Geneology 101

[bob]

So, here I am: 65 yrs. old, 4 kids, 5 grandkids and only myself and my sister left on my side of the family. Frankly, I never was overly concerned with past generations and knew very little about life before my grandparents.

Well, my sister just sold her house and is down-sizing, so I've "inherited" the previously-unknown Family Pictures (about 300 lbs of them!) . Wow! There are "relatives" here all the way back to the 1800's (tintypes even!) and all have one thing in common - I don't know them. Oh yeah, there's one more thing: Nobody wrote a darned thing on any of the photos. Fun! So, I'm trying to piece together our background to leave a legacy for my kids and grandkids, but with only my sister to check with, it's difficult. For instance, we've got one stern-faced soldier in a US WW1 uniform and also a smiling guy in the late 30's with a Luftwaffe uniform. Who and, more importantly, What the heck's going on???

My current plan is to take every last photo and scan them into my 'puter and then give DVD's to each of the kids so there each has a record. In addition, I'm typing up what I know about individual photos and stories that my parents and grandparents told me (many are probably BS, but tales age into truths if they hang around long enough).

So, my suggestion for anyone with a camera is to put info with each shot; who-what-where-when. It's a bit time-consuming, but it's sad to realize that even our own shots are becoming a bit blurry with memory and the photos are definitely degrading with time.

[BobbyBD]

Originally Posted by bob

So, here I am: 65 yrs. old, 4 kids, 5 grandkids and only myself and my sister left on my side of the family. Frankly, I never was overly concerned with past generations and knew very little about life before my grandparents.

Well, my sister just sold her house and is down-sizing, so I've "inherited" the previously-unknown Family Pictures (about 300 lbs of them!) . Wow! There are "relatives" here all the way back to the 1800's (tintypes even!) and all have one thing in common - I don't know them. Oh yeah, there's one more thing: Nobody wrote a darned thing on any of the photos. Fun! So, I'm trying to piece together our background to leave a legacy for my kids and grandkids, but with only my sister to check with, it's difficult. For instance, we've got one stern-faced soldier in a US WW1 uniform and also a smiling guy in the late 30's with a Luftwaffe uniform. Who and, more importantly, What the heck's going on???

My current plan is to take every last photo and scan them into my 'puter and then give DVD's to each of the kids so there each has a record. In addition, I'm typing up what I know about individual photos and stories that my parents and grandparents told me (many are probably BS, but tales age into truths if they hang around long enough).

So, my suggestion for anyone with a camera is to put info with each shot; who-what-where-when. It's a bit time-consuming, but it's sad to realize that even our own shots are becoming a bit blurry with memory and the photos are definitely degrading with time.

this is how I see life, if people don't consider you that old, you will never be that old Bhahahahhahahahh

[bob]

Ever see a 65-yr old cutie in a thong? Age DOES happen! And, my point is that many, many sites are making tons of bucks helping you research where and who you came from. If you can take the time to document things a bit, you can give a lot of info to the generations that come later on (assuming the Mayan Calendar is wrong, of course. )

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by bob

My current plan is to take every last photo and scan them into my 'puter and then give DVD's to each of the kids so there each has a record. In addition, I'm typing up what I know about individual photos and stories that my parents and grandparents told me (many are probably BS, but tales age into truths if they hang around long enough).

Just a thought... perhaps do that in addition to putting the genealogy up online with something like PhpGedView or TNG ($30 or so).

Of course the DVD idea is good because... err... a website won't be up forever.

With a website with the family genealogy you could also perhaps solicit assistance in identifying the pictures with helpful from relatives (yes, the genealogy web softwares usually have some privacy controls) in a way that's easy for any relatives you have. If anybody in the family's willing to try identifying the media or sharing known history, set up an account so they can take a look-see.

GRAMPS is nice, too, but I'm beginning to wish I would have started out (I'm sort of the amateur genealogist of the family) just using a website instead of starting with GRAMPS and then trying to keep my Gedcom synced between my site and my GRAMPS db.

[tashirosgt]

In the spirit of your advice to annotate photographs, some film has codes printed on the sides, so if you have negatives, note what those codes are. They may have a bearing on the manufacturing date of the film and thus on when the photo was taken. If you scan a roll of negatives, put them all in the same directory of the DVD that you are preparing. Scan the back of any photos that have annotations there.

[Adunaic]

Originally Posted by bob

My current plan is to take every last photo and scan them into my 'puter and then give DVD's to each of the kids so there each has a record.

I have contemplated doing this from time to time. Never quite sure where to start though. Out of interest what program are you using, and do you have a fancy scanner or just a simple one?

[bob]

Oh, I'm doing this "on the cheap". I've got a HP Deskjet F4180 Printer/Scanner (etc) which is more than adequate for grabbing photos. Then Gimp crops to accurate size and I simply save with a descriptive name and as a .jpg. Any references to photos are saved in .txt format since that will probably be around for awhile. In time, I'll probably create sub-folders to identify either my side of the family & 'Lou's side or maybe by generation.

One PITA so far is that my parents took slides! Those can be expensive to convert. Moreover, they originally used a slide projector that accepted metal trays and slide retainers with metal casings and pinch tabs. Then, the projector died. To remove one of those damned things, you've got to pry up 8 tabs without touching the film.

One laugh is that my parents seldom took candid shots. Every slide looks like the family stepped out of a 1950's Home & Garden magazine. Men and boys dressed in suits, women and girls in dresses & all have immaculately combed hair. We're all posing in front of our house and looking straight into the camera or sitting politely at the dinner table waiting for the turkey to be sliced. Might just toss 75% of those shots!

[Adunaic]

Yes, slides can be very awkward. Is there any reason you are choosing jpeg, as I understand it is a lossy format?

Also have you considered a scanner specifically for slides? Also worst comes to the worst I know in the U.K. our shops will convert negatives to jpegs on dvd for a price. I suspect their must be some that can do slides as well. I assume you must have such shops across the pond as well.

[bob]

I'm using .jpg as it's recognized by Windows as well as linux and my kids don't share my enthusiasm for this OS. As to the slide issue, well I'm going to have to research how to do it best when I get up to copying those. It may be as simple as using the remaining projector and using my Cannon SX110 to photograph the projected image (ugly people don't need high resolution ).

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by bob

I'm using .jpg as it's recognized by Windows as well as linux and my kids don't share my enthusiasm for this OS.

Windows XP and above have been able to handle PNG natively for at least the last few years.

[bob]

Good to know. Thanks.

[CronoCloud]

Originally Posted by forkbomb

GRAMPS is nice, too,

You are a font of useful info about interesting packages/projects I've never even heard of.

I signed up almost two weeks ago for the ancestry.com trial and had been wondering if there were any Linux apps that I could use a .ged with. Sure I'd have probably found it with the googling I was planning on doing, but you just saved me the trouble. :-)

Ron Rogers Jr. (CronoCloud)

[xprezons]

I use Geni.com.

One of the handy features is that it allows you to build up the family tree in a collaborative manner. Just add members to the tree and add their email id to invite them to join the tree. They can then contribute with bits of the family history they know.

I believe there is also an option to export the family tree into a printable PDF format or similar (but not to other portable/exchange formats; they want to make it difficult to switch to another geneology site/tool).

JPEG images allow metadata to be stored within the images (IPTC and EXIF). I process all my photos (digital / scanned) that way. No hassle of having to work out a scheme of file-caption info stored in a text file. Digikam is a good Linux tool that allows easy editing of the metadata. When these photos are uploaded to Google Photos, the meta data is automatically read and shows up as the caption with the message. Most photo sharing websites are moving towards adding this functionality. You could also add geopositioning (where the picture was taken) info in the EXIF metadata.

Slide scanner - How about using something like this? Maybe even borrow from a member of the local sharing / freecycle community - http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=224226

Happy to provide more info on any of the points I have mentioned above.

[joe.pelayo]

That's an interesting and challenging project Bob, I hope you gather the most information you can.

In my case photos aren't really an issue because for one thing I don't have many old photos, and the ones I have (mostly digital) are promptly organized in a folder which the following layout: "2008 Events" > "Christmas" (or "Lulu's baptism", or whatever event).

Thanks,
Joe.

[forkbomb]

Don't PNGs support EXIF embedding as well? (I'm unsure... not a big photography guy.)