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We just returned from an amazing couple of days in St. George, Utah, where we attended the Family History Expo last Friday and Saturday. As one of a small cadre of “Bloggers of Honor,” I spent much of my time Tweeting and taking notes, but I also made it a point to get to know a little more about my fellow geneabloggers. Let me tell you – I’m in pretty great company.
The Friday night banquet offered me a good opportunity. Themed The Wizards of Blogz,** banquet attendees heard from a handful of bloggers who spoke on the amazing family history resources to be found via social networking – there has never been a better time to be researching the past.
“Where else [besides the Internet] can you reach 50,000 people in a few seconds?” Arlene Eakle (Arlene Eakle’s Genealogy Blog) reminded us of the days when folks would post a surname in the hometown newspaper and wait, just hoping someone would find it and take the time to reply. Now, finding long lost cousins often takes nothing more than setting up a Facebook page dedicated to that surname, and boom! Tons of distant relatives are out there, ready and waiting to help, and hoping you can help them. It is no hyperbole to say that the Internet has changed the face of genealogy forever.
Our Master of Ceremonies, Jean Wilcox Hibbin (Circle Mending) entertained us with altered renditions of Oz classics and told us all about the care and feeding of a genealogy blog. I have an affinity for Jean because, though she is a dedicated genealogist, her passion is preserving music, and I love that. We all record the data for one reason or another, but when we keep the music and the stories and the images alive, we save the heartbeat of our people to pass along. There is something pure and beautiful in that.
Blogger AC Ivory (Find My Ancestors) also spoke. In a crowd where even I end up on the younger end of the age spectrum, AC is a baby. But he’s savvy about genealogy and media, and he offered solid advice and encouragement to family historians about how to get started blogging and tweeting. (If you want to follow Family History Expo blogger comments on Twitter, just do a search for the #fhexpo hashtag.)
During the dinner, I had a lot of fun sitting with Gena Ortega (of World Vital Records and Gena’s Genealogy Blog). She attended dinner with her two boys, and between them and Scott, at least a gallon of pink Kool-aid was consumed! Among her many responsibilities, Gena maintains GenealogyWise, a site she described in her remarks to the banquet crowd as “Facebook for genealogy.” That intrigued me, so one of the first things I did when I got home was join and set up a page for Photoloom. The site is very easy to use, and a nice alternative for family historians who want to avoid the Farmville/Mafia/Pirate crowd (which, by the way, you will only understand if you are already involved with the Farmville/Mafie/Pirate crowd). One of the cool features of GenealogyWise is its Chat Room, where you can ask questions, visit with fellow family historians, or attend a scheduled chats on a variety of topics and hosted by experts in the field. This Sunday I'm planning to attend a chat hosted by Jean that will focus on breaking into the genealogy lecture circuit. (Click here or on the sidebar to join the Photoloom group on GenealogyWise.)
One final blogger I wanted to be sure to mention is Denise Levenick, of Family Curator. What a nice lady! Like me, she's a writer in her real life, and "slips on a hat and veil and may be found writing classic tales of romance and suspense as Miss Penelope Dreadful" (for the Shades of the Departed online photography magazine.) The focus of Family Curator dovetails nicely with Above the Trees, so if you are reading us, you may want to check it out. I’m hoping to persuade Denise to write a guest blog for us.
That’s it for today. In the coming weeks, I’ll be making some big announcements about new Photoloom features and affiliates, adding a couple more installments to follow up the St. George Expo (On the Vender Floor; Class Notes), and gearing up for our first National Genealogical Conference, which at the end of April in Salt Lake City.
** The banquet couldn’t have been a more suitably themed – by the time we arrived in St. George, Holly Hansen and her crew at Family History Expos had survived a doozy of a twister – a fatal server failure that brought their website and email to a screeching halt just a week before the event. And yet, Holly emerged from the storm pressed, polished, ready for a world filled with interesting characters and face new challenges.
We have a winner in our Photo Family History Contest! Congratulations to Sylvia Hott Sonneborn, of the Barefoot Genealogy Blogs (as well as the treasurer and newsletter editor of the Barefoot Reunion Association, Windber, Pennsylvania), sent us this wonderful entry. Sylvia will receive two free registrations at the St. George Family History Expo, a free one-year Premium Family Photoloom membership, and our genuine admiration!
Here's Sylvia's entry:
Some old pencil sketches and a handwritten note from my Grandmother Ella Hammer Krise give me a slice of life of my great-great grandparents. At a family reunion, one of the attendees brought pencil drawings of my g-g-grandparents, and I took photographs of the drawings. The bearded gentleman is Solomon Nunemaker Hammer, who was born 14 December 1812 in Jennerstown, St. Clair Twp., Bedford , Pennsylvania, United States, and he died 13 February 1890 in the same place.
His wife Elizabeth (Barefoot) Hammer was born 18 February 1813 at St. Clairsville, Bedford, Pennsylvania, United States. She died 17 September 1889 in Jenner Township, Somerset, Pennsylvania, United States. Together they had 10 children, and among them was my great-grandfather Joseph Sleek Hammer of Johnstown, Cambria, Pennsylvania, United States.
While I don’t know much about the Hammers, I found a handwritten note from Joseph Sleek Hammer’s daughter, my grandmother, Ella Hammer Krise, that reveals a little of Solomon and Elizabeth: “Grandmother Hammer and Grand F. had their own riding horse. G.M.'s had a round full body, and short legs. Its name was Gin. G.M. had a very wide riding skirt and a side saddle. She raised flax and wove linen. She also spun wool, made yarn, colored it black, blue, red, and brown, knit stockings, wove cloth, flannel, and carpets. G.M. was a beautiful woman, always smiling. [This would have been Elizabeth Barefoot Hammer.]
[Solomon Hammer died in 1890, so this information predates that as well as the pencil drawings and family photo.]
"Grandfather's horse was a beautiful horse, black as coal, long legs, and ran off whenever he felt like it. No one could ride him except Gr. F. One day they hitched him up with Gin, to haul in some hay. He decided to run off. He ran up against a tree, and that was the last of him.
"G.F. was a large man. G.M. could stand under his arm.”
In addition, there is a very old photo of the Hammer Family. Solomon and Elizabeth are in the center with some of their children and their spouses surrounding them, circa 1885-1889.
Front Row: Ross Forward Hammer (abt 30), Probably their granddaughter and daughter of Mary, Mary Jane Cauffiel (abt 25). Row 2: Solomon Nunemaker Hammer (abt 73), Elizabeth Barefoot (abt 71), Louisa Foust, wife of David Hammer (abt 33), Malinda Galbreath, wife of John Hammer (abt 31). Back Row: John Colby Hammer (abt 40), David Mark Hammer (abt 35), Mary Hammer Cauffiel (abt 49), Charlotte Hammer Livingston (abt 48), Polly Spiegel Hammer, wife of Ross (abt 26).
Our thanks to everyone who entered our contest this time!
Photoloom has a new face! We've changed our color scheme and tweaked our logo. Now if you look closely, you can see a "tree" woven into our photo-corner ~ the perfect marriage of photos and family history!
Serendipity is my all time favorite word.
Last Thursday night, I was reviewing some updates our daughter had made to some of our graphics when Serendipity snuck up and stamped on my toe. All of a sudden, I saw “the tree,” right there in front of me. Sure, it was sideways and hidden, but it was there.
Has that always been there? Why haven’t I seen it before? Why did it taken me three and a half years to see something so obvious?
If you’ve been working on your family history for any amount of time, you’ve asked yourself these very questions. There you are, hunched over your desk, scanning the same document for the hundredth time, when suddenly something completely new jumps out at you. Something that HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE, just waiting for you to find it. And most of the time, this happens when you are all alone, and you want to jump around the room and hug someone and tell them about the cool thing you just discovered, but there’s no one there and so you have to just kind of squeeze yourself and smile a lot.
Or maybe that part’s just me.
Anyway, my point is, things don’t always happen like we expect them to. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
____________________
Have you entered our Family Threads Contest yet? Send us your favorite family history photo and a short description/story/memory about it! First prize is two tickets to the St. George Family History Expo at the end of this month.
We are gearing up to attend the St. George Family History Expo at the end of February, and in conjunction with that, I am pleased as punch to announce our first ever (da-da-da-dahh!) Family Threads Contest!!!
The Winner will receive these awesome prizes:
- Two free registrations for St. George Family History Expo ($140 value)
- One-year Premium Family Photoloom Membership ($39 value)
- Publication of your photo & story
To enter, simply send a family history photo (.jpg or .png files only, please) along with a short personal essay, memory, or story about that photo to renee@photoloom.com. Be sure to include “Family Threads Contest” in the subject line of your email.
Check out our Family Threads series if you want to get a better idea of what we're looking for.
Nuts & Bolts:
- Entries may be 100-500 words in length, and must include both a picture and a story.
- Entries must not have been previously published.
- Submission deadline is midnight February 16. Winners will be announced February 21.
- No prize substitutions will be made.
- Winners will be determined by highly unscientific, subjective methods, but if your story makes us laugh or cry, you'll have a better chance. The decisions of the judges are entirely their own, and are final.
Big things are happening at Photoloom! Just for starters, we are now an official software affiliate with New FamilySearch, and are working to become “New FamilySearch Certified.”
With our upcoming 3.0 release, Family Photoloom members will be able to import information from New FamilySearch* and tag their pictures with New FamilySearch IDs, enabling their pictures to be associated with records stored in New FamilySearch.
What does this mean for you?
You can import your genealogy information into your Family Photoloom account directly from New FamilySearch, so you will no longer need to type it in. You can help ornament the global New FamilySearch tree with your pictures and documents. You have complete control over what is kept private and what is made available to other researchers. Together we are paving the way for a new generation of "image-enriched genealogy."
Call for 3.0 Beta testers: If you are a New FamilySearch user, we need your help! We are in need of Beta testers to help us polish our upcoming 3.0 release. Your efforts will take very little time and will help us immensely. All Beta testers will receive an expanded Free Family Photoloom account. Please contact us at support@photoloom.com, or call 503.628.1922 for more information.
* FamilySearch is a family history website provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It provides its resources free of charge to the public and is one of the most heavily used genealogy sites on the Internet. A new website, now known as New FamilySearch, that gives users the ability to edit data was launched in 2007, and is incrementally becoming available to genealogists worldwide. For more information, click here.
HASNBT6Z4U2Q (Ignore -test)
Gravestones of our Great Grand-uncle and aunt, John & Nancy Huskey, found near the Huskey School, in Hillsboro, Missouri.
The seed for Family Photoloom was planted fifteen years ago, when our family took a five-week family history trip. With daughters age 8, 3 and 2 the time, we flew from our home in Hillsboro, Oregon to attend a family reunion in London, Ontario, and then drove south through 2000 miles of sweltering Midwest summer heat to Fort Worth, Texas before returning home. The following is Scott’s account of one day on that trip.
We had heard stories about the Huskey School – of how Peter Huskey lead a wagon train to Missouri and started the first subscription school in the area. We traveled from St Louis to Hillsboro, Missouri, where, after knocking on several doors, we finally found distant cousin Dave Huskey, who gave us directions to the school.
“It’s up the hill. Just follow the fence on up, and when you get to the clearing at the top you’ll want to follow the fence. It’ll lead you right to it.” That’s when our adventure really began.
Loaded down with cameras, a tape recorder, a gallon of water, grass clippers, and a diaper bag we set off. We climbed the hill slowly, carrying Grace and Olivia most of the way, and by the time we got to the top clearing, we were very excited to find the school. I put down the child I was holding and asked my family to stay there while I searched around the clearing for a fence to follow, but after much looking could not locate it.
Leaving my family, I returned down the hill, where Dave gave me more detailed directions and pointers about how to find the fence. (His account doesn’t reflect it, but it was no short walk down and up that hill, and Scott was gone nearly an hour. The girls and I spent the time singing in a swath of Black-eyed Susans. ~ Renee)
When I returned back up the hill, we made our way to a back corner of the clearing that I had not explored completely. We found the fence!!! We followed it, and we saw…a house?!? No, that wasn’t it. We stopped, disappointed. Only Leisha and I went ahead. And then we saw it - about 25 yards ahead was the school house. 
With yells of joy, we gathered our family at the school house. Just at that moment, we heard Dave coming up behind us on his tractor. He helped us find the tombstones of my third great grand-uncle, John Huskey and his wife Nancy, and told us about the ‘Huskey Gold,’ which legend says is still buried on the Huskey farm in a cedar box. He even let us have a few boards from the Huskey School as reminder of our trip. 
We all loaded onto the tractor for a ride to the bottom of the hill, but when we arrived, we discovered that we had left our boards at the school house. Having come this far, I was not going to let our ‘mementos’ get away from us. It was getting dark, so I ran as much as I could, all the time swinging my arms wildly to swat away the huge thirsty horse flies, one or two of which escorted me all the way. At the top of the hill I grabbed our boards and said a quick prayer of thanks before jogging back down the hill with my fly escorts.
It was nearly dark when I neared the bottom of the hill, and I was greeted by beautiful fireflies celebrating my arrival. I jogged into Dave’s parking area with the boards held high above my head in triumph. I discovered that I was soaked! I had sweat clear through my clothes – even the money in my wallet was wet. There is the dark of the driveway, we shared our adventure and exchanged genealogy information with Dave and his family. Then with warm goodbyes, we packed up our car and headed back to St Louis. We topped off our evening with an alcohol sponge bath and a check for ticks (one had almost burrowed into my knee), followed by a meal at the local fast food place. We will remember this day now and always as “Our Huskey Homestead Adventure.”
Make a resolution now - this is the year to get your photos organized, and your family engaged in the grand adventure of family history. Visit Photoloom.com to learn more.
As a child, much of my time in the weeks preceding Christmas was spent in my mother’s kitchen, turning the handle of a little nut mill, while Mom and her friend, Betty, made cookies with intriguing names like Joe Froggers, Thumbprints, and Swiss Chews.
As we worked, Mom would reminisce about the holiday kitchen of her childhood – where she learned from her own mother, among other things, how to make a perfect pie. As a result, many of my treasured images of my maternal grandmother (who died when I was only three) come not from hazy memory or aging photographs, but from stories told in my mother’s kitchen, evoked by the aroma of warm walnuts and thick chocolate.
Holiday kitchens are filled with family history – heirloom recipes and family stories fold together as readily as melted chocolate folds into beaten eggs and brown sugar. Spend some time with your ‘family chefs’ this season: take pictures, write down “secret recipes,” record recollections – and add another rich ingredient to your family history.
Today, it is my eight year-old turning the crank of the little nut mill, surrounded by the smells of Christmas. Sitting on our kitchen stool, she listens to me as I tell her about baking Swiss Chews with her Grammi; and gaining, I hope, a few sweet memories of her own.
SWISS CHEWS
From the kitchen of Clella Mae Hancock
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
Melt chocolate over boiling water and let cool. Beat eggs and add sugar gradually, beating until thick. Fold in chocolate and remaining ingredients. Drop onto non-stick cookie sheet or parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes. Store in an airtight container. Makes 2 dozen.
Tips for gathering heirloom recipes:
- Watch and learn—For those with relatives from the “pinch-and-dash” school of cooking, time spent together in the kitchen offers a unique opportunity to gather family recipes that may not otherwise be accurately recorded – Grandma might “forget” to write down that extra pinch of a special something on a recipe card, but she’s sure to remember to throw it in when she’s making a batch with you.
- Ask questions—Find out as much as you can about the history of the recipe. Ask, Who first made this? Do you remember the first time you made it? Why is this a family favorite?
- Record it all in your Family Photoloom account. Try to take a picture of the item, and then record the recipe in the "Picture Notes." The picture and recipe can then be indexed (attached) to Grandma by using the "Other" field in the Relationship Setter.
Holiday photo-cards are a great source of heirloom-worthy photo-history. They chronicle the growth of children (and the aging of parents!), new marriages, new babies, and sometimes even include pets and home exteriors. For many, the annual holiday photo may be the only image from that year that includes everyone in the family. If you have access to a scanner, take a few minutes to scan these special images when they arrive. Then be sure to upload them to your Family Photoloom account so you can tag each person and link everyone - including friends and pets - to your family history.
But then what? In years past, I struggled over what to do with all those photo-cards once they were scanned - along with the collection of beautiful handmade cards and family letters that arrive in our mailbox every holiday season. In my perfect world, they would be painstakingly scrapbooked and on display in a satin-lined album with gilded edges, but in the rush of the season, they were lucky to make it into the “keep for later” box.
Then a few Christmases ago, I received a festively decorated binder as a gift from my daughter Laura. Filled with plastic sheet protectors and brightly colored paper dividers denoting a decade of Christmases to come, it offered a perfect, effortless solution for preserving our holiday treasures.
To make your own "Holiday History Binder," all you need is a 3-ring notebook, some acid-free and archival safe plastic sheet protectors, and a little imagination.
Decorating can be as easy as slipping a special picture into the front of a view-binder, or as involved as making a fabric-covered album like the one Laura made for me. Either way, once complete, it takes only a few minutes to slide those special cards, photos, and letters into the sheet protectors, and your holiday history is preserved, ready to share and enjoy for generations to come.
The story is told of how when my Grandpa Hans Patrick first saw this picture of Ella Mae Hughes, he fell in love with her before they ever met, announcing, “This is the woman I am going to marry!”
Though this picture does not show it, Ella Mae had strikingly beautiful auburn hair; however, her beauty went much deeper: Ella Mae was an extraordinary person.
Those who knew her well tell me that Ella Mae had an extremely caring spirit and she looked out for everyone around her. As the second oldest child (and oldest daughter) in a family of nine children, she was like a second mother to her siblings. And though she experienced much laughter and happiness, she was never light-headed. Many have shared with me that being with her was like being in the presence of an angel. Ella Mae loved everyone; you can see it in her face, you can read it in her letters, you can hear it in the stories that people tell about her.
Ella Mae died when my father was only sixteen, tragically killed when the car she was riding in was hit by a drunk driver. In fitting tribute to this gentle woman who was beautiful in every way, Ella Mae’s tombstone reads, “To know her was to love her.”
Though I never had the chance to meet Ella Mae, I too have fallen in love with her. And as I learn more about her and connect her story with mine, I feel reunited with this grandmother I have not yet met; it brings great joy to my heart to be able to share her life and story with others through Family Photoloom.
“Family Threads” is a periodic column in Above the Trees. If you have a photograph and family story that you’d like to share with our readers, please contact us today! All submissions are subject to editing for space and content.
From the time he could turn the pedals of his first bicycle until his death nearly 75 years later, my father, Robert Hancock, traveled thousands of miles across the the highways and hills of the Pacific Northwest on the seat of his bicycle.
In the early years of World War II, Daddy delivered telegrams for Postal Telegraph (a competitor to Western Union) in Portland, Oregon, riding the bike shown in this picture. Portland is now known as very "green" city, but Daddy went green long before it was fashionable or easy, riding to work nearly every day of his life. When he retired, he routinely rode at least 25 miles a day, and was a frequent participant in the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland Classic (STP), riding his last STP at the age of seventy-four. But although cycling kept him healthy and active, just a few short years after that last STP, Parkinson's Disease forced him onto a stationary bicycle, which he rode until just a month before he died, in September 2006 at the age of eighty.
I am currently writing a historical novel for young adults based on Dad's time with Postal Telegraph, under the working title "Bicycle Boy."
This has been a pivotal week for our family (and our family history) - my oldest daughter gave birth to her first child, making Scott and I grandparents for the first time, and in the 50-some hours since baby Kyah Renee (the middle name is for me!) arrived, I’ve spent a lot of time holding her and feeling very blessed. These have been blissful, thoughtful moments, and I feel the generations past so very near, looking over my shoulder with great love and affection.
I’ve also had some time to think on less weightier, but nevertheless critical issues – like what I’d like my grandkids to call me. Now, I realize that there’s a better than even chance that at some point, a child, (maybe even this one) may hang an unexpected moniker on me, like Gigi or Mima or Gramma Buttons, but until that time, I don’t want to just be “the nice lady with the long hair who’s always calling us on Skype and sending weird little presents…yeah, Mommy’s mom.” I need a Gramma Name.
We interrupt our blog for this important announcement ~
Voting for Family Tree Magazine's 40 Best Genealogy Blogs is almost over, so please take a moment right now to vote for your favorites. Of course, we hope you’ll vote for Above the Trees – we're listed in Photos/Heirlooms (Category #9). You can vote for just one blog, or as many as forty.
Family names – that is to say, the names that we call one another within our own families – are an important (and often overlooked) piece of family history. Some are passed from generation to generation. Others come about from childish mispronunciations, or have a special story attached to them. Often they reflect ethnicity, heritage, or culture: in our family, for example, my son-in-law is Armenian, and so Kyah, blessed to live in a trilingual home, will call her Armenian grandparents “Papik” and “Tatik.”
Which brings me to this week’s 15-Minute Family History Assignment:
As family historians, we take great pains to accurately record each individual’s name, but do we take time to record their family names? Was your father “Dad” or “Pop?” Did your brother have a nickname? Did you? What did you call your grandparents? My maternal grandparents weren’t only Lester Alfred and Edna Fern – to me, they were and will always be “Poppy” and “Ma.” Take a few minutes to record those special family names, as well as any stories that go with them.
Family Photoloom Bonus:
Nicknames and universal family names (as in, everyone calls him “Buster”) can be recorded in Picture Notes on the individual’s icon picture, or in an Individual Record as part of their name (e.g., Carl “Buster” Bridgmon).
Two-generation family names (parent/child) are easy to record in the Relationship View. Simply drag an individual into the relationship setter and click on any other individual for whom a relationship has been set. Then record the Family Name in the space provided at the top of the screen. For example, when I put my mother in the center of the Relationship Setter and click on her father, I can record that “Lester is a “Pop” to Clella Mae” in the relationship information that appears at the top of the page.
Grandparent and other multi-generational family names can be recorded in Picture Notes, or in an Individual Record.
P.S. I’m staying traditional for now, and going with “Grammi.”
Our family history added a whole new generation yesterday. From two very proud first-time grandparents...
I have a lot of opportunities to talk with folks about their family photos, and one commom lament is, "I don’t have anything. It was all lost in a (fire/flood/tornado)." Or, "My third cousin 'borrowed' them all years ago, and we haven't seen them since." Or simply, "My family didn’t keep any family photos.”
Then we get to talking a little more, and I ask, "You have a picture of yourself, right?"
"Of course I've got pictures of myself."
"What about your parents? Do you have any pictures of them? Or your children?"
"Well, yeah, I've got lots of pictures of them. But I mean family history pictures. I don't have any OLD pictures."
Let's stop right there. Remember, the first word in family history is FAMILY. That includes you, and it includes now! And, as with anything, when you are just starting out, the best approach is start simple, and go from what you know (or what you have) to what you don’t know (or what you don’t have). So let’s start with what you do have:
Start your Pictorial Family History:
- Make a list of your immediate family members – parents, children, spouse – and look to your own pictures to find an image of each person on your list. You don’t need to start with a lot of pictures – in the case of family history preservation, one picture is infinitely better than none.
- If the images you have chosen are not already digitized, scan them, or have someone to scan them for you.
- Add your grandparents and their other children (your aunts and uncles) to your list. Do you have photos of them? Scan those too. Also, make a list of what you don’t have. (We’ll discuss how to deal with that in an upcoming installment.)
- Create a file on your computer labeled “Family History Images” (or something like that). Copy all of your family history images into that file. (If you have a lot of images, you may need to create sub files.)
- Upload your images onto your free Family Photoloom account, and tag all the individuals. Then go into the “Relationship View” and drag each individual into the relationship setter. You now have a 3-generation chart complete with pictures on your screen, with the potential for literally infinite family lines and relationships.
Next week: Protecting Your Precious Family Photos
Free genealogy tutorials and classes for beginners:
- GenTutorials (Great series of tutorials, presented by GenWriters)
- Finding Your Ancestors (BYU Independent Study Course)
Clella Mae Masters (aka "Mom") & Mary Blanche MillerMaryville, Missouri ~ Circa 1938
Happy 83rd Birthday, Mom!
While attending a family reunion in Missouri, we took an excursion to visit a small family cemetery near Webb City. As we strolled among the gravestones, our host, Aunt Esther, reminisced about the various folks interred there. Pointing out one humble plot, Aunt Esther remarked, “That's where your Great-grandma Effie and her leg are buried.” She went on to explain, “Effie lost her leg to gangrene, and she had it buried in her plot. Poor dear – she went around for years telling people she already had one foot in the grave.”
About a month ago, I attended the Salt Lake Family History Expo as a “Blogger of Honor” (cue the Baroque trumpets) and had the opportunity to attend a number of exceptional classes, taught by the cream of the family history crop. I returned home to Oregon all fired up and ready to start shooting out one blog entry after another detailing all the great information I gathered. But then…
…September started, and for anyone with kids at home, you know that what that means. Some days, I can’t find half an hour to call my own.
This all led me to an inspiration: At the Family History Expo, I attended a class called 15-Minute Family History, presented by Kim Woodbury & Deborah Lambert, both of FamilySearch. Kim & Deborah focused their combined knowledge on attacking family history one chunk at a time, and offered practical advice for breaking down this overwhelming lifetime project into achievable bite-size tasks.
That’s just what we need!
So, for the next couple of months, I’ll be exploring this idea, and particularly how it relates to photo-history, in a new weekly series, “15-Minute Family History.” (Can’t improve on that title.) Here’s a little incentive to stay tuned: If you use just one 15-minute idea once a week, at the end of the month, you will have completed a whole hour of practically painless family history work. What if you devoted fifteen minutes twice a week? Or every day? Think of the possibilities!
Want to get started right now? (Prepare for a shameless - but extremely relevant - endorsement of Family Photoloom.) In just fifteen minutes, you can open a free Family Photoloom account, upload a five or six pictures, tag the faces, set all the relationships in the relationship setter, and invite your family to share in their family history. Boom! Family history – 15-Minutes.
Next week: Part 1: How to Get the Ball Rolling
Do you have a great idea for our 15-Minute Family History series? Email it to me at renee at photoloom dot com. (Sorry, Spam-bots.) I’d love to hear about how you are getting your family history done, one minute at a time!
Follow me on Twitter @Photoloom