Want an example of how a photo estate can preserve your family ancestors’ legacy?
Back in Christmas of 1985, our client Eric gave his family two photo albums filled with many family memories. He wrote a note, “These photos made me more aware of how fortunate we are to have each other.” His parents and two brothers spent time paging through the books and having fun with reliving family stories.
Twenty-some years later, Eric inherited those albums back along with the entire family photo collection. This include over 160 years of photos, documents, scrapbooks, albums, envelopes and much more. Now, armed with technology, he was determined to preserve their family history.
Over the next few years, Eric had spent time scanning some of the photos. However, he didn’t have a final strategy to manage the photo collection once and for all. A busy doctor, Eric also didn’t have the time to figure it out. He stored this collection in heavy-duty extra-large bins and decided to get help for all the items in his ancestors’ legacy.
Our First Glance at the Collection
The family history papers and photo collection included:
- Documentation and photos of maternal ancestors dating back to the 1500s in England
- Information about being the 14th descendent of Thomas Halsey, one of the founders of the Southampton Colony in New York, 1640
- Photocopied photos of ancestors named Vencil Malicky (pronounced Malichkis) who immigrated in the 1800s from Bohemia and Czechoslovakia
- Fascinating booklet, original articles and photos of a 1920s era professional baseball player, George Malicky
- Details about how family had to move frequently during the Depression
- Fragile, crumbling scrapbooks of college days in the 1950s full of photos, sorority news and more
- 16 reels of film of life in the 1960s –never seen and were going to be thrown away
- Photos, newspaper articles, audio of Neal Malicky, President of Baldwin Wallace University
- Grandma’s sticky photo albums
- Six albums with Eric’s maternal side history, the Wilson Family
- Countless memories of what life was like growing up through the years
Getting Started
With a few basic notes taken during the first meeting, we began to see the family tree and the ancestors’ legacy emerge. Eric had a lot of information already. Using our basic system of sorting photos by family and then by decades, we came up with a game plan to preserve the family’s photo estate including:
- Organize the heritage photos by family group, generation and decade
- Remove photos from albums
- Remove duplicate and repetitive photos
- Review the memorabilia and scrapbooks, identify important pieces to preserve
- Digitize the reel to reel film and audio reels
- Scan the photos into sensible digital folders
- Create a FOREVER® online photo archive for the family photos and media
- Upload digital photos from folders to corresponding albums
- Add descriptions, names and details to the photos in the online photo archive
Eric agreed and we went to work. Over the course of a summer, we worked on the different pieces of this project. As we found memorabilia and notes, we were able to complete the family tree with dates, more names and information. Eric periodically checked in, brought additional photos and information sent to him from his Aunt Joyce to help build the photo archive.
In this photo, you can see the final organization. The white dividers designate sections of photos that were scanned into digital folders.
Creating the Online Photo Archive
Here we have a quick screenshot of the family FOREVER® online photo archive. To trace back the generations, we began naming the albums by the first generation with photos and/or documents as 01. For instance, Wensel and Wilhemenia Malicky are numbered 01. They are Eric’s great-great-great grandparents. They are the earliest ancestors we had documentation outside of the Halsey Family which can be traced back 14 generations. The 00 Halsey Family & House album has many intervening generations and we felt it appropriate for all Halsey information in that line to go in this album.
Within 04 George and Ethel Malicky, we find George’s Baseball Career nested album. We scanned one article dated in the 1970s. It provided a lot of information including that George played baseball from 1923 to 1934 when the depression started. Years ago, the family had created a document on George’s baseball days. We scanned the 54 page booklet along with the original newspaper articles. Someday, maybe his story will inspire a future Malicky descendent to play a professional sport!
A Legacy Impacting Many Generations
Eric’s parents’ album, 05 Neal and Margi Malicky, have 17 nested albums including their early years, wedding, having children, career and much, more. Family are now able to enjoy watching the digitized reels of film.
In another nested album, Neal Malicky Career, we can see photos, audio, newspaper articles spanning his professional life. Neal inspired many, many people through the years. After his retirement as President of Baldwin Wallace College, a building was named for him. At the Neal Malicky Center for the Social Sciences building, students continue to be impacted by his legacy.
Eric’s ancestors included pioneers, farmers and hard working people who helped instill the values of perseverance, strong work ethic and responsibility in their descendants. By preserving the family’s photos and documents in a photo estate, Eric ensures all his ancestors’ legacy will be passed on to future generations.
Preserve Your Ancestors’ Legacy
Need help creating your family photo estate? Here’s a few options for you. . .
- Purchase our new book, “A Simple Guide to Creating a Photo Estate,” on Amazon.com
- Learn more bout what a photo estate is by clicking here.
- Consider hiring us to create your photo estate for you!
Call us at 414-731-1881 or email us at contact@pixologieinc.com to learn more.