By Emma Stone
Camryn Tucker, a 21-year-old Louisiana Tech student and genealogist, inherited family heirlooms that date back to the 1860s.
Tucker came in possession of the heirlooms after her great-grandmother passed in May 2022.
“A few weeks after my great-grandma died, we began cleaning her house out. In her closet, I found these photo albums,” said Tucker. “When I opened them, I had no idea who these people were.”
Thankfully, Tucker’s great-grandma’s brother was still alive and living in the house. He was able to help name some of the family members pictured.
“I tried taking the photo album home, but my grandma would not let me,” said Tucker. “I was still curious, so I ended up going home and researching.”
From there, Tucker found a website, FamilySearch, and was able to start piecing together how she was related to those in the photo albums.
As her family continued to clean her great-grandmother’s estate, Tucker had collected many other boxes of family heirlooms. Each box held various items such as letters, immigration passports, pocket watches, social security cards and marriage licenses.
Tucker began working on scanning the items and photographs to create a website for her living family to see.
“My great-grandma has six living children, all of whom have families of their own that I am still very close with,” said Tucker. “I wanted my extended family to have easy access to the pictures and a place to compile my research.”
However, one of the hardest parts of the project is matching the photographed people to their names. Luckily, her great-great-grandmother did her own family research before she passed in 1992.
“Although I never met my great-great-grandmother, I feel very close to her whenever I read her notes and letters about our ancestors that she left behind,” said Tucker.
One original French document was from her great-great-great-great-grandfather’s military discharge from the French Army. With her little knowledge of French history, she joined Facebook groups that helped her identify the document.
“Facebook has some very niche groups when it comes to genealogy,” said Tucker. “The ones that I am in are beyond helpful when it comes to dating photos, translating and sharing artifacts with each other.”
To refollow the footsteps of her ancestors’ lives, Tucker has turned to newspapers to trace their movement even reaching out to archives to receive the original articles.
“Everything was published in the newspaper between the late 19th century and early 20th,” said Tucker. “It’s really easy to learn their life story if you know where they lived and can follow what they were doing through historical newspaper sites.”
Another branch of her family were prominent figures in Chicago, Illinois, so there was more documentation online and one of their houses has since been turned into a museum.
To pay it forward, Tucker goes to local cemeteries in Lincoln Parish and helps update gravestones on the popular genealogy app, Find a Grave.
“Family history isn’t interesting for everyone, especially among younger people,” said Tucker. “But I think it is so powerful to preserve your families’ stories and pass it on to future generations.”
