Easy animations of deceased people telling their life story

 Over the past two weeks I have created these for some of our ancestors. 

For Easter, I showed our children three of these.

Today I sent an email to family members who might be interested in one of these lines.
Over the next few days, I plan to do this for other family lines.

Is it perfect? No. The voice is not the person's real voice. And the timing and inflection are sometimes wrong, And some names get mispronounced. But it is still pretty good, and the results will be more interesting to many family members than a printed page would be.  

Take a look at it: https://www.myheritage.com/deepstory/

I sent the following email to my family members (including the Youtube links.):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Family.

Some of you have seen earlier versions of these.

Dorothy Ing (link removed)

Richard Ing  (link removed)

Louisa Wright  (link removed)

EXPLANATION: I have a subscription to MyHeritage.com  I have not found it particularly useful as a source of historical records, but it has excellent tools for automatically colorizing black and white photos, and for restoring faded color photos. https://www.myheritage.com/incolor

Their most recent feature is LiveStory (now called DeepStory), where you select a photo and add a story, and they animate the photo, so that the person is telling their own story. The voice is a computer voice, with minor imperfections, but the overall effect is that a deceased ancestor can be seen telling their own story.

 I think it is a fun way to share genealogy. 

He is an example of my grandfather's cousin, telling the story of the multi-family move from Ontario to Manitoba in 1879. https://youtu.be/Whe6jMynP2Q

Please share it with your family if you think they may be interested.

Love,
Bill/Dad/Grandpa

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: I am not sponsored by MyHeritage.com

Pruning the family tree

 I received this message in FamilySearch Messages:

I'm afraid you have the wrong Ann Waller as your ancestor - Henry and Martha's child born 1812 in Rogate died at birth so can't have gone on to marry anyone! Her death record is now attached.

Anxiously, I looked at the attached death record, The name, date, place and parents are an identical match for the christening record. Ouch!!! That Rogate christening record perfectly matched Ann's birth year and place in the censuses. Unfortunately, the christening record made no reference to the death of the child that same day. So I spent hundreds of hours researching the wrong family line. 

Date Child Father Mother Surname
02/08/1812 Ann Henry Martha WALLER

Alas the message from the other researcher is right! The death date, place and parents are identical to the birth info in the Rogate Baptismal Register. 

I had to prune 5 generations of research from my family tree. And although I know where and when Ann married James Forsbury, it does not appear in the civil registration index so I cannot order the marriage certificate which should list her father’s name. The church marriage record does not list the fathers of the bride and groom, so a primary source may not exist. 

At present the best prospect is a christening in 1814, where the parents are James Walder, a carpenter from Habin, a mile south of Rogate, and Elizabeth or Bet. 

18/12/1814 Ann James Elizabeth (Bet) WALDER Carpenter from Habin. 

Maybe Ann was born in 1812 and not christened until 1814? Or maybe she was christened in some other parish? I have searched but found no other good prospects.