Family Stories Month - Memory Keeping

 

I am so fortunate to belong to a family that believes in capturing memories. My dad had a old Brownie camera and then went state of the art when he was gifted a Polaroid Land Camera for Christmas one year. My uncle was the “videographer” although we didn’t call it that back then. He simply took the home movies.

 

My cousin and I were avid photographers. Not in any sort of professional sense. But when it came to capturing glimpses of family gatherings, special events or vacations, we could certainly be counted on to be the ones behind the camera. So could one of my aunts.

My cousin and I kept our photos in photo albums. I always wrote a bit about the photos so that anyone who was looking through the albums could tell what was happening then the photos were taken. We didn’t always document who was in the photos, but fortunately, between us, we have been able to identify almost everyone.

I had shelves and shelves of albums. So did my cousin. Most of my photos have since been scanned. My cousin still has her albums, but has allowed me to scan hundreds of photos to share with other family members. 

When my children were young, I turned to traditional scrapbooking. I had dozens of large, heavy albums detailing our vacations. And I have dozens of traditional photo albums of our daughter. My husband bought me a digital camera for Christmas the year our son was born. Few of those photos made it to albums, but are safely tucked in digital albums and stored in the cloud. I am in the process of creating photobooks using those photos.

 

My husband inherited his dad’s video camera when our daughter was young so we also have at least a dozen videos of our kids. While those are also safely stored, they need to be edited so that they are easier to watch and the kids aren’t sitting through feature length films in order to enjoy the memories of their childhoods. 

About 8 years ago, I moved from the traditional scrapbook to digital photobooks and have actually started having my traditional scrapbook pages digitized so that they can be recreated as photo books.

As the family historian I have been blessed to be charged with being the family’s memory keeper. I work to preserve the memories and making them available to future generations so that they may know our stories and perhaps incorporate some of our values and traditions into their lives.

MyHeritage Colourization Tool - GAME CHANGER

In what is probably the biggest genealogical breakthrough since DNA, MyHeritage announced yesterday, their new Colorization Tool, MyHeritage in Color

As the keeper of the family memories, I have hundreds of photos. The tool is quick and easy to use and I must say the transformation from black and white to "living colour" is impactful. It hits you right in the feels. 

MyHeritage allows you to play with the program for free. On about 10-12 photos. Then you are taken to a payment page to subscribe. The subscription that allows unlimited colorization is the Premium Plus Complete Plan which was $269 cad. 

You can upload photos one at a time while in the MyHeritage in Color tool or you can upload several at a time to your photo album and then colourize them from there. The original B&W is retained. You can share your "new" photos on social media, copy a link to email the album or download individually to your computer. I found that on the first night, I was also limited in the number I could download and that was quite frustrating. The only way I could get them to my computer was to view the full image and "save as". The problem with that was they were all in JFIF format. None were shareable. I had to then download an extension to Chrome, email them to myself and then they were all automatically converted to JPEG upon download. Very cumbersome. However, that may have been a result of overuse of the site because today, there was no problem saving the photos directly from the colourization tool. And all in JPEG. 

The tool still needs some tweaking. It doesn't work well with blue and red, often giving a grey or mottled colour pattern, as seen on my dad's shirt. I can guarantee my dad never owned a camouflage shirt! 

Similarly, it appears colour blind between green and red, in one case turning a green and white striped shirt to red and white. And it doesn't recognize environmental factors such as shade/shadowing, as is seen here in my grandpa's seemingly diseased arm which is in fact in the shade. 

That said, these glitches are not enough for me not to recommend the tool. It is fun, addictive and very much a game changer when it comes to preserving family memories. As my cousin said, "it makes the photos look like they were just taken yesterday" and in so many ways brings the people and the places in the photos back to living memory. 

Photos evoke memories long suppressed. Seeing the black and white photos come to life with the colourization tool deepens and strengthens those memories and all of the warm feelings of love, belonging and connection that the memories hold. Without a doubt, the MyHeritage in Color tool is the new big thing in genealogy and family history. Well done to the MyHeritage team. 

A Day Lost and a Lifetime Gained

Back in December, I sent in a box full of old 8mm films from 50+ years ago to Forever. One I was particularly interested in was me in Scotland as a child.

 I have the patience of a gnat. However, Forever sent an email to let me know that my conversion box had safely arrived. Then they sent me an email letting me know how much I owed for their services. Then they sent me an email letting me know when my order was lined up for production with an estimated date of when I could expect the conversion to be complete. That date was next week.

Yesterday morning, I received an email saying the work was complete. And that led me into a fantastic walk down memory lane. In real life. I could see my grandparents walking and interacting. I could see my mum, dad, aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends as real as if they were all still with us. I was so excited that I shared a few of the movies on Facebook with cousins. 

One in particular - the one I was anxious to see, has been shared and shared and shared since my grandfather had taken us to visit his brother's family, and two of my aunts. And because I have the premium video plan, everyone was able to watch the movies without having to download them first. 

The email from Forever came in about 10 am. I surfaced briefly at 6:30 pm to have a bite to eat and then was completely immersed in shared memories once again. Some might think I had lost a full day yesterday. But in reality, I gained an entire lifetime of memories. Memories really are priceless and precious. 

Not only did I gain back memories, but so did my cousins, aunts and uncles. Across two countries. We "gathered" on Facebook to share the stories, the memories and the laughs. We "gathered" via texts, messenger and on the phone to share as well. A day immersed in family. A lifetime of love and belonging deepened and strengthened. 

Isn't Forever expensive? Honestly? No. All of those reclaimed memories cost me less than others paid for a single film. And the platform allows me to share directly from my storage account. My family's memories are safe and secure and will outlast us by several generations. Immeasurable. 

WEBINAR: From Family Tree to Family Treasure

Next webinar:

Saturday Mar 7, 7:30 pm EST (GMT -5:00)

Fee: $7.95

From Family Tree to Family Treasure

Beginner/Intermediate Level

Now that we have those research documents, bits of scrap paper, newspaper clippings, photos, obits, e-mails and other assorted bits of “research”, how do we preserve them for future generations?

Make the most for your research by creating and presenting a family treasure that will ensure that your family stories won’t be forgotten.

• How to start
• Various Formats for Preserving Your Family's History
• Who to include
• Prompts for telling the stories
• Learn about adding photos, maps, newspaper articles, certificates, recipes and other items to round out your names, dates and pedigree charts
• Learn how to find out more about the social history of your ancestors for inclusion in your family book so that you can put context to your research
• Dealing with the skeletons and scandals

To register:

https://www.genealogytoursofscotland.ca/WORKSHOPS.html

Creating Family Keepsakes With My Flip Pal

Last night, I loaded the Creative Suite software that I purchased with my Flip Pal. It was remarkably simple to load, but what I wasn't prepared for, but pleasantly surprised by, was what all was included. There is the Scrapbook Artist2 software, PagePlus which is an editing/publishing program similar to Publisher or PrintMaster,  PhotoPlus which is a photo editing program, a Slideshow creator (which I did not install, but plan to) and Family Tree Heritage genealogy software. All for only $50.

I decided to get to work with the Scrapbook Artist software. I recently purchased MyMemories and was thrilled with the ease of use of that software. Scrapbook Artist is really quite simple as well. And less complicated in that nothing needs to get downloaded within the program. It comes pre-loaded with a number of digital back grounds, embellishments, letters and frames. The add-ons are easy to load, easy to use and it is easy to change the colour using the colour wheel.

I wasn't as thrilled with the journaling in this program and journaling is a very integral part of preserving memories for me. And many of the add-ons need to be purchased, whereas MyMemories offers TONS of freebies with new things being added weekly.

However, if I hadn't already had MyMemories, I would be quite content with all that Scrapbook Artist has to offer. Here's the final product:

The pages can all be saved as Png files (picture files) which can then be "dropped" into a photobook program and then printed/bound for gift giving. This particular page is of my mum and will be included in a book about her for my children.

Here's to preserving family keepsakes!