Anyone using their ancestry information

[madmax]

to create Memory Books? My Mom passed away last year and left me boxes of pictures. I would like to use them along with her American citizenship papers, etc. as a tribute to her life.

I have a Kodak Digital Easyshare camera and an Epson CX 6000 which has come in handy to scan old photo's without negatives.

Getting to the point now :P Anyone use a software program to create text, embellishments and print photos? I'm using a trial version of Scrapbook MAX. It's ok but, not what I'm looking for. I wanted something more, uh... heirloom? lol If you understand me please post some suggestions. This is so overwhelming. So many photos to deal with and I haven't even started the Ellis Island search. My parents and their parents were all born in Portugal.

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. I'm a scrapbook fanatic.

I'm writing a family history of my Smiths. In doing so, I travel to areas all around the country meeting new cousins, and scanning their old photographs, letters, getting stories, etc. I have 10 major branches I'm researching, and I have 8 scrapbooks that I take with me so everyone can get a better idea of what the family is like, and how we're all related.

ALL my scrapping is historical and heirloom-ish. Most of my stuff I just alter in PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro, since that is what I am used to using. I just use Word to create my narratives. I like the "butterbrotpapier" font for antique stuff; I've used "Diehl Deco" for an architect who worked around the time of Frank Lloyd Wright. fontfreak.com is a good site for finding interesting fonts.

Also, Karen Foster's papers and accessories are WONDERFUL for historical layouts. I also love 7 Gypsies stuff.

Here are a couple of good links:
http://www.artchixstudio.com/mall/shopindex.asp
http://www.karenfosterdesign.com/tek9.asp?pgID=&pg=products&grp=138
http://www.scrapbookpaper.com/tek9.asp?pg=products&grp=15&pgID=1
http://www.scrapvillage.com/fonts.htm
http://www.stampfrancisco.com/Search.asp?sb=line&q=Art+By+Moonlight
http://www.stampersanonymous.com/cat-index.html
http://www.sevengypsies.com/page.php?pname=collections&PHPSESSID=121b3f460f909f4bf44757b2ac0ea2ad


Enjoy!
fsc :hi:

[madmax]

2. fudge baby - you're a love

Great information and links. I need to buy a photo editor but, PhotoShop is out of my budget for now.

:hug: Thank you!!

[madmax]

3. You've accomplished a lot!

:) You've accomplished a lot!! Seven books!

I don't think I'll be researching way back. I never met any of my Dad's
family and on Mom's side only 2 of her sisters and 1 brother, out of 10
siblings. Grandparents all died before I was born. Plus traveling to
Portugal to meet any relatives at this point is not possible.

Oh well, I just want to make something beautiful in honor of Mom and give it
to my Grands, her Great Grands. Both Ashley and Chris knew her well. She
babysat for them a lot and they called Grandma Momma Mia because whenever
they finished eating or drinking a bottle she'd exclaim, 'Momma Mia, you
finished all that already!'


How do you like Paint Shop? I'm going to download a 30 day free trial
here:http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CorelCom/ProcessLayout&lc=en&ppg=CorelCorp/Trials/Login&pid=1156169694605&cid=1156169693940&trkid=blkfripdsearch%2C+29423937

I am so computer challenged - I hope it's idiot friendly. Many of the old
photos need tweaking.

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. Thanks!

Paint Shop is remarkably easy to use. Just go in, set up your capture options (I usually use F12 as my capture button so I always remember it).

The only thing I don't like between the two is that Photoshop allows you to see your changes gradually as you're doing them (for instance, altering the brightness/contrast of a photo). Paint Shop, you just see how badly you've messed up a photo, then have to Edit > Undo. So I use one for certain tasks, and the other for other stuff.

I was very lucky, since I'm a technical writer, and I got to download the software on my home computer for when I worked remotely.

Don't worry about going far back. Just do current family and what you're able to do. Sentimentality in scrapbooking is important.

Oooh...if you get near any scrapbook stores, check out Legacy magazine, or the other Stampington & Co magazines. I find them to be much higher quality than some of the cheesy Creating Keepsakes and Making Memories stuff that's out there. You can see some real ART instead of soccer moms making only kid pages.

[sybylla]

5. I second your endorsement of Paint Shop Pro

I've used and old version for 7 years. It's inexpensive comparatively and has done everything I need for scrapbooking. You're right, though, about it's ability to tweak photos. My old version is a little clunky. I always tweak a working copy of the photo file in case I screw it up. Then I don't have to rescan the photo.

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. Yep, definitely.

I always keep the real copy in the directory for all my book files, then keep a separate scrapbook directory of pix that I can delete after I've printed and created the pages.

:hi: sybylla!

[sybylla]

7. BTW, I see we have more in common besides genealogy and Paint Shop Pro

(at the risk of blatantly hijacking this thread - my apologies to the original poster)

I'm very surprised to learn that we're both Technical Writers. Unfortunately, I'm quite underemployed at the moment. Do you freelance? I'm a partner in a technical business but the tech writing jobs are few and far between. So at the moment I'm doing a bit of creative writing while I look for a BBD. Job market sucks up here, too, but they do show up in the paper every few months.

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. I've been VERY lucky!

I was working in telecom when the bust came in early 2002, but somehow managed to stay employed. I finally got the axe last September, but by then it was a blessing, as I was ready to down a bottle of pills because I hated the job so much. Horrible little backstabbing alliances had developed, and it just became REALLY unpleasant in my department. They gave me the golden handshake (my old buddies at the company have now christened it after me) when I left! The day my boss called me into her office and told me I about danced a jig at the thought of being able to play for a couple of months. I'd recently gotten diagnosed with my MS too, so I really just needed some serious recuperative DOWN TIME. And I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I got a week of pay for every year I'd been there (7), plus 4 weeks in lieu of notice, plus my unused vacation...I didn't even need to go on unemployment until January. And somehow, I got this job in February. A recruiter was surfing monster.com where I'd posted my resume and brought me in.

The place I'm at now is a mortgage software company. It's smaller, and MUCH more casual than the staid corporate environment I came from, and a little less money, but it pays the bills, and a couple times a year I get to fly out to San Jose (where HQ is), and I stay over on the weekends and do more genealogy in the Cali locations I need to hit, plus a little sightseeing. Back in August I finally got to Monterey.

I know...things are horrible for tech writers right now. I was told it was going to be such a rosy profession back in '95 when I was finishing my degree. That sure dried up fast!

[sandnsea]

10. Help me make decisions, perty please

I was putting all my picture emails into a picture folder, and ran across pics of my great-grandparents that had been emailed that I forgot about. I've got a grandson now, so I've really got to get this info together, they're his ggg-grandparents for cripes sake. I have info going way back to the 16-1700s on the families of the wives. I'm trying to figure out the best way to put this in 'book' format, I don't want the computer generated tree thing. Should I start with the oldest direct line I can find? Or with me and my husband, and then go back? I was thinking I'd do one scrapbook type page with pics and data. Me and DH, our kids, our info, for instance. Then my parents and his parents. And on like that. Or I could start with the very first generation in the US in the 1740's and go down down down, then make a separate 'section' for each wife's family that goes back back back.

What do you think would work best, and I do want only one scrapbook. After I get the one for my grandson, I want to use it as a sort of template for my unmarried sons, sibs, and the oldest living relative. That's 6 more, and I'm not made of money, I'm not even made of pennies, ha!

Advice?

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. Hmmm....

Well, I would start at the beginning and then work forward. And although Karen Foster doesn't have the cool brown Family Tree papers anymore, she does have the blue version of the family tree papers with room for info and a small picture next to each person.

http://www.karenfosterdesigns.com/tek9.asp?pg=products&specific=jmoogphmm

I usually do a family tree page with all the vital stats on it, then do creative pages for that specific family with whatever I've got for them (wedding pages, funny stories that I've heard, homesteading stuff, whatever....), then another family tree page with vitals, then creative pages for THAT family, and so on. Creative pages are wonderful and allow you to be a real ARTIST, but if you or your kid REALLY get into genealogy and want to pass the data down, those vital data sheets are awesome. And when I travel, it helps everyone see much more clearly how we're related, and what everyone looked like.

Just be aware that depending on the amount of pictures you have and the amount of creativity you manifest, your one book can get pretty huge. I like the expandable screw kind of scrapbooks. Some of the others are a little more difficult to expand.

Did that help any? :-)

[sybylla]

13. I've finished one and have two more in progress - here's how I did it

You've probably already started but if you haven't maybe this will help.

I started with the present - the kids and most recent couple in the line. Then divided the rest of the scrapbook into sections for each family I would cover, labeling the first page in each section with a tab noting the family name. Because scrapbooks just don't allow that much room, I kept the generation limited to the ones I had photographs for and I did not get into cousins, aunts and uncles much unless they were people the recipient would want to remember. If I wanted to do a more thorough one, I'm sure it could be done.

The first one I finished was for a bridal shower. The first half of the scrapbook I filled with the bride's family (she is my 1st cousin), the second half was for the groom's yet to be researched family. The bride had worked on genealogy with me so I knew she could finish the rest herself. The other two I'm working on are for my brother and my parents. Started them a couple of years ago for a x-mas project and didn't have time to finish them. They're still sitting with the rest of my genealogy work because my scanner broke and until recently I didn't have a replacement.

You've got me thinking I should dig them out and get to work. :D

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. If you don't mind me jumping in

having just discovered this group--

Best way to start a book would be with current generation, then going back. But you're talking about a MASSIVE amount of material if you've got all lines back to the 1700-1600 time period. I have this only on my mother's side, and it fills several notebooks! I use the standard numbering system to try and keep things sort of straight, but have found it is easier to go back about five generations and then start numbering over--Foster Family-Dodge Family--Clark Family--Sabin Family--etc.

I've made several different scrapbooks over the years for family members, starting back in the late '70s, when I had photos copied by a professional photographer--thank heavens for computers and the Internet!

[fudge stripe cookays]

9. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT!!!!!!!!

Well folks, ignore my recommendation for any Karen Foster papers I've previously recommended.

After I did all my scrapbooks using her brown Family Group Sheet design (which works well for showing cousins HOW exactly we're related, and what everyone looked like),
http://www.karenfosterdesign.com/tek9.asp?pg=products&specific=jpdnqmr8&grp=138

they have now CHANGED THE DESIGN to an ugly BLUE version that doesn't fit my historical brown theme at ALL.

They have earned my undying wrath, especially considered I just screwed up a page today making notes on it, and I need probably 50-100 more pages!

I just sent them a support mail telling them how pissed I was. Figures, that design is not available ANYWHERE NEAR ME in the stores!! I always picked up extra when I was out traveling, but I usually ordered from scrapbookpaper.com, and they don't have anymore!

:Grr:

[Montauk6]

12. It's part of a "long term plan"

I figure I'll compile the info first, then eventually format it somehow into something passable-downable.