When I started this picture project, I basically divided it into two parts in my mind. Phase I consisted of pictures from college all the way back to my mother's childhood. Phase II consisted of very old black and white portraits and snapshots of my Great Granny's family- from her own Great Grandmother, up through her birth, childhood, and the early years of her marriage. Yesterday I finished scanning 100+ pictures of my mother and older brother's very early years,and I was finally ready to tackle the really old pictures. For whatever reason, in my mind I had been picturing Phase II as a short, quick endeavor. The cardboard box holding all the pictures was small-ish, certainly smaller than the two huge boxes I started with for the other pictures. Last night I got it all out to sort and organize for this morning, and I soon realized that I had HUNDREDS of snapshots and formal portraits. Probably close to 350. In addition, I wanted to do this project right, so I'm not just saving the files as "Great Granny and Granny". No, it's "Marguerite Pankratz with firstborn child Benita Pankratz".
So, right now, this is my homestretch...
this entire pile, plus all the pictures stuffed in those two smaller, closed boxes...
seen here.
The best thing about Phase II though, has to be getting to re-discover pictures I remember my Great Granny displaying in beautiful gold frames in her big brick house on Main Street. Pictures like these from her wedding day.
I'm so glad that I took the time to do this (tedious/boring/backcrunching) project. It will all be worth it to have everything preserved digitally.
I'm almost there!
Now you just need to register with the Family Tree website and add some of those pictures and some stories to go along with them. Since you seem to be into keeping up with your family history and you're good at illustrating with entertaining detail stories about the pictures you scanned that I think it would be good for you and your family.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea! I also wanted to do some genealogical work as well- I know everyone back to my Great Granny's Great Grandmother on both sides, but after that it gets fuzzy. I'm definitely going to check into it, thank you for the suggestion.
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