Paying it forward with travel photos

Many of our holidays are not geneajourneys but, because of my interest in dead people and cemeteries, I often take photos of cemeteries we pass. When we are cruising some of the organised tours on offer take us to historic cemeteries, I take many images including some headstone pictures during these visits.

Headstone in Broken Hill

I find these images so useful to illustrate my blog and social media posts but recently I have found another use for my pictures that may help other genies and researchers.

Monument in Old Drift Cemetery, Zambia 

Ever since a presentation by Marion Burk Wood at the last THE Genealogy Show event I have taken a renewed interest in FindaGrave. As my photo collection is indexed with lots of keywords I can easily access images of cemeteries and headstones using those terms. 

It has given me great pleasure to add to FindaGrave headstone images not related to my close family from cemeteries in Australia, France, Ireland, The Phillipines, UK, US and Zambia and I have yet more to add. Hopefully some of the relatives of these people will benefit from seeing images of their loved ones final resting places.

Headstone from Tyne Cot, Belgium

I've also been able to add general photos of several cemeteries to the Cemetery Entries on FindaGrave.

Perhaps you have been doing this already but I only recently thought of it. It's another way we genies can "Pay it Forward" for all the value we have received from the work of other volunteers.

It's not a Genealogy Blog

This week I stumbled across a blog from a chap I worked with eons ago at a school in Burwood. I didn't know that he was a blogger who has been at it since 2013.

In his blog "So this weekend we..." John shares some photos from the outings he and his wife take each weekend. John explains why on this page: "This little project, to do something together each week, came about when we realised just how busy our lives are and how we could go for more than a week at a time without really doing anything together. So we decided to do something together each week under the umbrella of a theme, and that theme would change each year."

John's theme for 2018 is particularly relevant to we ancestor chasers, John and Robyn are  remembering members of their family both living and deceased by visiting Sydney streets bearing their first names. You can see the posts in this category here:  https://sothisweekendwe.com/category/sydney-streets/. We Genies could borrow this category for a blogging theme!

As well as introducing us to their family John's posts have showcased Sydney as he and Robyn walk, cycle or travel to all corners of the city.

John probably isn't into genealogy but. through this blog. he is creating a legacy for his future descendants who may want to know about the lives of their ancestors.

So this weekend we... is enhanced by a slick design and fab photos. Why don't you drop in and take a look. Tell John that Jill sent you.

Located in Scotland

Mr GeniAus' mother had a photo of a handsome Victorian stone house in her collection which she believed was the home of her Gowans Grandparents in Hawick in the Borders area of Scotland.

We knew from the censuses that the Gowans lived at 1 High Street, Hawick so in 2004, on our first visit to the town, we headed to High Street where we found, at number one, a shop and residence that bore no resemblance to the handsome home in our photo. We then surmised that the family may have lived away from the watch and clockmaking and confectionery businesses that they conducted at 1 High Street (even though the censuses recorded the family as living at the High Street premises).

1 High Street, Hawick - 2004

We left a copy of a photo of the handsome house with the folk in the local Heritage Centre in Hawick and they promised to ask around to see if any of the locals could identify it. A few weeks later we got a response that no-one recognised the house and that the locals felt that it was not a Hawick building.

Several years later Mr GeniAus realised that his ancestor James Gowans lived with family members in and around Glasgow in his old age. Mr GeniAus thought perhaps James' daughter's residence, Overwood House in Glasgow Road, Paisley may be the subject of the picture. He consulted Google Maps and after looking at properties in the vicinity thought this likely as buildings in the area were of a similar style and age.

The Handsome House

Notes on the back of the photo

High on Mr GeniAus' list for our forthcoming visit to Scotland was tracking down the house so last week he decided to delve a little further.  He contacted a Paisley Group where a lovely lady called Mags MacGee took an interest in the case. She posted our photo of the house on a Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/Paisleyscotlamd/  and several members chimed in with comments.

We learnt that Overwood House had been demolished. One smart chap did something we hadn't thought to do. He blew the photo up to look for clues and deduced that, on the gatepost, there was a number and a name starting with Cop. As our copy of the photo is of a higher resolution I then took a look and saw the number 279 and worked out that the house name was Copshaw which is a village near Hawick. Ah, I thought the house must be in the vicinity of Hawick.

Zoomed in on the Gatepos

I popped 279 and Copshaw into my Google search box and was rewarded with two hits that listed a house named Copshaw at 279 Nithsdale Road, Glasgow

The resident listed was William Fairley Smith whom I immediately recognised as the husband of another daughter of James, Isabella Purves Gowans. On the back of the photo is a reference to Kathleen's bedroom, William and Isabella had a daughter by that name! We now presume that Isabella had sent this postcard to her brother, Mr GeniAus' Great-Grandfather William Purves Gowans, who was living in Australia.

When we logged back onto Google Maps Streetview we were pleased to discover that 279 Nithsdale Road is still standing and from comparing the stonework and decorations on the building we know we have solved a 30 year old mystery.

We have sent a copy of our photo to the owners of the house alerting them that we will be driving up and down their road to look at their house when we visit in the next few months.

Learning from A-Z

Thanks to my friend Carmel I've been having fun with Photofunia an app she suggested in her post yesterday on the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Carmel has suggested some excellent apps in her series of post, I suggest you pay a visit.

My reward for finishing a couple of geneachallenges was some time to play with the app. Following are a few the images I created.

What Fun!

Smile for the Birdie

I have found most of the geneabloggers who are at #AFFHO Congress and they have been ceremoniously beaded. I still need to find a few more bods to bead up.

I will definitely have more beads at Speakers' Corner tomorrow at morning tea time as I will be there doing a presentation on "Blog your Family Stories" at that time. Thanks to Ben Mercer and Ancestry.com.au for inviting me to share my passion for blogging in the corner. It would be fun if some bloggers could join me there as I need some victims fellow bloggers to highlight.

Shelley and Kylie proudly parading their beads

It is a tradition that geneabloggers gather for a group photo at geneaevents so I conferred with my mate Alona and have set the time of 12:35 for our photoshoot tomorrow, Saturday.  Please gather near the Gould/Unlock the Past stand in the Exhibition prior to grabbing your food so that we can have a record of our gathering  and PLEASE wear your beads.

I have organised Mr GeniAus to come along and be our honorry photographer.

Trove Tuesday - A question answered

Two years ago I wrote this post, Do you know Nellie Francisco?, which I will copy below. 
at the end of the post I posed a question to which I now have an answer. Please read on....

Do you know Nellie Francisco?

Going through an old photo album with my Mother today we came cross this photo "That's Nellie Francisco, I was her bridesmaid", Mum said.

Knowing that the photo was taken in Cobar I had a look at the NSW Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages Online Historical Indexes. I put Francisco in the Brides Last Name at Marriage box, selected a date range of 1935 to 1945 and Cobar as the District where the event was registered.  Here is what I found.

It appears that Nellie (Ellen Elizabeth) became Mrs Jack Richard Buckley in 1940. 

Mum couldn't recall the name of the little flowergirl. I wonder who she was?

--------------------------------

I go back to Trove every now and then to repeat my searches. As I had a few minutes to spare recently I popped the terms Elsie Duncan Cobar into the search box to see what new items I could find and I was rewarded with an answer to my question. The little girl's name is Melva Bourne. You can read all about the wedding in this report that I found on Trove.

1940 'WEDDING.', Molong Express and Western District Advertiser (NSW : 1887 - 1954), 6 April, p. 8, viewed 18 March, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140648797

This example demonstrates the value of redoing our Trove searches.

Do you know Peg?

I recently found this photo of Mum with two of her sisters, Kathleen and Eileen, and a friend named Peg. It may have been taken in Cobar or Kensington, NSW in the early 1940s.

L_R Elsie Duncan, Kathleen Duncan, Peg, Eileen Duncan

Do you know Peter Hayes?

I am pictured here in 1951 holding hands with a smart young man named Peter Hayes. I wonder who he is and where we were when this photo was taken. Unfortunately my Mum's memory isn't quite what is was and she is unable to help me.

Perhaps Peter and his family lived near us in Kings Cross or perhaps his parents were friends of our family. Maybe one day someone researching Peter will come across this post and be able to give me an answer. Perhaps it was at a birthday party as I am appear to be eating the cake I haven't dropped on the floor at my feet. It could even be my birthday party!

The Book of Me, Written By You – Prompt 12: The Year You Were Born

This week Julie Goucher of Angler's Rest asked us to respond to the following prompt in The  Book  of Me, Written by You activity. 

This week’s prompt is The year you were born 

What happened:

• Historical
• Films
• Music
• Books
• Television

Or use any other historical (well known or otherwise) event.

-----------------------------------------------

For this post, for which I am rather late, I turned to the Australian resource Trove found a few images from the year I was born and from them created a collage. In the process I learnt a little about how to use GIMP.

What year do you think it was?

A Volunteer learns a few lessons

I spent a pleasant few hours at my historical society last week learning how to use their photo database software. As I did so I handled some amazing images of people and places from the local area.

What struck me was the huge number of images that the society holds and that are searchable through this database. I think that presently the society has around 10,000 images digitised and catalogued in this collection that is only available in the society rooms.

This set me to thinking what I might be able to find if I visited local historical societies in the areas where my ancestors lived. I tend to visit genealogy societies when I am on the road but I should include historical societies.

So what did I learn at my society last week?

* That the society has an impressive photo collection
* Skills with a new software application
* That there are photo collections not available on the web via Flickr
* That I should remember to visit historical societies when I undertake a genealogy jaunt.

Have you checked out the photo collections in relevant historical societies?

Surprise Package

A lovely surprise was amongst the pile of mail that greeted us on our arrival home from nine weeks of travel last night.

Amongst the begging letters, bills and advertising bumph was a small brownpaper package from a distant relative of my husband's.

On opening it we discovered a collection of a dozen photos of my husband's Gowans great aunts and uncles and assorted relatives with a note from my late mother-in-law's cousin.

Knowing of our obsession with family history this cousin and family members when going through the photos of his recently deceased brother decided to pass these  treasures on to us. I was deeply touched and honoured by this gesture as I can think of over a hundred Gowans descendants who may  have been entrusted with these items.

Thankyou to Warren for sending this treasure to us. It will be cherished. I  will scan the images and share them with any  Gowans family members that find me.

The moral of this story is that seeking out  distant relatives, sharing family stories and letting them know of your passion for family history will reap rewards.

Ancestors from Penrith, NSW?

You may be interested in Penrith in Pictures, an online searchable database of photographs from the area.

Family History Through the Alphabet – P is for … Images

P could be for photos or portraits but all images that genealogists collect are not photos. We collect a profusion of images that we digitise : vital records, baptismal certificates, military records of service, letters, handwritten notes, invitations, orders of service etc. Whatever you call them they create problems for people like me who are disorganised.

Are you able to retrieve an image a family member requests within a minute of being asked?

A collection of images that is not organised is like a book without an index, virtually useless if you need to retrieve something efficiently. There are evangelists around who spruik about the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of organisation; some people even part with good money to purchase books on organising ones images. You just need to find a method that suits you and stick to it.

So how do I do it? 

WARNING: this may not be the best or most efficient method but it works for me.

I treat photos and images of documents separately. There are three places where I store images:

Photos are organised using free Picasa software from Google. Stored on a portable hard drive (and backed up on another) are my 90,000+ photos. These are arranged chronologically in folders by date; earlier ones just by year, from the 1990s by year and month and from the 2000s by day. Each photo is tagged with one or more tags that describe the when, where, what and who of the image. Typical tags for a photo might be Rootstech, Salt, Lake City, 2012, Thomas MacEntee, Amy Coffin or Jill Patricia Curry, 1956, First Communion, St Vincents College Chapel, Potts Point or Restaurants, 2010, Sydney Opera House, Food and Drink (for one of my many photos of food).

When I travel the hard drive goes with me so that I can organise and tag on the go. Now that Qantas  has power outlets on planes used for international journeys I am able to use my time in the air fruitfully and arrive home with some of my stuff already organised.

Images of documents as described above are stored in folders according to my very simple Fling it in the Folder method. These are stored on the same portable hard drive as my photos (and backed up on another). Screendumps that I use in presentations are stored there in the folders I make for each presentation I prepare. Having the hard drive with me when I travel allows me to save images of new documents straight into one of  my folders once I have entered details gleaned into my Family Historian database,

Bits and Pieces found during web wandering Those images that I find interesting like genealogy cartoons I clip using the Evernote web clipper, tag them and file them away in Evernote. They may at a later date find their way into Picasa or a folder but, in the first instance, they are saved into Evernote where I can easily retrieve them.

Use whatever pleases you but if you can't put you hands on an image within a minute it's time to ponder a method that allow you to do so.

1920s images in Picasa

Three One Day Old Children

My son recently put a little guessing game on Facebook. Following the birth of his third child he posted these pictures, taken when each of the bubs was just one day old. He asked his friends to identify them; I don't know if there is a prize for correctly answering this guessing game.

What it does show is there is a strong family resemblance in the babies this family. I particularly like this quote from a Facebook friend "My son Luke walked past and said "Are they triplets?"

[New App] ShoeBox Turns Your Android Device Into A Sophisticated Photo Scanning, Organization, And Sharing Machine

Heard about this on Googleplus. Thanks, Kathy Nemaric for the tip

[New App] ShoeBox Turns Your Android Device Into A Sophisticated Photo Scanning, Organization, And Sharing Machine:

'via Blog this'

I notice on her post today that my Genimate, Amy Coffin, has this to say:

"[Last November I had lunch with the kind folks at 1000memories. They asked for my input on their new ShoeBox app for the iPhone. I pulled my Android phone out of my pocket and set it on the table. They got the message.

I am pleased to share this press release with you today. I have downloaded the app and started playing with it. It is very easy to use. I'll let you know how it goes. In the mean time, read up on the latest developments with the 1000memories Shoebox app. ---A]

A New Year's Resolution is broken

I had promised myself that I was going to attend the meetings of the  Hawkesbury Family History Group  this year as it is an active group, just half an hour from my home and the place where a number of my early convict ancestors settled..

I have already broken my resolution because I am off to Rootstech. tomorrow.

 I am particularly sorry to be missing the meeting tomorrow, Wednesday 9 February 2011, at 10am.  where Ralph Hawkins, who has been the archives  officer with SAG,  will talk on "Faces & Places - Dating Family Photographs". The meeting is free and anyone interested is welcome to attend at Hawkesbury Library 300 George Street Windsor..

Glen Innes Photographs

This plea for help from Kempsey Museum comes via Bruce Fairhall on the TMGSydney List.

"I received the following information, so I'm trying to publicise it as widely as possible. Please post it to other relevant lists:

Kempsey Museum -Phone 02 65627572- has over 40,000 prints from Angus McNeal's studios in Glen Innes. He took photographs in surrounding areas too.

The pictures date from 1897 to 1960, but so far only 400 have been identified. They are on display 7 days a week, with the people in charge being there usually on Fridays. All help in identifying these
historic photographs would be appreciated."

Strangers in a box

I found this file on my computer. As I don't know where it came from I cannot provide an attribution.

Strangers in a box

Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I’ve often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
There names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I’ll never know their ways.
If only someone had taken the time
To tell who, what, where or when,
These face of my heritage
Would come to life again.
Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be passed away?
Make time to save your stories,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box.
Anonymous

As a family historian I wish that I could unravel some of the stories behind the unnamed, undated photos in our family's photo collection.

Moving to Picasa

When it was first launched I downloaded and tried Picasa as a means of organising my photos it did not provide the features I wanted so I looked for another tool.

When time permits (and it doesn't too often) I use Adobe Photoshop to edit new photos and restore old ones to their former glory but I like to have a simple tool that allows me to apply Metadata, do simple fixes and search and retrieve photos easily.

Initially I used the free Adobe® Photoshop® Album Starter Edition but it just couldn't cope with the number of photos I had (around 30,000 at that time). I moved over to Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and have been using Elements 6.0 since its debut. This program struggles with my collection of 65,000 digital images on an external hard drive. As I have read some unflattering reviews of Elements 8 I have not bothered to upgrade to version 8. As version 6 still works (albeit slowly) I have not actively looked for another product to replace it.

I was recently on a Caribbean cruise that featured photographer, Peter Simon, as a guest lecturer and workshop presenter. Peter, a gentle man who has been taking photographs for 50 years, was a willing and enthusiastic tutor. In the few hours we spent with Peter my husband and I took on board many tips that we applied to our holiday snaps and that should enhance our future photographic efforts. We and other cruisers noted that Peter was using Picasa to download and organise his photos. In the workshops as he showed us examples of his stunning work and imparted his knowledge we were able to see various features of Picasa demonstrated. Peter suggested using Picasa as a 'staging post' to initially organise and edit photos. He then suggested using Photoshop to do more complex edits.

After Downloading a few thousand holiday snaps I decided to trial Picasa. The free download was easily installed and my photos imported. I quickly found that this program is a delight to use. So pleased was I that I imported the folders containing my 65,000 photos into Picasa. This happened very quickly and y photos were imported with their tags attached.

I find this tagging facility very easy to use although I would like to be able to nest my tags into categories. I love the ability to drag and drop photos into albums and the ease with which one can move files from folder to folder. Being able to upload pictures directly to Blogger is a bonus I hadn't expected to find. See my first uploaded photo in the previous post. The quick edits functions are situated conveniently on the desktop and so easy to use. That Picasa is a free application just adds icing to the cake.

I am going to say goodbye to Photoshop Elements and use Picasa.

Genealogists, if you are looking for a simple, user friendly program to organize your photos Picasa is worth a try. Thank you Peter Simon for your suggestion.

Put Together a Better Virtual Photo Album to Share with Friends and Family - Photo Sharing - Lifehacker

Put Together a Better Virtual Photo Album to Share with Friends and Family - Photo Sharing - Lifehacker

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