Blog

24
Oct

A Vintage Snapshot of a Real Life Cowgirl

Posted by | · · · · | Featured Family Stories | No Comments on A Vintage Snapshot of a Real Life Cowgirl

This is a photo of my mom and her big sister Jan in Massapequa, New York. My Aunt Jan was a remarkable woman who recently passed away at the age of 75 after fighting a long, hard, six-year battle with cancer. She was a private, self-reliant woman who found it difficult to let people help […]

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22
Oct

Picturing Childhood before Helicopter Parenting

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Me (the sassy brunette in the pink dress), my brother and sister, and a few girls from the neighborhood. Growing up in the 70’s, the neighborhood kids were everything. Moms never had to arrange play dates or hover over us. They let us be free, have fun, explore and when differences came up, they let […]

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22
Sep

10 Simple Steps to Organizing and Preserving Your Family Photo Collection

Posted by | · · · · · | Family Photo Resources | No Comments on 10 Simple Steps to Organizing and Preserving Your Family Photo Collection

Somehow you’ve ended up with boxes of photographs, slides and piles of albums, and now you’re the family historian! You might have some old family photos that still look good, some may be ready to scan and some may need some serious restoration. Before you begin the lengthy and sometimes costly restoration process, here are […]

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20
Sep

Four Instagram Feeds That Will Make You Feel Like a Time Traveler

Posted by | · · · · · · · · | Family Photo Resources | 2 Comments on Four Instagram Feeds That Will Make You Feel Like a Time Traveler

Don’t apologize; everyone needs an escape. As work piles up and negative news stories assault our senses, all of us long for simpler times. We seek solace in nostalgia. That’s just one reason why #throwbackthursday #TBT is one of the most popular hashtags, consistently trending on social media feeds. And it’s no surprise – old photos seem to […]

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17
Sep

Old Family Photos Jog My Memory and Take me Back to the Land Where I Grew Up

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I don’t remember a lot of specifics from my childhood. This picture of me, as a six year old with a toothless grin, jogs my memory though. I love how my pigtails resemble the tassels hanging from the handles of my orange banana-seat bike, which my grandparents gifted me. I remember the old rope swing […]

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16
Sep

Film Is Not Dead, Especially When It Preserves Family History

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The date stamp at the top says January of 1967, but that was the date the film was developed. The photo was actually taken in September of 1966, as my mother and father were moving into their first house. I love this glimpse of them at the very beginning of their journey together. They look […]

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15
Sep

Meet My Great-Great Grandmother on Her Wedding Day Circa 1920

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Meet Norah West, my great-great grandmother on her wedding day in the 1920s. My grandma has told me stories of Norah which always make me smile. She was an avid smoker, never seen without a cigarette in her mouth and she loved her husband, Arthur Tebbett, tremendously. In fact, she loved him so much that […]

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08
Sep

What Every Family Historian Should Know about Scanning Family Photos

Posted by | · · · · · | Family Photo Resources | 4 Comments on What Every Family Historian Should Know about Scanning Family Photos

You’ve been staring at the box for months. It’s starting to make you feel a bit guilty. You scoot it under your bed so it won’t stare at you every day. Then your mother calls and asks you about it. “Have you had a chance to start scanning those family photos? The family reunion is coming […]

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29
Aug

The Woman Who Was Called Fairytale by her Family

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Her five grandchildren call her “Bajka,” which in Serbian means fairytale. My grandmother was born in Belgrade in 1943. As a young woman, she studied art history and later began working on national television as a producer and director of a series that explored Serbian history through music. During the war in Serbia, after her […]

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21
Aug

My Beautiful Bubbie is a Force of Nature, As You Can See in This Vintage Photograph

Posted by | · · · · · | Featured Family Stories | No Comments on My Beautiful Bubbie is a Force of Nature, As You Can See in This Vintage Photograph

My 101-year old grandmother, known to all as “Bubbie,” is truly a force of nature. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has always looked like she stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Although her perfect beehive hairdo has been her defining physical characteristic, when I think of my Bubbie I […]

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