Digitalize your Photos Now Before it's too Late!

Last weekend I went to the Central Florida Family History Conference in Orlando, Florida; second year for me, 17th year for them. It was just as good this year as it was last year.

Family Search

We learned a lot about the Family Search website and all the new tools that have been added since last year. I was amazed. Family Search is a free website hosted my The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On Family Search you can create your family tree, do research for your ancestry, they even have free online classes to help you build research skills.

At the conference last week the one thing that really caught my attention was being able to add your photos and stories of your ancestry online. This interested me a lot because I have tons of photos that I don't want to get rid of but are just stored in a container. So I took the class about digitalizing your photos.

The instructor told a story about some photos his father had left him, I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it here with you.

He was gone for the weekend with his wife and while he was gone his house caught on fire due to a bathroom light over the shower being left on. His bishop, who happened to live across the street, called him to tell him that his house was on fire. So he raced home.

On the way, all he could think about was the photos that his father had left him, 5 boxes full. His father had just passed away the year before so he felt like his father was dying all over again. When he got there he found several fire trucks and police cars all along his street. As he approached his house a fire man asked if he was the owner, at that time he saw all five boxes in the street. The fireman had told him he saw that it said dad's photos on the box so he saved them for him. What a hero.

Man, what a story, but it made me think of all the treasures I have in my home with photos. I new this needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. I work a lot so I don't have a lot of time right now to do this but I do have a daughter who has some time. We talked about making this her project. It was suggested in the class to get your kids involved because they seem to love all the new electronics.

He said if you have a smart phone or android that these were perfect for scanning pictures. Wow, I never thought about that. So there doesn't seem to be a need to go out and buy scanners to do this, no excuses. All you have to do is take the picture and lay it on a clean solid color, like white, and take the picture again with your phone then have your phone send it to your email address then save the photo in a file or a thumb drive, stored forever.

I loved it, I have two different kids of scanners at home so we will use that for awhile. One scanner is my printer and the other is a small photo scanner, both work good. I can use the printer for the larger pictures and the small scanner for the small photos. I kinda want to put everything else on hold and make this a family project.

That's my post this week, if you value those family memories you better start to think about how best to save them because you never know what disasters await you and then its too late.

Keeping Journals

I wish my ancestors would have left journals for their posterity. I would have loved to hear their stories about the challenges and decisions they had to make. But, my ancestors were oral story tellers not the kind that write things down. It's sad that most of those stories are gone now with their owners.

I use to think I have nothing to leave to my posterity because my life was dull but I was wrong. I have experienced so many things in my life and I know I can pass those things down to my children, and generations to come afterward, so they can benefit from something I had experienced and over came, that was my plan.

What is sad is I love to write, always have, and I did keep journals for a long time. But most of those journals are lost to my children because they were destroyed from years of storage or just misplaced. So I have to take my already worn memories and rewrite those stories somehow. I'm sure with some prayer the most important ones will come to mind.

I can site a time that a journal was very useful to me. I use to keep a journal for my children when they were too young to keep their own. My oldest child had health issues caused by an immunization shot. My then husband had created a law suit a few years after this happened to her. It took a long time for this case to settle so exact memories had became faint. When time came for a deposition to be taken by the other side I was able to go back to her journals and give them the information they needed. 

So there is some benefit for those thing, even today. One day I was at the temple, waiting in the chapel, so I picked up the scriptures and opened to 1 Nephi chapter 7, he was talking about 2 records that he kept. It made me think about keeping 2 records. So now I have my journal for spiritual things and a journal for family history. I add things like wedding info, new baby info, and death info. I also add accomplishments like graduations from school, awards and promotions. I can always go back and find what I need when people want to remember exact dates.

I will admit though that I am not as good at my spiritual record keeping as I should be so I will have to challenge myself to do better. I also have to get started on my personal life before I forget anything else. I have seen some really cool ways to create an annual journal through all the family pictures for the year. They have created a family year book. I love that idea and wish I could start over with my kids younger. But I guess I can go back to my old pictures and still create those kinds of things, just might be a little challenging remembering everything.

Anyway, journal keeping is very important to our lives and those who are to come. I want to challenge you today to work on this area of your life to leave a legacy to your posterity in writing. This is one of my most important goals before I leave this earth, and with God's help, I will accomplish this goal.