Creating a Family History Wall

Way back in April, I wrote a blog post detailing a 'vision' I had for decorating one large wall in our home.  I wanted to use maps, books, postcards, and other small pieces of artwork to tell the visual and geographic story of my and my husband's families, from their origins in Europe all the way up to the places where I and my husband grew up.  It took several months, but my vision is more or less complete, and I'm so happy with the results that I wanted to share it with everyone, in the hopes that you may be inspired to do something similar in your home.

As I mentioned in my April post, I started buying maps and postcards off of websites like as eBay and Etsy.  I also found a couple of books and small pieces of artwork that help to tell our family's story. (Tip: Don't limit yourself to U.S. sellers only; I found many unique postcards and maps through international sellers.)  Once I felt that I had a good representation of the various branches of our family tree, I looked into ways in which I could frame these items.  I visited a local custom framing shop in town.  Let's just say that their prices were WAY out of my budget.  My heart sank; I thought my project was over.  I started looking around online and found an Ohio-based company called American Frame.  Their easy-to-use website takes you step-by-step through the process of measuring and ordering custom mats and frames.  Oh, and did I mention that their frames and mats were affordable?  My project was back on track!   

Here are some of the custom frames I ordered from American Frame.  The photos do not do them justice, and there is some glare from the camera and nearby window.  When choosing frames for each individual piece, I decided to go with a frame/mat that matched that ONE piece of artwork.  In other words, I didn't try to "match" frames with each other, which the 'designer' at the custom framing shop was pushing me to do.  I love the variety that resulted, and, as you'll see later, I think it gives the display as a whole a lot of personality. (Click on image for larger view.)

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German map of the Balkan states in brown wood carved frame.

19th c. map of Polish Galicia in silver wood frame with blue mat.

Map of Italy in blue wood frame.

Map of Alsace-Lorraine in black carved wood frame and red mat.

Map of NYC harbor in a smooth charcoal black wood frame.

Map of immigrant ship routes in green wood frame.

Not all of my frames were custom-ordered at American Frame; I bought a lot of the postcard frames at Wal-mart.  I used self-adhesive photo corners to mount the postcards on scrapbook paper.

Two vintage Cleveland postcards in 8x10 Wal-Mart frame.

Postcard of husband's home church in 5x7 Wal-Mart frame.

I knew that I wanted to display the framed maps and artwork on ledges, instead of hanging each frame individually.  I wanted 4-6 larger shelves which I would arrange in two rows.  The ledges HAD to have a forward 'lip' on them so that I could rest the frames on the shelf and not worry about them sliding off.  I started looking around in some of the major home decorating chain stores and again I found that these shelves could possibly break my budget.  And again, I took to the Internet and found a website called Exposures.  The have a great selection of wooden and metal shelves and ledges in popular colors/finishes, and, if you sign up for their email list, they send you lots of coupons.   Because I didn't want the shelves to be the focal point of the display, I purchased them in the white finish, which would blend in with our neutral walls and white molding.  In hindsight, I probably should have purchased their 'extra-deep' shelves, because that would have given me a little more room on which to rest the frames - luckily, I didn't order any frames that were too deep, so the normal depth shelves ended up working fine for me.

Here is a photo of the entire display.  Many thanks to my husband for hanging the shelves.  I did not originally intend for the old sewing machine to become part of the display, but it works, especially since two of my great-grandmothers were pretty good seamstresses.  I actually think it would be cool to add a few smaller items to represent some of the occupations of some of our ancestors - maybe a plumbing pipe/valve for my grandpa, and a small blacksmith tool and toy tractor for my husband's ancestors. 

View of entire family history wall.

Here are a few close-ups of some of the other items on the ledges:

Postcard of hospital, book about my hometown, and vintage letterpress 'B' representing my Grandpa Bellan, who worked in printing.

Immigration ledge with books and vintage postcard of steamship in NYC harbor.

Map of my mother-in-law's home county and authentic 1949 Ohio license plate (year of birth for my husband's parents, both born in Ohio.)

German book about Lauterecken, Germany, one of my husband's ancestral villages.

Originally, I had thought that I might like to paint the words 'Our Family's Journey' on the wall somewhere at the top of the display.  Now, I'm not sure if I still want to try that, or if I will just leave it alone and let the maps speak for themselves.  Either way, the whole thing makes me smile when I pass it by, and I can't wait until my kids are old enough to wonder "Why is that map there?" or "What is that book about?"  And now I can show friends and family members what I've learned through my genealogy research WITHOUT pulling out a binder full of death certificates and census records, which would undoubtedly put most of them to sleep.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the process of creating a genealogy history wall. I'd be happy to talk about it!

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder