My great-great grandparents, C.L. and Mattie Pace, with their three eldest children, before my grandmother was born.
Just to let y’all know I haven’t forgotten about you…
I’m off from work this week, ,which should mean plenty of time for blogging. And indeed, I’ve spent most of the week busy at my laptop.
My Uncle Braxton in formal uniform about the time of the Korean War, in which he was a tank platoon commander.
But rather than writing about the events of the day (and I think you’ll agree with me that these days have been pretty uneventful), I’ve been writing about things that happened 60, 70, 80 and more years ago.
My Mom has been working on family memoirs. Every since her brother Braxton suggested the project, she’s applied herself very industriously, and I am her typist. I thought I would be wrapping up the typing phase today, but Mom just handed me 20 more fairly densely-packed pages, so my goal now is to finish before going back to work Monday.
I’ve been pausing in the typing every few pages to work on scanning in a great trove of family pictures. Eventually, I plan to create a family website for relatives far and near, consisting of my Mom’s work and perhaps other members’ contributions.
This project has had precedence. I’ll get back to blogging more regularly ASAP.
Just to give y’all an extra treat… Most of what I’ve been helping to chronicle deals with things that happened before I was born (and I’ve learned a great deal from it). But on a separate track, we’re in the middle of having family home movies and videos digitized. Below you see me in a low-res image from an 8 mm film. I’m strolling in a park in Charleston in 1956. In those days, you see, a gentleman kept his bow tie on for such activities…
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When it’s completed, you should place a copy with an appropriate historical repository.
Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor that you and yours should enjoy for years.
I agree with Rose, and would go a step further. Don’t skimp on backing up your work, not just locally but also on the cloud. You might consider keeping backups at another family member’s house too. One can never have too many backups of treasures like you’re creating.
And while you’re at it, make sure you create a recovery USB or disk for your PCs. The recovery media will get you back up and running quickly should your device suffer a catastrophic failure.
You remind me of a nagging worry…
A couple of years back, I created a free family tree at ancestry.com. I’ve resisted all attempts to get me to sign up for the for-pay service.
Meanwhile, I’ve put HUGE amounts of time and effort into building that tree. I’ve got some lines going back to the 16th century and beyond (although some of the connections are a bit unclear when you get back that far — so many people with similar names).
So I live in fear that one day Ancestry will cut me off from my tree — or worse, delete it…
But I just can’t take on any more monthly payments…
Great photo. I only have one photo of any of my great-great grandparents and it’s in very poor condition. Just of few of great grands. I’ve been trying to find old photos for months now and it’s proving to be a challenge. Perhaps you can post some excerpts here from time to time.
I read a while back that there are more photographs taken every 2 minutes today than were taken in the entire 19th century.
Oh, at LEAST…
How far back are you taking your family history in this, Brad?
This is basically my Mom’s memories of growing up in the Pee Dee — which means it starts in 1931.
I finally finished the part she was interested in getting done — basically a hard copy to share with her older brother, since they share the same memories.
Next step is putting it on the web for others in the family to see, with photos. From there, I hope to start building something that goes farther back in the family tree.
There are a lot of good stories to be told. For instance, a lot of my mother’s memories have to do with her paternal grandmother. Well, that grandmother wouldn’t have been born had her father not gone AWOL from the Confederate army nine months before her birth. He went home for a few days, then rejoined his unit for the march north. He never came back from the siege of Petersburg…