How to Create an Ancestor Wall

How to Create an Ancestor Wall

I love the blend of my family and my husband's family

 

This entry has nothing to so with cooking, but I'm expanding my blogging a bit and exploring some travel entries and other interests of mine.

I recently completed a project that took several months (hit or miss during my free time) and I wanted to share some tips with you. An 'Ancestor Wall' is a beautiful way to celebrate your family, your heritage and memories. 

My inspiration came from genealogy research and from finding a wonderful old photo album that belonged to my Grandmother in the back of my parent's closet. My father as a baby in cowboy boots and leather jacket? Yes, please! 

I actually had so many photos that I created an 'Ancestor Hallway' or a 'Spirit Tunnel' - do you know that phrase? A Spirit Tunnel is a line up of cheerleaders in two parallel lines and the sports players run through the middle while the cheerleaders yell and wave their pom poms to get everyone psyched up. 

I imagine my ancestors psyching me up as I walk through my hall in the morning on my way out. 'Go get em, Jana!', 'We're proud of you!'. 'Don't forget your lunch!' Haha. Things like that amuse me.

Here are some tips to creating a lovely 'Ancestor Wall' that might help you. Have fun and enjoy the process!

 

Top left: my husband's great Grandparents, great great Grandmother and great great great Grandfather. About 1880. Bottom left: my Grandfather's high school basketball team Mangum, Oklahoma Tigers. Middle: My Father in Law was a professional drummer. Top right: My Mom as a baby. Bottom right: My Dad as a little kid with cousins or friends and a desert sunset.

 

 

1) Location, Location, Location 

You can go nuts like me and do an entire hallway, you can do just a few photos in a niche or above a dresser or desk, or an entryway. If you're not sure and don't have something specific in mind, you may want to wait until you see how many pictures you have before you choose your spot.

Top left: My Father in Law plays the drums in a big fancy ballroom mid 1950s. Top right: BYU Cougars Track Team with my husband's Grandfather. About 1911. Bottom Left: My husband's Grandfather and Uncles. About 1925. Bottom Right: My parents leaving their wedding. 1958. Far Left: My 2nd Great Grandmother Cassandra. 1900. Far Right: My Great Grandmother Emma, who had 16 children.

2) Gather Pictures

Scour old family photo albums and dig deep. Call and email relatives. Remember, if you're going with an all black and white theme, that any photo can be turned black and white with the magic of photo shop. 

I found several photos of the great grandparents online at ancestry.com and findagrave.com . Ancestry.com is not free, but it might be worth it to you to get a free trial membership (or even pay for a few months) to look around and see what you can find here. 

If you have precious family photos you will want to scan them and have copies printed out to use in your frames. Sunlight can damage old photos and when you scan and have them printed, you can choose the size and edit the color, crop them, etc.  Protect those old pics. 

Ask family members for pics. Ask them to email the photos to you, as that will result in a better quality. However, don't get hung up on picture quality! I can't stress this enough. Some of mine are not high quality, but it adds to the historic feel of the pics and that's okay with me. Don't overlook editing, which is really easy with Photoshop Express. You can lighten, crop, tweak the color, etc. 

I ended up with so many pictures, but I just love them all and couldn't cut any more out and they ended up being just the right amount to achieve the look I was hoping for.

That's my cute flapper Grandmother on the top left. So sassy!

3) Style

 I went with simple black frames and white mats and black and white photos. Some of the pics that I had were a little too sepia or even in color, so I used photo shop to change them to black and white. Photoshop Express is a great app for your phone and it's inexpensive and easy to use. 

The black and white look works well in my house with my style. I wanted a clean, neat, art gallery look. I've seen some beautiful gallery walls that are made up of both black and white and color photos and frames of various types and sizes and shapes and it looks fantastic. Google 'Gallery Walls' for ideas and inspiration and find a style that speaks to you. 

 

My Dad as a baby in cowboy boots and leather jacket bottom right of the 4 large middle pics.

4) The Photos

Once you have decided which pics you want to use and what size you want them to be, you'll want to scan them and have them printed out. I used Walgreens Photo and did it all online. You can upload your photos and size them and choose matte or glossy finish. (I always choose matte finish for all of my photos) and they'll mail them right to you. Don't forget to look at the Walgreens website for photo coupon codes! This can save you as much as 50% when printing and that can really add up. If there is not a coupon code offered, wait until the next week and you can be pretty sure there will be one then. 

Not all photos can be blown up to the size that you want. Walgreens will give you a warning if it won't work. There was one photo that I had of my Mother in Law and her sister on a train that would take them to the ship when they emigrated from Germany to America. It's a great picture and I was sad that it wouldn't blow up to a larger size. 

I got creative and ended up using it in a larger frame and making a collage with the picture, a photo of the ship that they sailed on and a copy of the ship's manifest with their names on it as the background. It turned out great! I was lucky that the family had a copy of the manifest and I found the pic of the ship online. 

The bottom right pic is my Mother in Law and her sister on their way to America

 

5) The Frames

I went with Ikea frames because they are super affordable, simple black frames with white mats. I used the Ribba Frames from Ikea which come in several sizes and I like the clean look. There were a couple of pics that would not work in the Ribba frame sizes, so I used another type of frame from Ikea that still had that same black and white look and it all has a cohesive look.

Be sure to check, double check and triple check how many frame to order in each size. The Ikea website will tell you in the details of the frame - both the frame size and the mat opening size. The mat opening size is the size you need to look at.

They'll ship, too, if you're not near an Ikea or not up for a trip there. The frames I used came with mats, so that made it super easy. I still have nightmares of mat cutting from art school. 

If you decide to go with a variety of different frame styles, colors, sizes try thrift stores and garage sales for frames. Remember that frames and even mats can easily be spray painted any color you choose.

Far left: My husband's Grandmother holding his father. 1930.

6) Map it Out

This is probably the least exciting, but most important part. I had three walls in my hallway that I doing photo arrangements on, so I made scale models of the walls from cardboard and then I made scale models of the photos from paper and started mapping out how I wanted the groupings to look. 

SUPER IMPORTANT - you need to triple check that you have the right count of which of your pics are vertical and which are horizontal.

Be sure to include things that are on your wall that might cause issues like light switches, thermostats, etc. because you'll need to work around those items. Measure, measure, measure.

I even got as crazy as to buy some cheap gift wrapping paper and cut out the sizes of the frames and taped those to the wall because I was a little worried that the amount of pictures I was using was going to be too much.  

My Dad would have been so proud of me for doing that. 

If you're doing a smaller grouping, this step may be as simple as putting the pics in frames and laying it out on the floor or on your bed. I had 44 pictures. 

Two of my 'maps'

7) Showtime! 

 Once you have all of your pictures in your frames gather up the following items.

Stepladder (if needed)

Painters Tape

Level

Screws

Drill

Pencil

Museum Putty (more on that later) Order on Amazon $6 Museum Putty

A helper, if at all possible

My husband is DA BOMB with tools and measuring and he was my super hero during this step. With two of us working, it went fairly fast and once we got in a groove, it went even faster. 

We used painters tape to mark places on the wall and to mark the center of the frames. We kept the pictures as consistently separated by the same measurement from each other as possible and lined up and centered to create a neat, clean look. It took several afternoons to get these all hung, but that's okay. 

The Museum Putty is extremely helpful for this project and you'll find lots of things around your house to use it on. I use it to keep photos from moving on the wall, to keep candles in candlesticks from going wonky and to decorate my walls with little plastic spiders at Halloween. 

 

Spiders on wall attached with putty

 

 

When you hang pictures, place a couple of small (pea size or smaller) pieces of putty on the bottom two corners of the backside of the frame and press the frame against the wall to keep it from moving around. 

 

 8. Your Personal History Museum

Since I have such a large amount of photos from both my side of the family and from my husband's side, I created a little cheat sheet with info about each person and who they were, dates, etc. We had the first and largest wall completed at Christmas and my family loved looking at the pics and hearing about the people. It really creates a fun museum type space in your home and you'd be amazed at how much people love old pictures. Having a little extra info on hand makes it a more immersive experience like when you go to a museum and get a little back story from the docents. 

 

         Top: My 2nd Great Grandparents and 2nd Great Grand Uncle and Aunt 1900. Bottom: My Dad about 1933