The holidays are always a very busy time of year, but in the spirit of giving I challenge each of you to find a little extra time this month to give something back to the genealogical community. Whether it is indexing genealogical records through a volunteer family history indexing project, taking a photo at your local cemetery, or answering an online genealogy query, such a simple act can help remind you what the holiday season is truly about.

It has been 68 years since the U.S. Pacific Fleet was attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, marking the entrance of the United States into World War II - a war that ultimately claimed more than 64 million lives.

If any of your relatives are still alive to tell their stories of WWII, be sure to talk to them now before it is too late. It was a long, painful time in world history and each person who lived through it has a very different story to tell. My grandfathers, both deceased, fought in WWII, as did my father-in-law (also deceased). One of my grandmothers told me her stories of living through WWII as a teenager in France, while the other has stories to tell about the rationing and war efforts in the United States. My mother-in-law has terrible stories to tell of living through the war in Germany and her escape from a concentration camp. Quite a lot of different perspectives on a war, that surprisingly aren't all that different from one another.

Take time over the upcoming holiday season to try and capture your relatives WWII memories - both the ones who served in the military, and the civilians who lived through the terrible times at home. Keep their memories alive so future generations don't forget!

With so many digitized copies of original source documents now available online, I've found one of the quickest ways to get my reticent relatives interested in discussing their family history is to take them online and start showing them what can be found. A 1930 census record of my paternal grandmother's family that I showed her online last year prompted at least an hour of stories about her siblings, the house they lived in, the neighbors, her Dad's job, and more!

Census records are obviously a good place to start with relatives, as they often end up fascinated besides themselves to see their name, or the names of their parents or grandparents listed along with details on occupation, children, etc. FamilySearch Record Search is a great place to check first as they have a large collection of free census images for viewing. Passenger lists are also popular for families with recent immigrant ancestors. Subscription Web site Ancestry.com offers an extensive collection of U.S. and U.K. passenger lists, as well as census records for the U.S., Canada and the U.K. A free trial offers you a chance to check out their offerings if you don't already have a subscription.

Newspaper articles, including marriage notices, obituaries, and a wealth of human interest stories, from school contests to trial proceedings, can also be a good way to spark the interest of people who "aren't into genealogy." You may want to do some initial searching for articles before you sit down in front of the computer with your relative, because full-text searching of newspapers can be a bit tedious at times and cause them to lose interest quickly... Many relatives find death certificates interesting as well...and they often include burial information so you can plan a road trip to the cemetery.

Whenever I discover ancestors living in a new city or town, one of the first things I like to do is dig up a few photos and some history of the place. While pictures of cities, towns and other places are easy to find on popular photo-sharing sites such as Flickr, the first place I usually turn to is Panoramio, a Web site that links millions of photos with the exact geographical location where they were taken. These photos are all uploaded by users, and I find it especially useful for locating photos of places near my chosen location which might not have otherwise turned up with a search for the city or town. Some of the uploaded photographs are even historical, such as this 1955 photo of my mother-in-law's home city of Berlichingen, Germany. You can also explore cemeteries in Panoramio, although the ones most often photographed are the famous ones like London's Highgate cemetery. I'll have to do something about uploading photos of some of those rural North Carolina cornfield cemeteries they are missing!

Photos from Panoramio can also be accessed from Google Maps. After typing in a place name in Google Maps, you will see a "More info about" button near the bottom of the left-hand navigation window. Click on the "more info about" button and you will be presented with a display of photos and videos that are geotagged for your chosen location, with images populated from the Panoramio Web site and videos from YouTube.

Happy exploring! Or maybe consider uploading a few photos of your own to help the next researcher to come along...