Tracing your family tree is an increasingly popular pastime. It is fascinating to see all those names on paper, but they are really brought to life by photographs, and many of us have 19th or 20th century photos of family members.

These might be faded, scratched and in a poor state of repair and could continue to deteriorate over time without careful handling and storage. But whatever their condition, with the latest technology they can be enhanced and transformed into pictures that you will be proud to display in your home.

A photograph can be scanned onto a computer, improvements made to the image, and then saved in .jpg or other format. Then you can add the picture to your family tree, either on you computer or by printing it out. From your computer you can email the picture to other family members of course. It is easy to create a whole website about your family tree with your old photos as an important feature, and it will cost you nothing. Just do an internet search on ‘free website’ and see what comes up.

It is also possible to subscribe to family history websites that have templates to make it easy for you to display your whole family tree, with photographs where appropriate. You might even like to put historic photos next to pictures of present-day family members to show how the likeness has been passed down the generations!

In bygone days it was fashionable to have a portrait painted and in many stately homes you can see the family history of past occupants proudly displayed on the walls. You could do something like this yourself, even if you don’t live in a stately home!

One or two of your favourite family tree photographs can be made into painting-style pictures, printed on canvas, that really do have the appearance of painted portraits. These can be made in a number of different sizes, depending on the size of your castle, semi or bungalow, and even small and inexpensive enough to make good presents for birthdays or Christmas.

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