[or-roots] old photos 2

[Ronda Howard]

Hi Becky,
What a wonderful story!  I shall hope for a genealogy fairy to appear, while doing some detective work on who's who.
Ronda
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Becky O'Donnell 
  To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
  Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 1:31 PM
  Subject: Re: [or-roots] old photos 2


  Well, here is my success story about old photos.

  I didn't know my father's side of the family at all. My father passed away in 1995 and I had not seen him in 17 years. The lady that he had been living with about 10 years earlier was a lady that I called "Auntie Bev" (she was someone I grew up with. My father dated her and my mother dated her husband when they were teens and they switched partners and got married. I know, I know) Well, she was coming to Portland and called and asked to meet me at the airport in Portland. I did and she brought me two trunks. They were filled with pictures and old letters, old jewelry, etc. but I didn't feel right about opening the trunk and going thru it. She told me that most of the stuff was from my grandmother.

  Well,  two years ago I decided that it was time to open the trunk and that it wouldn't be snooping. I couldn't believe all the things I found! My grandmother was a pack rat!! and I'm glad she was. She had all kinds of things about my father's brother that was amazing. My uncle was in the military during WWII and he was on Bikini Island. He was an engineer! There were coded telegrams from Guam etc. Then he did the underground testing in the Nevada desert. He worked at Indian Springs and they lived in Las Vegas. When you used to watch the testing on T.V., he was the guy that you heard doing the countdown. I know because not only did my dad always have us watch, but there was a newspaper article about it. Of course he, his wife and one of his daughters died of cancer!

  Well, I hadn't seen any of my Uncle's family since 1969, but I thought that I would try and find his son. I did find his number and I was able to tell him what I found. All the wonderful stuff that he had sent his mother and tons of pictures. He said he wanted me to send them to him, but he wanted NAMES on the back of all of the pictures because he didn't know who anybody was either!! Well, that set it all in motion. 

  I turned over the pictures that had names, wrote them down and started searching. All I knew was that my fraternal grandfather had been born in SD and so had my father. I sent out one email on the message boards and my "Danish Genealogy Fairy" appeared. ONE DAY!!  In two days I had contact with three people in SD. 

  Anyway, In the end I found out that I have the ONLY pictures from the 1920's, 30's and 40's of the families in South Dakota. My dad's mother's father owned a General Store and she was the only one who could afford a camera and film. My grandparents were divorced in 1949. For some reason, she kept all the pictures safe and sound. She had graduation announcements, school pictures, wills, diaries, newspaper articles, and tons more. She even had a picture of a "truck house" that my grandfather built in 1931! I've had requests for some of the pictures for the State of South Dakota Archives and my family now has pictures of what their grandmother from Denmark looked like. They had never seen her before. I was also able to do our genealogy back to Denmark. So cool.

  So...... thanks to my grandmother, I now have made connections to my family in South Dakota.  (By the way, it only cost them $4.00 in 1932 to drive from SD to Medford. That was for gas, food and lodging)

  So......keep those pictures. At some point they could be a key to some ones' past. I have so many family members now that I don't know what to do with them. And the really sad part. Some of them live in the Portland area and have been here the whole time.

  Becky O'Donnell
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: EugeneMelvin.roots at comcastnet 
    To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
    Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 12:31 PM
    Subject: Re: [or-roots] old photos 2


    That actual happen to me about two years ago.  While working on my wife mother line I came across an eight cousin of my wife in East Tennessee via the Internet.  He sent me about 20 pages of stuff to include copies of photos.

    A year later while we were in Texas visiting another cousin I was busy scanning the pictures she had and after 5 hours of scanning I come across the actual photo of which I was sent an copy an year earlier by until them a complete stranger.

    Eugene

      -------------- Original message -------------- 
      From: "Denise Merritt" <merritthome1 at cableone.net> 

      Save the old photos - someday you might find someone who has a matching one.  (I'm an optimist).  What a neat find!

      Denise
        ----- Original Message ----- 
        From: Ronda Howard 
        To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
        Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 8:48 AM
        Subject: Re: [or-roots] old photos 2


        I have a related question for you all.  While cleaning out my 86 year old Mother-in-law's house we found her Mother-in-law's pictures.  They were inside a blanket box 20 x 20 x 6.  There's at least 200 pictures inside, all are on that 1/8 inch hardboard that old pictures are on.  I'd say the pictures are 80 to 120  years old and haven't seen the light of day for decades.  I plan to scan them.  Actually I scanned 1/2 of them but the scanner was defective and there are streaks through the pictures.  What do I do with the actual pictures.  Good for all of you who are labeling your pictures.  80% of these are not identified, which makes me sad.  I know I'd absolutely love to know who these relatives are.  
        Ronda
          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: George Ross 
          To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
          Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2005 9:43 PM
          Subject: Re: [or-roots] old photos


          When putting together our family history photos we begin each generational family with the family group sheet.  The photos are added after the group sheet beginning with photos of the parents and then photos of the children.  We also add documents such as birth  certificates, BLM land claims, letters, citations from books, wills, census records, etc. and end with the death certificate(s) and obituary(ies) and photos of grave stones when they are available.  Then we begin the next family.

          There is always a question of "how many photos" to add or "is it too much information", but with the older family ancestors we don't usually have a problem deciding what to use.

          We use only two acid free squares when we attach our photos.(That's the same when scrapbooking our recent photos, too, as we know the photos won't fall out of the sheet protectors).  We also have acid free clear photo corners that we use if we don't want to have the squares stick to the photo. I have been using black background paper or a tan color for most of my background sheets when doing my heritage albums.  I will use special scrapbooking paper for wedding photos. For my heritage albums I do very simple pages and include the names of the individuals and approximate date and location, if known. I've also seen some lovely pages that should be hung on a wall and not hidden in a book.

          There is no "real" way to do your albums.  No moderator is going to ask you if "that's your final answer, do you want to phone a friend or take an audience poll" when you are deciding what to use and where to place things.  Just doing it will allow others the opportunity of looking at an organized glimpse into the past in future years.

          Good Luck! Julie
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