Archive for the ‘genealogy’ Tag
This Civil War-era tintype photograph is one of the earliest photos in our collection … and the original tintype is slowly fading to black. Luckily, we could capture the original digitally and enhance the photo.
Piles of photos. Shelves full of albums. And what are all of those photos doing? Fading.
Color prints made before 1990 can fade in just a few decades. Later prints last longer … but they will always fade. Put them in a bad environment … on sticky pages, in sunlight, stored in the attic or the garage … and the photos go away much quicker. Here’s how the National Archives explains the problem.
There are 2 real solutions: store the photos in a better way, which will slow — not halt — the photographic decay. That leaves the only real solution: digitize the photos, color correct them as necessary, and then store those digitized files redundantly.
Epson 4490
You’ll need a flat bed scanner and a digital camera. I found that Epson scanners suited me the best; I used a 4490 for many of my scans — I actually bought 3 of them! Since my family was in the Missouri/Illinois area, I kept one scanner at my mother’s house (and then another at my in-law’s house). When my office unit had scanned its last photo, I switched to a V700. Both were great. I used the included software, which was perfectly adequate for me. I investigated the highly recommended pro software, SilverFast SE, and decided it wasn’t worth the cost. For me; your mileage may vary.
You’ll need a digital camera for a couple of reasons: you’ll want to take pictures of your relatives when you visit them, and you’ll have to shoot the pictures that are larger than your flat bed scanner. I started with a simple Sony point & shoot which wasn’t adequate for archive quality shots, IMHO. I soon upgraded to a Nikon D90, and then a D7000. I used a tripod for pictures when I could. With long distance travel to relative’s homes, I definitely had to travel heavy.
The Epson V700 is a newer model, and produces great scans of negatives, color slides, or printed photographs.
I did very high resolution scanning. Probably too high, honestly, but I was dealing with family heirloom photos; I’m certain I’ll never see many of the originals again. So, I had one scan to get it right. Higher resolution scans capture more detail. You can’t make a low res scan more detailed. You can always downgrade a high res scan to a lower resolution, smaller file.
After editing by this enthusiastic amateur, the scan became much brighter and clearer. The photo could have been cleaned up more … but don’t the marks and “noise” in the photo add to its authenticity?
Files were made using a minimum of 600 dpi (dots per inch) … which means I could blow up the picture on the printed page, if that’s what I chose to do. I generally scanned any 5×7 or smaller at 600 dpi, and 8x10s at 300 dpi (as I wasn’t going to enlarge them). Laser printers often print at 300 dpi, so if I had a 8×10 scanned at 300 dpi, I could print that as a full 8-1/2 x 11″ page with minimal loss of quality.
Files were saved as .tif files. I did not use .bmp or the more common .jpg format. It’s really simple: you can edit .tif files without a loss of quality. When you edit the other formats, you lose quality every time you re-save the file. So, when you can avoid a .jpg, avoid it. Simple.
When I was scanning in someone’s home, I was often scanning 100 or more photos in a single session. With that kind of volume, you need to label the scans immediately, or you’ll never correctly identify all of the kids & adults in the photo. I did this 2 ways: 1) large group photos got a key identifying every person in the photo. Sometimes I scanned the back of the photo if it was labeled well. Other times, I would print the photo and then write directly on the print with the names of the people. In every case, I named the photo for easy referral, using this sort of format:
Mowry, Henry, 2006
Mowry, Henry, blue shirt
Mowry Family, Henry, 2010
Mowry Wedding, Christopher and Alley, kiss
Xmas 2006, tree
This Lance family snapshot – as originally scanned – is one of my favorite pictures in the collection. It’s SO 1976! On the other hand, this photo is heavily water damaged and discolored. I spent several hours with editing software to restore the picture as best I could to original coloration.
It doesn’t really matter how you label the pictures, but they need to be labeled immediately, or you will misidentify people when you process the photos. Come up with conventions, and stick to them. In advance, figure out how you’re going to deal with maiden names, changing last names, group shots … and what kind of file structure the photos will be saved in. By date? Family? Location? No wrong answers, but get an opinion, and stick to it.
You’ll also find there are several programs made to help you organize your photo collection. Photoshop Elements is a relatively inexpensive solution; Adobe Lightroom is a more robust, expensive solution. I prefer Lightroom. It lets you tag/sort photos in multiple ways. It automatically saves photos to multiple locations when you upload from the camera … it’s a great tool.
You’ll need photo editing software as well. There’s a huge array of options here … but always save the original scan as is. Some software will save versions for you as you edit the photos; I typically added “v2,” “v3,” etc to file names in the early days. Later, I took to adding “RT” to scans that were retouched. Again, no wrong answers here, but save your original scans, and save your work as you go, and you’ll not get yourself into trouble.
I principally used 2 editing programs: Photoshop Elements (the home version) and Adobe Photoshop (just like the professionals use). Photoshop is amazing software, and you’ll need to devote many hours to learning how to best use it. Elements is very intuitive … it’s really point & click easy. Both can work. How much time do you want to devote to photo editing? It you just want to crop photos and straighten crooked scans, get Elements. If you want to do some exacting work, get the full Photoshop.
My father, Robert Mowry, shot by a photographer in his studio in Maryville, MO.
For photographs I shoot, I generally use Nikon’s Capture NX2. This software handles RAW files (better cameras allow you to use this unprocessed, uncompressed file type that varies by camera), and allows some pretty amazing and quick edits. Not as robust as Photoshop, but easier and quicker, I’ve found. NX2 also edits .jpg files, but as discussed earlier, the results are not as good, since photo quality is lost each time you save a .jpg file.
My mother, Letha Shull, shot by that same photographer with that same white table. Who knew these two pictures would be united in one family years later?
Once you have the files, you need redundant backups to make sure that you don’t lose these heirlooms that you’ve worked so hard to scan, edit and store. Keep files on your computer’s hard drive … and then make a copy on an external hard drive. Be very good and make a third copy which is kept offsite, either in the cloud or at a relative’s house. Some people keep a backup hard drive at the office in a desk drawer. Go old school: keep it in your safety deposit box. Use an online service for backups such as Norton (expensive) or Carbonite (which I recommend).
I know one thing about the computer that holds your photo collection: it will die. I don’t know when, but I do know that all machines will die. Therefore, plan beginning TODAY for the failure of the primary storage device for your photos. After all, where can you get another copy of that perfect family photo?
Letha Shull, age 16, showing a bit of the grit that would power her genealogy research decades later!
My Mom got into genealogy by accident, really. As part of the Bicentennial celebration, our home town was publishing a history of the community. “On the Banks of the Elk Horn” was to include the history of the town and the families that had lived there. Mom was tasked by the committee with writing the history of the Mowry family, so Mom dutifully talked to the older generation and wrote our history in 1972.
Multiple members of my family had copies of these pictures of my Great Great Grandparents, but not all of them were labeled so we knew who they were!
A year later, she was convinced, much of what she had written was wrong. The oral history she relied on was proven inaccurate when confronted with basic research into county records that were easily available.
And Mom’s love of genealogy was born.
She began buying 3×5 cards by the case, and typing individual records of life events on each card (so, one for a birth, one for a marriage, etc). She typed cards for every announcement in the local newspaper, and then began adding other published records.
Eventually, she typed thousands of cards for everything in the four counties in northwest Missouri, and then started adding more esoteric records, such as funeral home and cemetery records. A database was created, and then re-written. And she’s now begun entering all of those old index cards into the database.
She’s a few thousand cards in, and she’s still only in the B’s. And this is still what she does for fun!
I knew my father was adopted, but I didn’t know he cost $23 until Mom showed me this receipt!
Mom has infected me with her passion, of course, and I’ve tried to help her around the edges since the ’80s. I had access to unique resources in LA back before everything was online. Today, her decades of knowledge still far outweighs my access to the LDS library in Santa Monica!
She’s already done a huge, huge amount of work, taking our family back multiple generations (and proving multiple connections to the Revolutionary War soldiers which will eventually be used for my Granddaughter’s DAR membership, for example). Mom’s work has taken the Mowry line now back 7 generations to John “Maurer” Mowry, born in 1725. The Morgan and MacDonald family lines are also back into the 1700s.
Not all records are in the family bibles! These birth and marriage dates were recorded by my Great Grandmother on to a wall hanging that included photos of her 7 kids.
Remember, though, where her journey began: bad information from relatives that she had to record and then disprove on her way to a more complete understanding of our family tree.
So, how should YOU get started?
- Write down what you know … for some people that’s their personal information only. Some people are lucky enough to know their grandparents and even great-grandparents — and their birth dates. It’s a very rare person, though, that actually knows birth, marriage and death dates back 3 generations. Write down what you THINK you know … here are some forms you can download and use to get started, here or here.
- Write down what you don’t know … this could very well be a larger list. Sometimes you discover things you don’t know along the way … like a new step grandmother that your grandfather never mentioned.
- Talk to your immediate family for information, direction & more. You’ll probably know what you can talk about with your immediate family … and what subjects you best avoid. It’s great to know “everything” … but do you really NEED to know every divorce date? Avoid those topics that will incite relatives, and lead to them disengaging from your project.
- Get pictures! If you have been following my blog, you know that I love family pictures. You will be very surprised at the pictures that various members of your family have that you’ve never seen. Even your immediate family will likely have pictures that you’ve never seen before.
- Talk to your extended family. Some cousins may not be happy with prying questions about marriage dates, birth dates … not everyone will want to share private information! Ask questions, be happy with the answers … and then you can check them for accuracy on your own time!
- Get pictures! When you look at pictures from your extended family, you’ll be amazed what you will find. Cousins will have new pictures, identifications on pictures that may be unlabeled in your collection, or simply better prints that are in better condition that the pictures in your immediate family’s collection.
- Begin your research. I’ll leave research tips to the myriad of published and online resources that you have to call upon. My go to is Ancestry.com; it’ll help you in many ways — but be careful. Just because something is online doesn’t mean it is true!
This picture is from a tin type, and is probably the oldest in our family’s collection. John Blair Morgan died in 1865, age 73.
Here’s the step-by-step that I followed to create my family’s photo scrapbooks.
I did cover pages for each book as a collage of fun pictures & details from the people featured. Later books also included a key to which person was in which photo (oops!).
Happy to recommend the # 1 selling genealogy software!
I updated my genealogy files with the parents, using the program Family Tree Maker. It’s an easy program to use – and believe me, it’s very important to have a family tree to help you keep track of which child belongs with which parent. There’s a dizzying array of last names, maiden names, extended families and “Uncles” that are really “friends.” As baseball taught us, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard!
When you combine Family Tree Maker with a subscription to that company’s www.Ancestry.com, you have a powerful tool to expand your family tree. Highly recommended if you want a big job that few undertake … but that will thrill the people in your family that appreciate having good, accurate records of who’s who.
We made appointments with the family members we could visit; I also exchanged a few packages with relatives that preferred to send me pictures for scanning.
We visited each family for 2-3 hours. I brought my laptop, flat bed scanner and a cheap printer. I had a plug strip with extension cord, and typically set up the gear on a kitchen or dining room table. I also brought my Nikon camera to shoot pictures too large for the scanner, and to shoot the people at each scanning “event.” We had prepped families to set aside photos that they wanted included in the collection (and some did, some didn’t). When the family started taking portraits off of the walls for scanning, I knew we were getting somewhere!
My goal, constantly reinforced, was to include “good pictures” of the family. I focused on:
- Studio shots
- Senior pictures
- Wedding pictures, especially of beautiful brides (they all are!)
- Family snapshots at important events, like family reunions, birthday celebrations, etc.
- Good pictures
I quickly learned that I needed a naming convention for all files as well as a file organization system that I understood. Files were named “last name, first name and other people in the picture, ” or perhaps “Mowry Family, Henry, 2006.” I used maiden names as much as possible, and used some key words to distinguish photos from each other, such as school, bride, toddler, Sr Pic, etc. Group shots were given a relevant name (such as Baugher 7x), and then I printed the photo on my cheap printer. Someone then wrote on the printed page the file name and the name of each person in the picture (names were often written on the faces in the printed copy to ensure we knew who was who). Try it; it works and served to quickly identify group shots so we could keep scanning new pictures.
Having beautiful relatives always makes the books easier to look at!
I only included photos that each family wanted included. Some wanted divorced spouses in the book; some didn’t. Some included family pictures of spouses that weren’t in the bloodline. That was all fine with me: I appreciated the support. I didn’t have an agenda in making these books; I just wanted to preserve and share family pictures. Widely.
Pictures of brides are always beautiful … especially when the bride is my own!
Scans were done in the .tif format, which I learned is the best format for digital editing. I did not scan photos as .jpg files, as those files lose quality each time they are edited/saved. Scans were done using settings of 48-bit color with a minimum of 300 dots per inch (dpi). A scan done at 300 dpi will make a lovely print at its original size.
The B&W setting was 16 bit grayscale, with the same dpi. I often increased the line screen dramatically for important photos; my mother’s wedding picture was done at 800 dpi. My Great Great Grandfather’s Civil War tintype was scanned at 1200 dpi. With high quality scans like those, you can blow up the photos, and often fix photographic problems using basic photo editing software like Photoshop Elements (where I started), or the full Photoshop (where I ended). The tintype ended up blowing up from about 6 square inches to 80 square inches; it looked just fine.
Digital photos are today’s standard, and resolutions are rising along with smartphone lens quality. When I started this process, Facebook photos were low resolution and virtually unusable in a printed book like I was creating. Today, many photos posted to Facebook are higher resolution and can be printed with acceptable sharpness. Scanning photos is still essential, but Facebook photos are great supplements, especially from scattered relatives if you can’t visit their homes.
I laid the pages out using Word, which was the simplest solution for me (but I would use a “real” layout program if I was starting over today!). Each of the four families had a unique color scheme (border and headline colors), which provided a subtle differentiation between the families. I used four templates for each family: plain landscape and portrait, and landscape and portrait with a text box for explanations and photo captions.
Family members love pages of snap shots. It’s OK to sacrifice quality when you only have a few pictures of some family members.
Here’s my basic formula: each person got their own page, with 3-5 pictures on it. Additional pages were created for brides, weddings, family gatherings, and whatever made sense. If the pictures weren’t available, then the pages were combined so the layouts were pleasing to the eye. Some families got 8 pages, some got 1 page. Ancestors from the 1800s seldom had pictures; today’s child has pictures taken daily if you closely monitor Facebook!
The genealogy pages illustrating how people were related proved to be extremely popular. No one knows all of their relatives; pages like this one — created in Family Tree Maker — provide great road maps for understanding how the different branches of the family tree are connected.
Genealogy pages were added to help the reader follow the flow of the family. I basically started with the oldest generation, organized by family group, with oldest child first, etc.
The final pages are a “complete” family tree showing birth, marriage and death dates for everyone in the family. Each book includes a pair of CD ROMs with copies of the .pdf files for all pages, allowing for on screen viewing, or easy reprinting. The Chucalo book also included a recording of a wonderful interview with 98-year old Aunt Millie about growing up in the 1920s and ‘30s. Priceless.
Pages were printed on my color laserjet. Pages were placed back-to-back in page protectors, in 3-ring binders. The intent was to make a scrapbook that could change and expand with the family. Given the number of pages I created (books have run 150 – 250 pages per family), I felt this was the right way to go.
Books were presented to all contributors. I made between 15 and 25 copies of each family’s photo scrapbook.
Years later, I continue to hear from family members about how much they appreciate these books. They were definitely big ideas; I spent many weekends and evenings completing all of the photo editing, layout, printing and assembly that went into each book.
Here’s the key question: if you don’t have something like this, then how will your families remember their ancestors, cousins and good times that have been shared?
The simple ideas are best. Themed pages, such as this one, will be great additions to your family photo scrapbook.
Facebook is killing photography. I cringe every time I see a blurry self portrait, or a snapshot that is oh so cute … that’s being consigned to the digital scrap heap of someone’s newsfeed.
William Henry Mowry, circa 1864. This tintype photograph is the earliest photo I have of a family member.
Photography is a relatively recent invention. Aristotle contemplated how images of the sun projected through a hole in 330 BC. The first practical, long-lived photographic image appeared in the 1830s, the Daguerreotype. With the invention of flexible film by George Eastman in 1889, handheld cameras became possible … and mobile media soon followed.
This photo of Simon and Maria Chucalovich’s family was taken by an itinerant photographer, selling his services door to door in about 1922. Photography — much less mobile photography! — was still unusual in this era, and quite a crowd gathered to watch this photograph being taken on the front step of the family home.
Today, if you believe the hype from digital journalists, you might think the only cameras being used are smartphones. There’s no doubt that the iPhone has changed the way that we think of and use cameras. Today’s camera phones wirelessly upload your pictures using your favorite app, and they give you instant gratification when you share your snaps and friends see them NOW.
The best camera to take a photograph is the one in your hand … so the more accessible smartphones are, the more likely they will take more pictures.
However, smartphones currently deliver pictures that are generally lower in quality than even low priced “point and shoot” cameras. The phone manufacturers are certainly improving the qualities of their cameras, but they have a long way to go before they will truly compete with the quality of dedicated handheld cameras.
So, here we are today. We have more pictures being taken by lower quality cameras. To deepen the problem, those pictures are almost never saved in a traditional sense … they’re uploaded to Facebook or Instagram or Flickr (and usually shrunk & degraded by the site’s algorithm). Once on a social media site, the photographer loses control of the image (and those implications will be discussed in a later post).
So if you take a picture that’s important, what do you do with it? Family photographs are heirlooms. They are passed from generation to generation. They are proudly displayed in their owner’s homes.
Unfortunately, today’s smartphones just aren’t up to that standard. Make no mistake, those smartphone cameras are improving and mobile snapshots can be wonderful. They are seldom, however, first quality photographs.
If your goal is to capture memories in photographs that last longer than your Facebook newsfeed allows, then you’ll want to find a way to take high quality photographs, display them and store them.
Here’s a resource for the key issues in purchasing a digital camera.
Here’s a “how to” resource for displaying and storing heirloom photographs.
The family of Phillip Patterson “PP” Shull, circa 1905. This hundred-year-old photograph has been passed through many hands for you to see it. Note the dog at the corner of the house, which must have been nailed in place to stay still long enough for the long exposure necessary for this photograph! Click on the photo to enlarge the image and see the dog carefully watching his master.
