Vice President of QC’s superb Photography Club, Jim Burkstrand, hosted the above-titled discussion at the recent (Oct 12, 2022) meeting of his club’s members. The presentation evolved from his new personal project of writing and publishing a “Family Book”. A printed book for his heirs that will document his family photography. His goal is to have the book survive 75 -100 years. He aptly refers to it as “reverse genealogy” and knew it would also be of special interest to our genealogy club members so he very thoughtfully invited any QCGC members who wished to attend.
When you view Jim’s slide presentation that accompanied his spoken comments during the meeting, you’ll see the great variety of suggestions and considerations he covered (partially outlined below):
– Many generations of your heirs will have great interest in your family photos (plus the essential inclusion of accompanying text for each photo with some notes & information).
– A printed book containing your photos – and some text about them and your life – is an ideal way to guarantee the collected photos and facts will survive for a century or more. Such an assurance can’t be safely projected for many typical digitized storage methods, and Jim explains why that is true.
– Your book’s text and photos ideally will convey your personal ancestry, childhood years, early, middle and later years, and intriguing travel miscellanea.
– Your parents, grandparents, special relatives and certain significant friends should definitely be shown via the photos and mentioned in some of the text.
– Suggestions and considerations regarding production of hard copies of the book and a pdf of the book stored on thumb drives. [Members of the QCGC have found the following webpage: https://www.bookbaby.com/pricing
to be an interesting way to get a very rough idea of the US cost of printing anywhere from 1 to 25 *hard copies* on *archival* paper stock of a family photo book for your heirs.] There are many short-run book printers like this.
– Methods and tools for scanning, editing, visually optimizing your photos will be discussed in future Photography Club meetings and then uploaded to their website.
– The Photo Club of QC *teaches* up-to-date modern ways to restore and sharpen the clarity of your photos.
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Extremely helpful to know: Genealogy research has many effective ways to find old photos of ancestors who are listed in your family tree going back to the invention of photography, and any existing paintings of your ancestors going back many centuries. Our club’s Education Committee can readily assist you with this facet of researching.
Quail Creek Genealogy Club 