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As those who live in The United States prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, it is the perfect time to center our thoughts on what we are most thankful for ... family, friends and memories. Whether you live in the United States, or not, now is a perfect time of year to start concentrating a bit more energy on recognizing tradition and memory-making opportunities. Don't forget to have your digital camera on the ready. Make plans, formal or informal, to create earnest conversations with your most elderly members of our family. Get them to talk and share what they remember about their lives and yesteryear. It will make your Holiday family gatherings more special than you can imagine!
What's New at FamilyHistoryProducts.comA New Look for the Website!Over the past weeks, I have been changing the Family History Products website over to a new template. It is quite different than before.Be sure to take a look and let me know your thoughts.
The First Annual National Day of Listening?This holiday season, StoryCorps is asking everyone across the nation (and world) to take an hour on Friday, November 28, 2008, the day after Thanksgiving, to record and preserve a Do-It-Yourself interview with a loved one at home or in your community center.It can be a grandparent, sibling, friend, or a familiar face from the neighborhood. This could be the start of a new tradition for all of our families! Oh also, there are two really short videos that you really need to see and listen to. They are from among those that Storycorps has created from interviews they've conducted. One is very funny and the other very sad!
Converting 35mm Slides to Digital ImagesWhen I'd rummage through the closet I'd see that box of slides. I'd get a great big knot in my stomach each time, as I was reminded that I still needed to convert those 35mm slides to digital files.That box of slides was just one fire, flood, tornado or any other natural disaster away from being gone for ever. To me those slides are priceless. Lose them and I'd never get them back. So why did it take me 27 years to get around to it?
Digital Photo Preservation and SharingDigital photos sharing is just one way to preserve your family photos from being lost. Digital photos can be easily lost.A file can be accidentally deleted, a hard drive can crash or one might simply forget where the pictures are located. Sharing digital family photos with other family members is a great way of duplicating our digital photos and thus decreasing the odds of ever losing those pictures. Plus it is a great way to share pictures across the miles, for families that are geographically separated....like many are, in today's world. There are many ways to do this, but... Quotes About MemoriesQuotes about memories remind me of the importance of preserving and passing all that I can about my life... as well as what I know about the lives of my ancestors, to my children.What I know about my parents, grandparents and before won't stop with me. I'll pass it on to my posterity. Here is one of my favorites: "Too many (of us) have ignored their ancestors and family history and not bothered to examine their own life stories, much less share them with others. They too rarely share much of their past lives with friends, or pass them on to their progeny. And yet we desperately need to do all that..." Dolly Berthelot www.mineyourmemories.com Family StoriesDon't we all have a family "story" that has been passed down through several generations?These are stories that sometimes border on legend in some families. In my family a story has been passed down since the mid 1800s of one Alexander Boyter, who fled Scotland, with his brother James, and came to America. Alexander was my great-great grandfather. The story goes that the two were caught hunting illegally on another's property. A scuffle ensued and to escape punishment, they jumped on a ship bound for the U.S in the 1860s. The two eventually went back and brought their mother, and younger siblings, to America with them. About 10 years ago, a complete stranger came up to me and
told me this same story, that I had heard all my life. Who
was this stranger? This was an amazing experience for me.
Click Here to read the rest of this story and to share your own story!
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