PRESERVING FAMILY MEMORIES

The photos were calling out to me. Stashed unceremoniously in an old sweater box, they were as close as I would come to family treasure: wedding portraits of my parents and grandparents, sepia-toned baby pictures from a previous century, snapshots of holidays, vacations, and get-togethers long past. Here, in black-and-white and fading color, was the family history I'd intended, for years, to pass along to my now 15-year-old daughter, Lily -- preferably in something other than a cardboard box. But it wasn't until I'd reunited with long-lost cousins that the plan began to take shape.

The cousins had arrived for the holidays bearing photos of their own, with a request that I return them as soon as possible. But when I sat down with Lily to sort through the stack, we ended up doing more talking than sorting. Each picture, it turned out, had a story behind it. Some of them I knew intimately, others I had only hints of. Those stories, we decided, belonged in the album as much as the photos. So, bearing in mind that everyone in the family was a keeper of different pieces of our history, I hit upon a plan to scan the photographs, post them on the Internet, and invite our relatives to share their reminiscences.

Although that extra step complicated the process a bit (and required some trial and error on my part as I discovered the best approaches and most helpful Web sites, it also made it infinitely more rewarding -- and ultimately yielded an album that told our family story not just in pictures, but in a chorus of voices. As an unexpected bonus, the online posts became a kind of impromptu family reunion as I swapped memories with far-flung relatives and followed up on posted comments with phone calls and e-mails.

If, like us, you have a family story to tell but don't quite know how to put it together, here's a step-by-step plan) to help you get started.