I found my grandfather's photo on Ancestry.com!

The other day I was delving deeply into Ancestry.com to discover its hidden gems, and much to my surprise a photo of my grandfather turned up! His name was Ivan Waller, and he died at the age of 36, so I never knew him. Still, what a treat to see his photo from a 1926 yearbook from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

If you haven’t discovered Ancestry.com for researching your family tree, come on in and give it a try. It’s easy to use – you simply put your ancestor’s name in the search box and the program retrieves all kinds of documents. Census records through 1930 are included, as well as hundreds of books and databases. Ancestry is weighted heavily toward American, Canadian, and British genealogy, but other ethnic groups (such as my grandfather, who was Norwegian) are represented as well.

To find pictures, click on the ‘Photos & Maps’ tab before doing a search. The program has random yearbooks from around the country, historical postcards, photos of headstones, and family photo collections just to name a few. I discovered this photo area of Ancestry.com long after I had initially used it to find my ancestors. The photos won’t show up if you do a regular search under the ‘Historical Records’ tab, unfortunately. So make sure you choose the ‘Photos & Maps’ tab. I hope you have good luck like I did!