Abundant Living Conference, March 2, Camp Allen Texas
Posted on March 8, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories
This past week I was a presenter at the Abundant Living Conference held at Camp Allen Conference & Retreat Center, a beautiful site located in the Piney Woods about an hour north of Houston. This three-day conference gathered some 200 people that ranged in age from late 50s to some in there 90s who came to explore aging “as a spiritual journey”. To “grow mentally, socially, and creatively.” With sessions ranging from yoga and dancing to the “Spirituality of Aging” and “Finding Your Passion in the Second Half of Life”, these seniors were looking at what might be next for them as they closed out the phases of careers, families and ‘making it.”
I presented along with Teri Miller, a MS and OTR with the Alzheimer’s Association, Houston & Southeast Texas Chapter. While I spoke to the general idea of doing a personal history; what they are, what forms they come in, what types of resources one needs for each format, Teri spoke specifically to the benefits of doing a personal history for those suffering from memory loss which I discussed in a previous blog post, Personal History Projects with Memory Loss Patients.
While we suffered from some technological glitches (the center’s adapter for the projector didn’t work with my brand new laptop), we managed to do a great presentation supported by my Powerpoint slides.
One of the highlights of the presentation was an paired-share exercise we had the participants do. With one person interviewing the other, the goal was to have each partner identify a turning point in their life and distinguish the story around that event. What choices were they faced with and which path did they choose? How did that decision impact the rest of their life? Who knew about the turning point and what did they know? How old were they? What other things happened because of the decision made. Each partner interviewed the other about this turning point and took notes which were given to their partner at the end of the exercise. Our hope was that this would provide a cornerstone for each participant to begin working on their own personal history.
The noise level in the room went up considerably as they delved into this exercise and it took awhile before I could get the room quieted down at the end. I think they really enjoyed doing this and we asked several people to come up to the room and share what they uncovered. There were some really great stories shared. One thing Teri and I recognized is that sometimes people need permission to talk about themselves. We live in a society that recognizes certain storytellers but also puts the lid on too much sharing. In many contexts it’s considered rude to talk about oneself and one’s past. Giving people permission to share is a component that I hadn’t really thought about but is integral to the process of creating a personal history. I have talked to plenty of children who want to do a history of one or both of their parents only to be told no, we’re not interested. This now gives me a distinction to direct further questions to and see whether perhaps this isn’t in the way of them wanting to talk about their personal memories.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: Abundant Living Conference, Alzheimer's Association, Camp Allen
Personal History Projects with Memory Loss Patients
Posted on February 19, 2010 - Filed Under Uncategorized
I have been working on preparing a presentation I am giving on March 2 at the Abundant Living Conference at Camp Allen. The conference spans 3 days and is billed as “Explore aging as a spiritual journey-grow mentally, socially and creatively. Come, relax, enjoy… celebrate the years!” The setting is a beautiful one, deep in the Piney Woods. I have never been to Camp Allen. In fact, it’s been many years since I’ve been to any ‘camp’ at all so I’m looking forward to seeing what Camp Allen has to offer. There will be some fabulous speakers presenting to a few hundred seniors over the three days.
I will be presenting, along with Teri Miller, an Occupational Therapist with the Alzheimer’s Association here in Houston. Much of our presentation will cover the different ways of doing oral history or personal history projects but we will also be addressing working with people with memory loss.
While doing a personal history has so many wonderful benefits beyond leaving something behind for future generations, it has some heightened benefits for people that are suffering from memory loss. The primary benefit is immediate, interacting with other family members while gathering and documenting the information. Having a project to do that focuses the memory loss sufferer’s attention to details on a daily basis is an exercise that helps sharpen thinking and memory clarity. You know how experts tell you to do exercises such as crossword puzzles? Reviewing photos, life stories, sorting through mementos, all help create context for the patient. It allows the patient to use long-term memory, short-term memory and verbal skills while interacting with the people he or she most prefers to be around, their family. It provides conversation that moves outside the usual discussion of the weather, health reports and other conversation fillers and allows connection on a much deeper level.
If grandchildren are involved in the project, they really get to learn about their grandparents through the process. Maria Shriver, whose own father suffers from Alzheimers, hosts this wonderful film for HBO entitled, “Grandpa, Do You Know Who I am?”. HBO also has a lot of other great videos they have presented as part of their Alzheimers Project. Likewise, StoryCorps has its Memory Loss Initiative, started in 2006 to reach out and help those suffering from memory loss document and share their personal histories. There are some wonderful clips you can listen to on their website.
Hopefully if you have loved ones dealing with memory loss, these resources may motivate you to work with them now, documenting their life stories while they are still with you. Feel free to contact me if you’re looking for other ideas or need some help in planning a life story or personal history project.
Likewise, if you have family members suffering from early stage memory loss, information about Alzheimer’s and memory loss is available at http://www.alz.org/texas/ or by calling 800.272.3900.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Using The Internet to Research Your Family History
Posted on February 10, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Geneaology, Personal History, Preserving Memories
I am constantly amazed by the Internet. It’s not like it’s something new but I regularly find myself wowed when I’m able to find something so easily, when only a few years ago it may have required days of research and possibly a cross-continent trip.
Yesterday I was at the home of a client that we are helping with a large photo archiving project. On the dining room table, where all the boxes and piles of photos and documents are waiting to be organized, was a burlap cap. I asked about it. They weren’t really sure of its origin. One of their fathers had been in a concentration camp, and while they thought it was from there, the name on the side of the cap wasn’t the same name as the camp they knew he had been at.
I said, “well let’s look it up online!” So we typed in the name we could barely read on the side of this cap into Google and after some misspelling attempts, we finally got a hit. The name was of a concentration camp that only existed for a short time before all the detainees were moved to different camps. We found a lot of information about the camp but at the end of the article, there was a link to “search names of people held at this camp.” The link took us to the typical search fields where you type in a first name, last name, and then select radio buttons to indicate whether the name starts with, ends with, or contains what you typed into those fields. We put this man’s last name and first name in and selected the “contains” field and hit search. Nothing came up. We changed the radio buttons and still yielded no results. Finally I said, let’s remove his first name and just search by the last name. Bingo! Up popped a list of five people with that last name and there he was.
I can’t tell you how many countless hours I have spent searching Ellis Island records, census records and other genealogy databases, looking for clues about my own ancestors, and never finding a thing. That we found this man’s name in under 15 minutes still boggles my mind.
After we printed off the information about the camp and the listing of his name, we went and put it on the table next to the cap. I stood there for a few minutes staring at that cap. Recognizing that just a few minutes before, it was an unidentified scrap of burlap. Now, all of a sudden, it had provenance. We knew where and when this man wore it and every place it went to after that before landing on this dining room table in Houston Texas in 2010.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
What Kind of Person Has a Video Biography Made?
Posted on January 26, 2010 - Filed Under Geneaology, Networking, Personal History, Preserving Memories, Social Media
In talking about my business to families and individuals, I often come across the perception that you have to be “almost famous” to have a video made about you or your family. People will say, “well there’s nothing really that interesting about us. We’re just a regular family doing regular things. Nothing like the people you see on TV.” The perception being that your life has to have been distinguished by something remarkable and media-worthy in order to justify the production of a biography.
One of the things that I often ask people is if I had a video of their great-grandfather talking about his life, what would that be worth to them? Most people get it and smile. “Of course, I would do whatever I could to get a copy of that.” It deserves some thought about what we are creating now that would leave something behind for our great-grandchildren. How will they know us?
Genealogy is the number 1 hobby in America today. I have been working on my own genealogy chart and it’s such a thrill when I find some small bit of information about one of my ancestors. I spoke with a great-aunt this past weekend who gave me some information about one of my great-grandmothers that I didn’t know. (That’s her in the photo above.) It was so exciting to hear these details, facts that even my father wasn’t aware of. Small thrills in the discovery of clues about her life. Other people I know are involved in the same pursuit. Putting together pieces of their own family puzzle. We’re all hungry for connection; knowing where we came from helps us figure out where we might be going. Most of our ancestors were just ordinary people, doing what they could to create a better life for themselves and for their families. My ancestors were all poor immigrants from eastern European countries. There were a few that had some flash and sizzle episodes but none were John D. Rockefellers or Fred Astairs. How I wish one of them had had the forethought to sit down in front of an audio recorder or write some type of record of what they were up to in life.
Most of our clients experiences with family research mirror my own experiences. True, some are community icons having made a name for themselves in business or philanthropic commitments. But most of our clients are just “regular people” who are committed to passing on their values and ethics, the events that shaped their lives, and their visions for the future in the hopes that their future ancestors will know and understand who they were. Many are children of people who see the need to capture their parents histories, while the parents themselves consider it a lot of fuss (although they are secretly pleased to have their family care enough about them to take the time and spend the money recording their personal histories.)
To me, recording one’s history is as important as a Last Will and Testament. One transfers your physical assets, the other, passes on something less tangible but much more important, you.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Anatomy of an Archival Scrapbook Project
Posted on January 19, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Media Archiving, Personal History, Photo Restoration, Photos & Snapshots, Preserving Memories
We are in the process of wrapping up a large scrapbook project for a client that has been such a delight to work on that I wanted to share the project and the process we’ve gone through as I believe many of my readers may have similar such scrapbooks and may wonder what can be done with them.
Some of you might be wondering, “scrapbook?? I thought you did video?” While our primary service is biographical and tribute videos, our core value proposition is helping you preserve your memories and create legacies. Inside of that, we often work with businesses and families helping them preserve the bits and pieces they have collected over the years and put them into a format that can both preserve the original materials in a safe, archival resting place while creating products that allow these to be easily shared with other family members. To that end we routinely create filing architectures for large scanning projects and often work with old scrapbooks and photo albums. Final products for these may be a printed copy of the book and/or the production of a video sharing the images but also allowing for the discussion of these objects by family members. I’ll talk more about that later.
This scrapbook we have been working on was created during the 1950s and 1960s by the mother of a large family. It chronicles the many camping trips and adventures the family took together over those two decades. The mom lovingly put captions under each image that narrates the image as well as things that happened during that specific trip and it is such a rich and treasured keepsake to this family.
Unfortunately over the ensuing years, the book has succumbed to the gradual effects of time and the deterioration that goes along with repeated handling of a much loved item. When the client brought it through the doors, little bits of the paper pages were falling on the floor of my office. I was afraid to let it leave or for that matter, even keep it! The pages were turning brown from acid and were brittle and cracking. Most had broken free of the album’s binding and were layered in order. Some pages were so severely damaged that parts of the handwritten text were missing. At one point, the mom had made an attempt to transfer everything into a new album and there were several pages of new paper where she had transferred the photos and begin the arduous process of rewriting all her little handwritten captions and notes. But unfortunately she was struck with Alzheimer’s disease and the project came to a halt. So the client brought the project to us with two goals, to save the current album and to create copies for each family member.
The first thing we did was to disassemble the album putting each full page into a Mylar (archival safe) sleeve and then put each page sleeve into a heavy duty archival storage box that will become the book’s final storage place. After this was done and we had an inventory of page and image counts, we began the task of scanning the pages and images. Each page was scanned through the Mylar sleeve so as not to risk further damaging the already fragile edges. High resolution scans were made that would serve as working files.
After the pages were scanned, each photograph was cropped and selective enhancements were made depending on the image. Some were just corrected for color balance or brightness while some needed much more extensive restoration work. Then each restored image was placed back into a file of the full page.
At this point I want to mention that there were several conversations with the client on options. Because there were so many handwritten bits that were damaged or missing, we considered having the mother’s handwriting matched and a custom font developed. Each image would then be placed and the text recreated with that font. We also considered finding all the letters and creating an ‘alphabet file’ of each letter and using those to patch the missing text. In the end we all decided that the pages should retain as much of their aged character as possible while coming up with some creative solutions for translating the missing text.
We addressed the missing text by providing an index in the back with each caption and a footnoting system matching original text images with the corresponding translation in the index. Pages were also added, such as a Preface explaining what the book was and creating a context for time, location and who created it.
We are in the process now of creating the final galley proofs for the client to approve before it goes to the printer. The final book will be a 13 x 19″ leather bound album with foil embossing on the cover and spine. Six copies will be printed on 100 lb. dull coat high quality paper stock. The images are absolutely gorgeous and will be a family treasure that I am sure will be equally loved, as much as if not more than, the original album.
I have been discussing the idea of creating a companion video where the family members will be interviewed discussing the album, the images in the album, and their recollections and memories of the times and adventures that the album showcases. What an amazing opportunity to have each family member talk about what they remember and how much having this album has meant to them!
They are considering it.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
PBS “Faces of America” To Ask “Where Do You Come From?”
Posted on January 11, 2010 - Filed Under Family Memories, Geneaology, Personal History
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., noted scholar and biographer has a new, four-part PBS documentary to air February 10 – March 3 from 8-9 PM on your local PBS Channel.
Focusing on 12 known US personalities such as Mario Batali, Dr. Oz, Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma and other well known names, the documentary uses genetic genealogy to track the ancestral make up of each person. For the first time ever, the actual DNA genome sequencing was filmed and will be shown on television.
Technorati Tags: DNA sequencing, genetic genealogy, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PBS Faces of America
Rescuing Texas History Mini-grants Available, January 15, 2010 deadline
Posted on December 31, 2009 - Filed Under Media Archiving, Preserving Memories
“The Portal to Texas History staff at University of North Texas extends an invitation to institutions for a “Rescuing Texas History” mini-project.
We are funding mini-projects for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other groups that hold history materials. All of the materials will be scanned at the Digital Imaging Lab in the Willis Library on the University of North Texas campus in Denton, and hosted in The Portal to Texas History. For the digitization mini-projects we will allocate funding in the range of $25 – $1000, based on the costs outlined in the application.
The application deadline is January 15, 2010, and scanning will begin in March of 2010.
Learn more and download applications at: http://texashistory.unt.edu/about/news/rescue/
Questions? Please contact Tara Carlisle, (940) 369-8740, tara.carlisle@unt.edu.”
Technorati Tags: Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas
Holiday Ideas for Creating Family History Projects
Posted on December 18, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories
This is the time of year when we gather with our families and close friends and community to celebrate the holidays. It’s a special time of year often accompanied by many traditions, some of them passed down many generations, some of them new as we blend families or add new family members who may have come from other cultures. The cool thing about traditions is that we’re the ones that get to pick how we’re going to celebrate; what foods we’ll eat, what games we’ll play, how gifts will be distributed and what stories we will tell.
Another annual tradition is me writing a blog, a newsletter article or speaking publicly about how important it is to take advantage of the fact that friends and family are together and you have the perfect opportunity to work on your family history now!
Believe me, I understand how easy it is to get swept up in the shopping, and cooking and celebrating. Taking time to actually create opportunities for family members to talk about their past or their futures takes a bit of planning. But honestly, it’s not that much work and there’s so many great things that you can do.
So here are a few of my favorite ideas:
- My favorite thing is to get kids involved in documenting family history. Buy a bunch of disposable cameras and give each child (obviously not the very young ones) a camera and a pad of paper and pen, and assign them a relative to photograph and interview. Perhaps mention something they may have in common with that relative. If your son is into football and your grandfather was the high school quarterback, let your son ask him questions about his sports career and how that shaped his life. You may need to coach each kid and give them some specific questions to ask their assigned interviewee but I guarantee you that by the time they are done, each will know and understand the other a bit better.
- Even better is to use an audio recorder or video camcorder to interview people. Setup a video recorder in a bedroom and throughout the day, have people drop in to be interviewed. Ask them to talk about a specific memory from a previous holiday. I was at a party last night and we went around the table and said what our most memorable holiday gift was that we had received as a child. It was fascinating.
- Have some of the elders interview the younger generation. Ask them questions about how they see their role in the family, what they want to be when they grow up and why, what holiday traditions they really enjoy and perhaps what ideas they have for introducing new holiday traditions into the family. These interviews will become priceless as the years go by and when these kids are adults, they will look back fondly on these interviews!
- Watch some of the old family films and be intentional about identifying all the people and the locations in the videos. Sometimes, once the elders pass on, important family films get tossed out because they are full of unidentified people.
- Ask everyone to bring a copy of a photo from previous family gatherings, memorabilia from something you’ve all done together or a short story about your family and put these all together in a family scrapbook. You can even create a new tradition where family members add to this scrapbook every year.
These are just a few ideas to get you thinking. If your family is doing something creative, leave a comment and let us know.
Have a warm and wonderful holiday season everyone.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
The Value of Visual Storytelling Through Video Biographies
Posted on December 8, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Preserving Memories, Video Tributes
Last week the American Chronicle published a beautiful article about what it is we do here at Legacy Multimedia.
While it’s always great to get PR, I particularly like this article because I felt that writer Pam Vetter asked the right questions and framed all the responses into a context that really gets to the essence of what it is that we do.
Because the process of creating a video biography or personal history is so detailed, it’s difficult to communicate in an elevator speech (that is how much information you can communicate to someone while an elevator goes up one or two floors and is a standard of networking and promotional coaching.) Traditional advertising usually fails for us because how do you communicate everything we do and the experience of working on a family history in a 3×5″ space? When I am being glib, I will say that what we do is make people cry. There is some truth to this. The experience of seeing your family or a family member honored and their stories told can be deeply moving. I have even heard from a couple of readers that this American Chronicle article had them in tears. This is great to hear since it shows me and Pam that we really communicated the emotion of how we help people.
Having the ability to watch a video that succinctly tells others who you are, what you’ve given your life to, the lessons you’ve learned on the way and maybe some that you wish you hadn’t, is a chance to share who you are. Relatives and future descendants can understand the values that were passed on to them without their conscious awareness in such areas as education, work ethics, the friends that were part of your life, what church you went to or why you chose not to go. How you celebrate or don’t celebrate your holidays and the traditions your family has developed that leave their own unique footprint on your family. All of the things we do, that we’ve always done, explain who we are. Some we can point to and say, “my parents always taught me that….” and others we’ve incorporated into our behavioral repertoire because they made sense in the context of our other values.
We are all curious about what our ancestors did and yet most of us, for a variety of reasons, don’t take the time to chronicle our own stories. I think this article really gets to the value of what we do and why it’s important for all families to keep a record or family history. I hope you enjoy reading it.
(If the link ends up breaking, which it will eventually do, you can read a PDF we’ve created of the article and posted on our website.)
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: American Chronicle, Pam Vetter
Days With My Father by Philip Toledano
Posted on November 23, 2009 - Filed Under Family Memories, Personal History, Photos & Snapshots
My son recently sent me a link to a beautiful website called “Days With My Father.” It is a beautiful and sentimental photo gallery done by a professional photographer with his writings about dealing with the final stages of his father’s Alzheimers Disease.
As someone whose work it is to preserve memories, I found this a beautiful and touching memorial. I sent it out to several of my friends who sent me back emails thanking me for sharing the link and how much they really appreciated seeing the site.
We each have our own way of memorializing our loved ones. Some of us create photo books, some save specific items of that person, sometimes we keep their room intact, or hire a company like ours to create a video about that person. Toledano’s unique combination of writing and photography as well as his perspective of being the loving and grieving child of a dying parent really allows for a very sensitive and thoughtful approach to a bittersweet and yet beautiful experience.
Stefani Twyford is a personal historian sharing life stories, connecting generations and preserving legacies. To learn more, visit her web site, find her on Twitter as @stefanitwyford, visit the Legacy Multimedia Facebook Fan Page, or send her an e-mail.
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