Family Memories Bound Book

Scrapbooks are a wonderful means of gathering family history as are genealogical reports developed by programs such as Family TreeMaker. I use both of these type of materials in the books I have developed but also write a biographical narrative, where I can capture family stories as well as provide the facts and illustrate with family pictures. Here's an example of the table of contents of a "Family Memories" book I recently completed:

Part 1--Wife's family backgrounds (Approx. 10 pages)
Show genealogy (pedigree) chart with those photos available
Wife's mother's family history
Wife's father's family history
Wife's early life biographical sketch

Part 2--Husband's family backgrounds (Approx. 10 pages)
Show genealogy chart with those photos available
Husband's mother's family history
Husband's father's family history
Husband's early life biographical sketch
Part 3--Marriage and family (Approx. 10 pages)
Dating and early marriage
Starting a family
Middle years
Retirement

Part 4--Complete family genealogy (Approx. 18 pages)

Part 5--Family photo and document scrapbooks for both family sides (Approx. 38 pages)

Part 6--Appendices such as old love letters, wills, and other lengthy documents.(Approx. 30 pages)
Part 7--CDs and DVDs with family picture show and family movies

I'm happy on request to send via email or mail copies of sections of books I have done.

Picture Slide Shows on CD and DVD

Family pictures are an important source for our memories of family history. Most families have some ambition to sort through all their pictures, arrange them in albums, and with today's computer technologies digitize the photos so they can be viewed on television or through projection onto a screen.

Once photos are sorted, scanned and arranged into slide shows that can be accessed by computer or DVD player, multiple copies can be distributed to all family members so no one needs to feel left out.

Families also are smart to plan ahead for rites of passage types of events at which a slide show can be a valuable feature: weddings, wedding anniversaries, birthdays, and funerals. I recently created one of these for a son-in-law's grandfather for presentation at his 100th birthday. Each party attendee received both a DVD and a CD. The DVD was used to play the presentation on a large screen TV. The CD included all the pictures(accessible for making prints) and also a pdf document containing all of the family history. The picture below shows a sample CD menu that has the history document and the slide show play button.

Here's a video clip of a slide show that has tags and captions. The elder generation needs to convey to the younger generation who appears in the family picture collection, and this is one way to get identifications in the DVD slide show (the YouTube cuts off one side and doesn't maintain text quality, but all tags and captions are legible when played as a DVD on a television set).

Video Interviews

One of the best ways to capture family history is to video interview our older family members. I've been doing this over the last 25 years or so; these videos are an essential source of what I know about my family.

It's my experience that many elderly people don't feel comfortable being interviewed on video. It's sometimes better to put less emphasis on TV production values (lighting, sound, composition) and more on getting the information. One technique is to gather at a table family picture albums and other photo treasures, then to focus the camera on these as the interviewee describes who is in the pictures. A good interviewer can then draw out much more of the family stories.

Here's a clip from an interview I did at Thanksgiving with my son-in-law's 100-year-old grandfather.

Conversion/Editing of Home Movies

Those of us who grew up in the fifties and sixties may have had dads or uncles who had a movie film camera, such as 8mm, Super8 or 16mm. By the early eighties, many of us with young children were capturing family moments with VHS video cameras or other formats such as VHS-C or Hi8.

I have the equipment and know-how to digitize and edit your home movies into a condensed show of highlights that includes titling and a soundtrack.

This is an example of an old home movie I converted to DVD and also put up on the web for my family.

Rites of Passage Events

Let's take a wedding as an example. Two families are joining. At a wedding reception, it's fun to provide a projected slide show that spotlights the couple but also shows each as children, and with family members and friends. I've done several of these for children and relatives. In the case of a wedding, I suggest approximately 250 pictures, carefully organized to keep everyone's attention, e.g., five pictures of bride as young child, five pictures of groom as young child, five pictures of couple, etc. The couple selects their favorite appropriate music for a sound track.

Putting together this type of slide show is not as simple as throwing 125 or 235 snapshots in a box and assuming someone is going to charge $.25 each to digitize, organize and orchestrate for presentation. Photo by photo, each ought to be recomposed (cropped for improved composition), color-corrected, red eye-removed and receive other quick restoration.

A memorable slide show also might show some attention to audience. For instance, a wake service might focus on the life of the deceased; an anniversary might focus on the history of a couple's lifetime together (dating, marriage, work, progeny, later life, etc.) in chronological order; or a marriage, that involves a coupling of individuals, but also a coupling of families and their complexities, in an order that maintains audience interest.

The audience at a marriage reception is broad, and a show works best with a focus on the couple, but with some regular sequence such as couple each as children, couple recently, couple with family, couple as children, couple together, couple with friends. Creating such is quick and mechanical, but also loving, time consuming.

Click here for a sample of a short Internet or Rehearsal Dinner slide show.

Here's a sample wedding music video focusing on parents of the bride.

Multimedia Memoirs

Everyone has a story, and perhaps you want to gather memories in a written form but also include pictures, movies and other illustrations. Below is a link to a blog that shows how you might week-by-week compile a digital memory book. Blogs are a popular way to publish regular content that allows others to reply and carry on a conversation with you. Once the content is developed, it can be converted into a digital format that is organized differently, for example from earlier to later or minus the comments.

http://janiewilsonsstrongfingers.blogspot.com/2007/06/toward-natural-history-of-reinhardt.html