Keeping Memories Alive (photos and stories)

 

Keeping Memories Alive

I love old family photos and old stories. For a few decades I have been collecting them. So has my brother. In fact we have boxes and boxes of them.

I realized two important things:

1. If people of my generation do not preserve them they may be lost forever.

2. My children may not find them relevant, and send them to the nearest dumpster after I die.

Many years ago I was contacted by a distant cousin, who said "When my grandfather learned that his father had died, he came back to Canada, cleaned out the farm house, burned everything, and sold the farm. I never even knew that our family was Scottish."

To preserve the old photos:
At first I made copies to share with family.
Then I discovered the economies of scanning them and making CDs to share with others.

But I was delighted when FamilySearch created Memories. https://www.familysearch.org

Now I had a safe place where I could store family treasures where they would still be available for free to later generations of my family, whether or not my children were interested. I served missions in FamilySearch Support, where I learned to help people preserve photos, documents, stories and audio recordings.

The maximum file size is currently 15MB and only certain file formats are supported. All items should be tagged to someone. The maximum number of memories that can be tagged to any one person is 1000. This seems like a lot, but I try avoid unnecessary repetition. Some of the restrictions will make more sense if you remember that the site is designed to respect the privacy of living people, and to respect the ownership rights to certain file formats.

I would like to share some ideas with you.

Preserve Your Photos and Family Memories https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/preserve-your-photos-and-family-memories

Photos
To copy printed photos, a flatbed scanner usually produces the best results, although phone cameras can still produce fairly good copies. If you are scanning use at least 300 dots per inch (pixels per inch), Otherwise it may look acceptable on the screen, but not as a printed copy.

Some photos: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/gallery/album/3399

PNG format is probably the most favored file format at present. My scanners have usually saved images as JPEG/JPG and I have found the results to be good despite it being a "lossy" format, After all, old photos are not usually perfect to start with. Any photo is usually better than no photo, in my opinion. Photos saved in PDF format cannot be rotated in Memories, which is inconvenient.

Black and white photos can be colorized for free at sites like https://www.myheritage.com/incolor which can also correct the color of colored photos. Note that colorization can produce stunning results if the black and white original has good contrast. Faces can be especially realistic, although the software may guess the color of hair and clothing incorrectly. Colorization really does bring the photos to life.

The Strengths of Albums
You can easily create personal photo albums on the Gallery page of FamilySearch Memories. These have some special advantages.
You can rearrange their order.
You can include photos, documents, stories, and audio in the same album.
You can give the URL to anyone and they can view the album whether or not they have a FamilySearch account.
You can view the album as a slideshow.
You can cast the slideshow to a smart TV. This is GREAT for family gatherings.

An album organized but not fully tagged. https://www.familysearch.org/photos/gallery/album/529402

What about Video?
MyHeritage can also animate photos too, and even have them tell their life story. But video cannot be stored in FamilySearch Memories. There is a work-around. You can store the videos on another site, such as Dropbox, Google Drive or Youtube and put the link in FamilySearch Memories. Of course we don't know how long the videos will remain available online, and once they are gone, the links will no longer work.

Jane Buchanan Watson tells her life story: 

Disclaimer: I am not sponsored in any way by MyHeritage, but I love their photo tools.

What is a Document?
In Memories, the distinction between a "photo" and a "document" and a "story" may be confusing. Something showing a person's face is considered a photo and something showing text is a document, but what about an image of a family home or a treasured possession? In any case, "photos" and "documents are both uploaded to Memories by selecting "File".

What is a Story?
A "Story" is an un-formatted text document, usually composed directly in FamilySearch Memories. Warning: The editor can time-out after 30 minutes, so it is safer to create the story in a word processor then paste it and save it.

War Veteran Albert Lidgett (click to read)

Why use PDF?
Portable Document Format can include formatted text, with different font sizes and enhancements, and photos, maps, etc. So, for longer accounts it is a much better format than "Story". I prefer creating longer documents in my word processor then exporting/saving/printing to PDF format. (Memories does not support proprietary file formats, but Adobe has released their rights to the PDF format.) How long can a PDF be? I have one PDF document that is over 1000 pages of text. But like all Memories items PDFs have a maximum file size of 15 MB. And as mentioned, photos in PDF format can not be rotated to correct their orientation.

Here is a 68 page PDF with photos and formatting

Ancestors of Ernest (Robert) Kinney

Audio Recordings
These are most easily made using the Memories mobile app. This app limits the length to 5 minutes. Some time ago I found an old audio cassette of my grandmother talking, She died in 1986 so this was a rare find. I used the free Audacity software to record the cassette on my computer. By adjusting the sampling rate I was able to fit it into 15MB and then I uploaded it to Memories. The playback quality is still acceptable to me.

A 23 minute recording https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/K6H5-HQJ
A life saved by a short plank https://www.familysearch.org/memories/memory/195467541?a=1347260

Tagging Memories to People
A photo, document, recording or story is useless unless it is tagged to someone.

If you upload items without tagging them, you are the only person who has access to them.
And when you die, no one will have access to them.
If a deceased person is tagged, that item is accessible to all FamilySearch Users.
If only living people are tagged, that item will remain private until at least one of the tagged people dies and their death is reported to FamilySearch. Then the tags to deceased people will be shown but not the tags to living people.

Mass Tagging
This is possible but should normally not be used. If you select Memories from someone's Person page and upload files, they will automatically be tagged to that person, whether that is what you intended or not. Of course, mistaken tags are easily removed,

Removing Tags
Even if you did not create a tag, you can still Detach it.

I love FamilySearch Memories. The Utah Genealogical Society (FamilySearch's parent) was created in 1894 and has been preserving family history ever since then. I hope that the Memories feature will preserve memories of my relatives for future generations.

What's it going to be like when I die, Kid?

 

About 20 years ago, a long-time friend (and my former bishop) told me about a visit to his uncle who was dying of lung cancer. (I thought, "How simply and beautifully he has explained it!")

“When I arrived, my uncle’s minister was visiting with him. The minister seemed uncomfortable with me there, so I went out for something to eat and came back two hours later.

“When I returned, Uncle said ‘What happened Kid, did you step on his toes in the elevator? For the past two hours he has been telling me what a horrible person you are, and how you believe all the wrong things. Yet, everyone else says you are a good person. And when I asked him what it was going to be like when I die, he talked on and on and never answered my question. You have been a missionary and a bishop in your church, what’s it going to be like when I die, Kid?’

“I said, ‘Uncle, tell me what it was like when you left to fight in the war.’

“He said ‘All the family were on the platform at the train station. And they all wanted to hug me or kiss me, and shake my hand, and tell me that they loved me and wanted me to return safely.’

“And Uncle, what was it like when you returned home from the war?”

“There were 28 Davidsons lined up on the same platform in the same train station. And they all wanted to hug me or kiss me, and tell me how glad they were to see me.”

“Uncle, when you die it will be very similar. Your cancer-ravaged body will die, but your spirit will rise up to be greeted by loved ones who have previously died and are happy to see you again. It will be like when you returned from the war, all over again.”

“That doesn’t sound bad at all. … And Kid, tell me what God is like. I asked my minister and he talked for 45 minutes and never answered my question.

“Well Uncle, there is God the Father, and his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit who is also called the Holy Ghost. You are a good man and you have done a lot of good for other people. When you have felt that special warm feeling inside after doing good to someone, that was the Holy Ghost telling you that God is pleased with you. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. Through him we will all be resurrected and we can be forgiven of our sins. God is the father of Jesus Christ. He is also the father of our spirits. He loves us and wants us to be happy. He has a great plan of happiness for us all. In the scriptures, Jesus prayed to the Father and he taught his followers to pray to the Father, too. Again and again Jesus taught that he was sent by God the Father, and the Father bore witness that Jesus is his beloved son.

“The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are three separate personages, who are one in purpose. Jesus prayed that his followers would be united in the same way that He and the Father are united. It isn’t complicated.

“Thanks, Kid. At last I understand."

See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist

Copying Slide Photos (Color Diapositives)

 In 1964 I was serving in a small city in southern France, assisting a small local congregation. One particular family had several children, The second oldest of these was Gaby,  He was part of nearly everything we did. He was a teenager at the time but, he is obviously a "senior citizens" now. 

We reconnected recently, I had done a little family history research on his family and he contacted me to ask if I would correct an error I had made. I was glad to do so. 

I gave him the link to an online photo album I had created of some of the best photos from my mission. He loved the fact that some of the photos showed him and members of his family. He asked if I had any more photos that I had taken in his city. 

I told him that I had a few more but they were in the form of slides and I did not have a slide scanner. I checked into buying one but most were $70 or more, and the reviews were generally negative. Then I found an accessory that held a cell phone above an illuminated slide and the cost was $18 and the reviews were generally positive. So I bought one. 

My new phone had difficulty getting sharp photos of the slides, so I tried using the camera on my wife's tablet. It was much sharper, but awkward to balance on something designed to hold a phone.

I wondered whether my old smart phone was still workable. This proved to be the best option. I used it to copy the slides he wanted and sent copies to him. He was really glad to have them.

And I was able to enlarge the online photo album.

I love old photos.