have access to this bible then you will be able to use it to reference valuable material in you hunt for your ancestry.

It used to be when someone was married it would be listed in the family bible and then when that couple had children, their names, birthdate and place of birth would be listed. As families move further away from tradition and further away from each other geographically, it is harder to keep track of the children that have been born into the families, who is still married to whom and even who has died recently.

Part of your job as the family genealogist is to keep track of this information. The family will look to you to find out information on people in the family, i.e. how long ago did Uncle Henry die, or what was the name of Margaret's daughter. This is why it is important to keep clear and concise records. It is also important to do this to help the next generation of genealogy researchers, that way they don't have to redo the research you already did.

Happy Hunting
Patti