Use eBay to enrich your family history (genealogy) without spending a dime... save digital copies of photographs to your computer from photos of postcards and old photographs shown on eBay and use the Favorite Search feature so you'll never miss out on items that come up pertaining to YOUR family history. A few inexpensive sites on eBay are mentioned that might be the keys you need to unlocking doors to the past.

First things first...

First let's define genealogy as the study of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or other older forms. Now let's define family history as the study of the history of a person, family, or group. Similar? You bet.

Where do you begin...

Where do you begin on your genealogy? Listen to your teacher, before becoming a professional genealogist i'd invested thousands of hours teaching others and volunteering to help advanced researchers. You begin with yourself by documenting when you were born, where it was, and who your parents were. Sounds easy but i've run into several cases where i've asked new researchers to document their parentage and they find out they were adopted and it had been kept a secret by their usually now deceased adoptive parents... so genealogy without documentation is a fantasy that might be true.

Next accumulate information on your immediate family before proceeding to your grandparents... much has been written on this elsewhere.

Documentation that costs you on eBay...

Would you be able to prove who you are by documentation? What you hand down to the next generation will help them know more about you, after all, who wants to be forgotten? Can you recite from memory the full names of your great-grandparents, what kind of people they were, their likes and dislikes, what personality each of them had, when they lived, and their employment? Do you want to be as forgotten to your great-grandchildren as your great-grandparents are to you? You can make a difference.

1900+ Fairbury, Postcard sent to Una Garber of Weston

It might not be too late for you to acquire documents, books, and other items that help to document your research... the 1940 US Census will be available in 2012; 1930 US Census; high school, college, and organization yearbooks; town histories, telephone books, autograph books, and maps are just some of the many items you can purchase on eBay.

The World War I Draft Registration Cards of 1917/1918 are in some cases available on eBay... all males 18-45 yrs of age had to register at one time or another and on the draft card you'll find his signature and other information about him, there were four different forms used so information varied. In my eBay Store are a few counties in Illinois and Texas where thousands of hours of time has gone into extracting names of all who registered in those counties... all of the names are on the eBay pages sooooo put in any name of a man over 18 who you knew lived in Livingston County, IL, in 1917/1918 in any eBay search box and a page for Livingston County will pop up... he'll be on the list in alphabetical order and a photocopy of the card is available for 99 cents.

For 99 cents a 'how to/where to' look question on family history (genealogy) can be asked of me through my eBay store with an item title of:

Family History Research~Genealogy~Ask 1 ?~ Get 1 Answer
Have you ever wanted to ask a professional a single ? Item number: 5675539971

Genealogy~Ask 1 ? 

Free stuff on eBay... the best things in life are free

Create a Favorite Search

You can do a search on eBay for a place you are interested in... by putting the name of a town and state in an eBay search box. If too many hits pop up then you might want to narrow your search, especially if it is a large city, by adding another word or two. Before you leave this search page on eBay look up near the top of the page on the right side and you'll need to click Favorite Search... just answer a few basic questions and you've now saved this as a Favorite Search so once a day you can get an e-mail telling you what new items that meet your search criteria have been added to the eBay site and are available for sale. If you have html in your e-mail you'll see a thumbnail photo of those items with gallery photos which saves you time.  You'll now have something you hope will be delivered to your e-mail box on a daily basis... smaller the town the fewer hits so you may not get any e-mail notification for days, weeks or months.

1915 Fairbury, Methodist Episcopal Church, color

Browsing selections

Now browse through the listings available on eBay and examine the photographs taken of the town to see which ones you wish you had in your collection of family history you'd like to pass down to future generations... old photographs and postcards are usually great for this because the most reliable sellers scan the photo to a very large size.  Please note that all of the photos displayed on this page are much larger but eBay has reduced the size and limited us to ten photographs.

1911 Fairbury, Main Street Looking West, color

Saving to file

Create a folder for each state and/or county you'd like to collect photographs about. When you find a photograph you'd like to add to your collection just save it to a file on your computer by either right clicking or using your Ctrl/c keys and the easiest way to organize your collection is by giving it an accurate title before you save it such as:

Date - Town - Brief Description - Color or Close Up

1911 Fairbury, Main Street Looking West, Color

The above item would be dropped into a sub folder made for Livingston County, in the folder for the State of Illinois. Don't worry about placing it in alphabetical order as your computer will do this for you.

1908 Fairbury, Methodist Episcopal Church, interior

Other family members

This doesn't have to be just all about you and where you lived, graduated from school... it can also be about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and more... just make a folder for each one of your ancestors you'd like to collect photographs of their town or area and repeat the above process of creating a new Favorite Search for each one of them.

1930+ Weston, Burning of Graves & Hurgurg's Elevator

Have an unusual surname or a common name in an unusual town? Best to make a favorite search for this as well... maybe something personal will come up that you'd like to copy or a unique item you'd like to buy and this will be the way to guarantee it doesn't pass you by. How many Rumplestiltskins do you think there are in Gobbler's Knob, Missouri? Easy to miss an item coming up for this one if you only saved your Favorite Search as:

Rumplestiltskin Gobbler's Knob Missouri

There could just be an item listed only as:

Rumplestiltskin Gobbler's Knob MO

Soooo do another Favorite Search using the state abbreviation.

It usually takes several months to build your collection and the fun of it is that you never know when someone you've been sharing with might surprize you and have a postcard or old photograph of someone you knew or are related to or a place that ties into your family history... a picture postcard of a restaurant a family member worked at taken about the same time of their employment?

1953+ Chenoa, Steve's Cafe

Start with an older or newer photo of the same place and when the ideal one finally comes along add it to your collection instead of replacing the first one you saved... also look for improving the ones you have as better ones might come along.  Never know when in your collecting you might run into someone who had family who was employed at that time and just maybe they have personal photographs you could trade with them?

Hoard it all and you might lose it all

Sharing what you have with relatives on a regular basis, not just once in a blue moon, ensures they'll not forget their ancestors, it reminds them you are collecting so when a treasure comes their way maybe they'll share with you. Sharing ensures preservation of your collection by sending copies to others you now can depend upon them as back ups in case something happens to your computer. Computers can fall asleep and forget to wake up... or catch fire like my monitor did one day... or have a crash of the hard drive?

Who hates to see this guide posted on eBay and will vote it a negative in an attempt to discourage you and others from reading it? Picture and postcard sellers on eBay are trying to get eBay to pull the plug on this guide... why? They expect you to pay them around $20-$80 per postcard and pasted below is the cleanest hate mail i've gotten:

''I found your review encourage people to steal photos off of ebay. I put up photos and post cards to sell not to have stolen . Just want to let you know that this is against ebay rules to steal images.''

Of course copying for personal use is not stealing an image, as federal law states that we have the right of 'fair use' which means we can copy in small and fair amounts for our personal use. Please take a moment to vote this guide in a positive fashion so others might be encouraged to use it... if you feel you have learned something worthwhile... the higher the points, the more likely others will open it up to read it.

Your questions, comments and observations are always welcome.

happy hunting,

DependableDennis