Help Your Ancestors Come to Life with Photos and Stories

July 2, 2013 By Steve Anderson

FamilySearch’s new photos and stories feature has been a resounding success since its introduction in April of this year. Since then, more than 350,000 photographs have been added to the FamilySearch website. Some of these photos have stories attached to them, while many other stories by themselves have been added. The excitement is spreading. Folks are having a great time posting old family pictures as well as more recent pictures and sharing the older images with extended family members.
I would like to introduce you to an  example of how one family has combined pictures and stories to make their ancestor’s history come alive. This is the FamilySearch photos and stories web page of Ephraim Knowlton Hanks. Ephraim Hanks is the subject of a popular new film titled Ephraim’s Rescue now showing in selected theaters throughout the western states.  Most of the photographs on Hanks’ page are accompanied by stories of true to life events that took place in Ephraim Hanks’ life. This page shows how a combination of photographs and stories can go far to make someone’s personal life story come to life.
Not everyone will have a lot of pictures to post or as many great stories to add to their pictures. But even a few pictures or a single story can do much to help bring an ancestor to life in the mind of a descendant.
So go ahead. Take a minute and visit Ephraim Hanks’ photos and stories page. Maybe it will inspire you to see what you can do to make your ancestor’s page come to life and inspire living descendants.