Why Write a Personal Blog Category on This Website
Posting tips on how to scan, restore and organize photographs seemed straightforward enough to me when I was creating this website until it occurred to me there might be some interesting stories I could share that might not fit into the most obvious of “post categories.” These stories could explore the personal experience I am going through digitizing my own family's collection.
By placing these posts into a separate category called “My Blog,” I decided I could safely cover more information without boring those just seeking “how-to” information to accomplish a certain task. This idea came to me – I believe – in the strangest of places.
A Little Inspiration From 1912
Three years ago – you know when I should have been scanning – I found a wonderful blog written by Heather Ferguson and David Chiu documenting the restoration of their 1912 Bungalow. Before and after photos reveal the almost unimaginable amount of work they have already put into it. What I was most interested in was the 18 layers of paint they stripped from their Douglas fir woodwork. My wife and I also have an old bungalow and dream of having the energy and making the time to do the same with our wood trim.
It probably goes without saying this couple was not the first to blog their way through a huge project. But after seeing what they were able to accomplish on a personal level with their website, it became obvious to me this was something I also wanted to do with mine.
I was going to follow in Heather and David's path and document my experience scanning my entire life.
How This “My Blog” Post Category Will Be Different
With this “My Blog” post category, I intend to be quite transparent with my personal experience as I scan my family's photo collection. It's a rather large collection spread out across many states in several households, so I don't expect this to be a short term project. And I think it's only fair of you to assume however that many of the photos I will scanning will be too personal in nature to my family to share on this site with the entire world. So I probably will be fairly selective which ones make it front and center.
I think there will be all kinds of topics and experiences that will present themselves to me as I really get into sharing with you. What I do know for sure is that I plan on sharing my accomplishments as well as my mistakes.
My Digitizing Pledge
Even though this site teaches people how to use their scanners to scan their photographs, I want to be clear I am not disparaging anyone wanting to use a scanning service instead of scanning their collection themselves. We all have our own amount of available time, money and technical ambition. So I want to put my foot down now and state that I truly love scanning services. For whatever reason, if it weren't for them, many of us would never scan our photos.
And even though I am setting out on this journey to scan all of my photo collection myself, I am not going to promise that 100% of them will be completed this way. Depending on how much of my time this website requires of me – writing posts, replying to comments and maintenance – I may find I need the help of a service here and there. But I am pretty stubborn when it comes to accomplishments like this. I am pretty honest when confronted and doubt I will want to admit to people, “Yeah I scanned 84% of my collection myself.” Just doesn't sound as remarkable as, “I did this ALL by myself!”
So wherever this personal blog category takes me, I really look forward to sharing it with you.
Having been busy with other projects, I just saw this post. I think it’s very appropriate to follow your ideas here. I’m currently in the planning phase of creating a WP blog, where I plan to provide some Tech Topics, which will be mainly how-to subjects, with some hardware & software reviews; images with as much technical description and family history information as I currently have, for: my grandfather’s glass negatives of various sizes; RPPCs (Real Photo Post Cards) and commercially printed post cards; greeting cards (Christmas, Valentines, Easter, etc.); funeral and memorial cards; photo albums; older family letters and other handwritten documents, with both digital images of the originals and transcribed text. I’m currently planning to have a separate category for each of these particular groups. The letters I’m planning to include will be to/from relatives who are now deceased, in consideration of privacy for living relatives. Part of my reason for sharing the negatives and albums is the hope that unknown relatives will find them and be able and willing to help identify the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How behind each image.
Since I’ve started “camera scanning”, using my Sony A77M2, 50 mm macro lens, an LED light panel, pixl-latr film holder for various sizes of negatives up to 4×5″, and my 40-year old copy stand, I’ve found the digitization far faster than the V600 with VSP. One of the first glass negs I cam-scanned, a “full plate” format about 6 x 8″, is of an apparently prosperous farm/ranch, taken in 1901. The barn at the center of the frame is labelled “Mark Curtis Broadview Stock Farm”. There are several groups of people visible near some of the structures, but so far I’ve no idea who they might be. I recognized the Curtis name as being found among my ancestors, but I didn’t know how Mark fit into the family tree. Knowing Ed Taylor, the photographer, had homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the early 1900s, I thought the “Broadview” in the name might relate to Broadview, Saskatchewan. Some research on FamilySearch and my family tree on MyHeritage show that Mark Curtis is a brother-in-law of one of Ed’s aunts. According to several US Census records, his farm was in Broadview District, Barnes County, North Dakota. I’ve yet to discover how, when, and why Ed got from Waterloo County, in Ontario, to North Dakota in 1901, when he was about 19 years old, and how he managed to afford a camera large enough to use full plate negatives, since he was the son of a farmer, possibly with limited finances available.
I know Ed was in Saskatoon, (or its immediate area), Saskatchewan, in 1906 because a niece Alice Taylor wrote him a postcard, postmarked in Guelph, Ontario, in 1906, asking him to send her some pictures of the West. She addressed it to him at Saskatoon Post Office, Saskatchewan. From that postal address, I suspect he had been there only a short time and had not yet established a more specific mailing address. Some research showed Alice to be a daughter of one of Ed’s brothers. I have no idea why Ed kept the post card, but it’s part of my inherited collection.
One of the funeral cards I’ve found indicates that another relative died while at the Freeport Sanatorium. I have vague memories of visiting that institution in the early ’50s, when she was there, but I don’t remember actually entering the TB treatment hospital. Most likely, one of my parents stayed with me in the car while the other visited, then they switched around. I later found her death registration gave her cause of death as TB (Tuberculosis), as I had suspected when I saw where she had died. Other cards name specific relatives, giving their ages (sometimes as so many years, months, days) at time of death, where and when the funeral would be held, sometimes in Ed’s home, and burial location.
By posting such documents, with whatever information I’ve been able to find, I’m hoping other relatives will find names they recognize and get in touch with me to share our information about other ancestors..
I think it’s very important we are considerate with the stories of our ancestors. By scanning their old photos and and important documents, we help ensure what was important to them in their life will remain and will be shared by all of their family and friends who survived them. Keep it up Curtis!