Has digital communication improved your life?

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by Casper1212

Here's digital story for you. My aunt had loaned some family photos to her aunt, and she asked me to go get them back. Yeah, I know, asking for trouble. But I agree to do it because I wanted to see the photos. They are of my great grandmother and my grandmother. Anyway, I asked my great aunt for the pics, and she apologized for forgetting to return them. I took them to my daughter, who scanned them into her computer and burned three cd's. I sent one back to my aunt with her priceless photos, so that she can share without ever having to let go of her pics again. I send the second cd to my great aunt, and she's overjoyed to have her own copies of the pics. I kept the third, of course. One of the things that causes more discord among families than anything else is the possession of such priceless items as family keepsakes. Thanks to the digital age, photos and documents can at least be shared. I do a LOT of genealogy research over the internet, too, and have access to info that I would normally have to travel hundreds of miles to get.

this has been my intention for years. My Mom has photos from my Dad's WWII South Pacific experiences that would be appropriate in any historical collection. But she is 87 and I still can't get her to agree to loan them to me. Meanwhile I have a sister that has routinely stolen family photos through the years. Those are probably lost forever.

[mommax3plus2]

my brother and i are working on the picture thing right now. of all the possesions a family has, pictures seem to be the most valuable. he lives near my mother, and started posting pictures on his website that were mine and i never realized were missing. turns out my mother took them at some point, and some of them i didnt realize i left behind. it did make me start digitizing my own pictures and making them available to family with online albums. after loading the first couple hundred pictures, i didnt realize what a concern it had been for me should there ever be a fire or for the pictures that were starting to degrade. now, i only need access to the internet and all those valuables will always be there.

[Casper1212]

Just about every county in every state has its own USGenWeb Project website, provided by Rootsweb. For personal storage, I use a genealogy program called Legacy. You can got to their website and download it for free, and use it to store and organize the photos. There's a space for each person in your files and you can connect the photos to the names for easy reference. If you're that into family history, here's something you might want to consider doing. Go to the cemetary and take photos of the headstones of family members. It may sound strange, but when you or someone in the family starts to work on the family tree, it will be one of your best sources of information, and you can store all the photos on your computer or disc.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by Casper1212

Just about every county in every state has its own USGenWeb Project website, provided by Rootsweb. For personal storage, I use a genealogy program called Legacy. You can got to their website and download it for free, and use it to store and organize the photos. There's a space for each person in your files and you can connect the photos to the names for easy reference. If you're that into family history, here's something you might want to consider doing. Go to the cemetary and take photos of the headstones of family members. It may sound strange, but when you or someone in the family starts to work on the family tree, it will be one of your best sources of information, and you can store all the photos on your computer or disc.

Actually I did do a lot of geneology projects, but not much is local. My parents hail from TX. the name escapes me , but there is a national project to record and upload any cemetary info for posterity. If I find it I'll post it.

[tcrackly]

The cemetery geneology project is this:

The USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project

[Casper1212]

The problem with the tombstone project is that there are so many cemetaries and so few people willing to either go do the survey, and/or find the time to load the info onto the website. I haven't found a tombstone website yet that was much help.
As for doing research in Texas, there are some good resources. There is one for Texas residents only, and I have the info to access it. I keep forgetting to tap into it because I haven't gotten to the members of the family that went to Texas.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

I showed a tombstone of a Revolutionary War soldier to NJ2ME. It's about a mile from her house. I found a Davis stone in the woods off the Davis Road in Mattawamkeag. When you spend as much time in the woods as I do you find all kinds of stuff. There is a little brook in Carroll. I found a deep pool with rock sides. There are stone steps leading down into the pool and it is all natural, not man made.

(This is not an ad. I sold it four years ago.)