Posted: 11/27/2010 8:01:46 PM EDT
I know many of you either don't care about your own family history or simply don't know about it & could care less. But I've always been into the elderly relative thing, even as a young tike. About a month ago a cousin brought over a bag full of photo negatives his older sister (now deceased) had & her worthless son was going to burn.  
Needless to say, it's a mofo trying to find a handheld negative reader these days. So I broke down & bought an Epson photo scanner that reads negatives & then throws the pic up on my laptop screen for editing. Obviously I can then burn it to disc and/or have prints made for ma's Christmas present. I found pics of my great-grandmother (whom I remember well) & she raised my mother when her mother left the farm & went off to work in the bigger cities. Point is, negatives are pretty fragile & don't last long in the basement or attic. So for the guys who DO know their family 3-4 generations back & DO want their grand-kids to know about who & where, I urge ya to get one of these scanners. I assure you that someone down your family line WILL thank you for it later, even if you're not around to hear it. 
Be sure to name the relative on the thumbnails too, not just leave a number. 
My .o2 |
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Hear!!! Hear!!!!
I'm an historian by training, & have a similar scanner. I've made such use of it as I could, as Bob describes, but unfortunately, my family is not one to share photos, nor keep negatives. In the past year, however, I've acquired my aunt's collection of photos (she has Alzheimer's, and they're NOT organized)...I've found a treasure-trove of photos of family members that would have otherwise been lost! Also, make use of your video cameras & audio recorders! Sit down & talk with older family members about their lives, significant events they remember, or perhaps in which they played a role. Simply having an audio record of your grandfather's voice might be priceless to you someday (I have about 2 sentences of MY grandfather saying something on tape. He died in 1971, when I was 11.) What you do doesn't have to be formal––you're your own best historian! David www.tfaonline.org www.tfaonline.org/forum |
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Also, make use of your video cameras & audio recorders! Sit down & talk with older family members about their lives, significant events they remember, or perhaps in which they played a role. Simply having an audio record of your grandfather's voice might be priceless to you someday Thoughts on how to keep a video/audio for many years? Burn it to disc? Tape doesn't last long, not to mention technology changes SO much every 10-15 years that playing something might be darn near impossible. 8-track tape, anyone? 
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Though quality tapes should easily last for a decade or more––especially if not used frequently (I still occasionally play quality cassette tapes I made in
the 1970s, and haven't noticed any delamination or other problems except on one tape, and it was physically damaged), I would update the media periodically, with the understanding that there may be some "duplicative fading". It's something we're contemplating now: converting the 8mm videotapes to digital, with DVD probably being our best longer-term storage option. Not sure yet what we'll use to accomplish the conversion, though. I was in Staples the other day, & noticed they had a display of conversion tools, including a USB turntable (yes, to "digitize" your vinyl albums!), a slide scanner, a movie converter, & something else––all around $100 each. As I understand it, CD/DVD/BluRay are backwards-compatible, meaning that you can read the older, lesser quality (that being a relative term) formats in the newer devices. David www.tfaonline.org www.tfaonline.org/forum |
| I'm in the process now of scannining old family pics to disc. I've only been able to get up to my grandparents generation though. I wished I had some recordings of my grandfathers, they had some great stories. I have a photo album my great aunt made chronicling life and the people of Parkertown between WWI and WWII that is pretty neat. Parkertown doesn't exist anymore, the land was taken by the federal gov for what is now FT. Campbell in prep for WWII. |
Something else I've become aware of is that when I see pics of my great-grandmother (whom I remember well), I also see pics of people whom I have NO idea whom they are............. 
I hope my mother can shed some light on who these folks are as well as who the kids are in these pics. Most of what I'm seeing were pics taken in the 1940s, so an older person then was probably born in the 1870s or so.
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What model number do you have Bob? I got the Epson V500 for around $150~ from Amazon. Works pretty good & can filter out much of the spots & cracks in a negative. I'm happy with it. Thanks! I also have boxes and boxes of reel to reel tapes of recordings my grandfather made in Europe during WWII. He left me two r2r players, but both are broken. I look forward to listening to them when I find a working player. |