My Dad

  

While I was at my parents house, I scanned this picture of my Dad.  He said he was about 10 years old.  I think he looks younger, but my Dad has always looked younger than his age. 

Jewish Genealogy

This is not my story but I found it  fascinating family research. Judy Wilkenfeld has researched and documented a part of her family's history.  It puts a face on a tragic chapter in our history. 

http://judywilkenfeld.tumblr.com/

Flip Pal

I have found a limitation of the Flip Pal.  If the original picture is a little fuzzy or hard to see, the Flip Pal scans does not improve it, but makes it worse.  Several of the black and white pictures came out so pixeled that I can't use PhotoShop to improve them.  I'm making a list of them because I'm going to have to bring them back to the house to use a scanner that has better resolution. 

This picture is one that didn't scan well.  It wasn't marked and Dad doesn't know who it is.  It was in Eva and Johnnie Golightley's pictures.  They had many pictures of friends, so she could be a friend or a relative.  Does anyone recognize her?

Flip Pal scanning

Today I spent the day at my parents.  I took some pictures back that I had borrowed awhile back to scan.  Mom has some pictures that she wanted me to scan and copy.  She wants prints of them so I decided to bring them back home to use the home scanner as it scans at a higher resolution.  She brought out a tub of photos. We spent the day talking about them and scanning them.  This photo had to be scanned in 4 scans and then stitched together.  It was only about an inch larger than the screen on both sides.  The stitching software did a good job.

 

 

Leeland Henry Lamb and Myrtle Olive Parker and their children.

Back Row: Eva (my Grandmother), Rose, Henry, Naomi, Nina

Middle Row: Jeff, Leeland, Myrtle, Beulah, Margarite

Front Row: Clarence, Art, Mary, Earl

My Dad was named after Leeland Henry, his grandfather.

My Uncle Earl, Dad's brother was named after their mother's brother, Earl. 

New Toy

I have a new toy.  I bought it in preparation for our genealogy research trip this Fall.  The Flip Pal is a small portable scanner that I can take to libraries, archives, and relatives homes who are reluctant to allow their pictures to be taken somewhere else to be scanned.  The Flip Pal runs on batteries, saves scans to a memory card so you don't have to have a computer with it.  The scan surface is small so if the picture is larger than 4x6, it takes several scans to get the complete picture.  It has software on the memory card to stitch the scans together to put the picture back together. I haven't tried that yet, but I will soon.  It will scan at 300 dpi and 600 dpi.

These are pictures that I scanned with it.  I put them together with PhotoShop and then saved for the web to save download time.  The right side is the back of the photograph.

A start

George Morgan suggested doing a time line for an ancestor and then writing up a biography for the ancestor.  He suggested doing it in word and showed his format.  I already had a timeline for Charles M. McCarley in an Excel spreadsheet, so I decided to continue with it.  After going through all of the information I have on Charles M. McCarley, I have 29 pieces of information about his life including his birth, death, and marriage information.  I included the birth of his 12 children which in most cases tell me where he probably was at their birth.  I guess he might be somewhere else but he is always on the census with the family so I am assuming that he was close by when his wife had the children.  I also have some tax records and all of the census records during his lifetime.  I'm including his wife's birth and death information. 

There are reasons why I haven't started the book before.
1. I have no proof that Ezekiel McCarley is Charles M.'s father though I am fairly certain of it.
2. I don't know who his wife's parents are.  I would love to prove that the Mrs. Hines who is running a Female Institute (school) in Maury County, TN is Ann Matilda Hines' mother.
3. I would like to check the deed records in Smith Co., TX, Marshall Co., MS, Hardin Co., TN and Maury Co., TN for any land that Charles M might have owned.   I plan on going to Smith County in Sept to check those deed records.

But no more delaying, I'll write his story and if I find more information I'll add it later. Now how to write it without being boring?

A new committment

Today I attended several workshops presented by George Morgan at the Lancaster Library.  He mentioned a technique that sounds like it would be a good way to finally start that book without being overwhelmed. So for all of my relatives who have been gently nudging me and the one who has been threatening to pass on before I get around to doing it, I'm starting tonight.

That puts all other research on a back burner for now.  Doesn't mean I won't be doing research on other lines but I've decided to focus on this project for awhile.