Bing Crosby, Auntie Ronnie and Uncle Gordon (copyright)
As I’ve mentioned before collecting family photos seem to be a by-product of family history. I know I’ve gone to my aunt’s home; Flip Pal (shameless plug) in hand and was able to scan photos from her albums and even photos from her wall. She had this photograph of my great-aunt and uncle standing with Bing Crosby at the Jasper Park Lodge. I was able to scan it through the glass while it was still hanging on the wall.
Another useful tool is the Zcan+ (another shameless plug). The Zcan+ can be used to scan photographs and documents. What makes it different from the Flip Pal is that the Zcan+ has OCR (Optical Character Recognition). This means that it recognizes characters in documents, in 199 languages, and you can save to Word and then you can edit the document. You can also save as Excel or PDF and that only a few of the types of files you can save.
Often I’m asked; which is better? But each has its own advantages. The Flip Pal because it’s a standalone product, no computer required. It weights just slightly more than 1 lbs and runs on double a batteries. The Zcan+ does require a computer to run. They come cordless and wired. I love it for scanning at my desk and inputting family history documents into my genealogy program. But I’ll talk about that another day.
So depending on what you plan to do would depend on which scanning product would be right for you.
Now back to what other things I’ve seen done with family photos. At a recent genealogy conference I went to in British Columbia; there were two ladies that sold products to make a type of ancestor trading card. Not really for trading, but that was the size of the cards. You could put a photo of your ancestor and then perhaps hand write or type out the information you wanted to capture on the card. The cards were then stored in a small drawer which could be set out on a side table or coffee table for display.
Another great idea I saw was on one of the many Facebook pages that I follow. A lady named Susan, had created a table-cloth for the cake table for an upcoming wedding . So beautiful and so creative and what a great keepsake.
So over the summer gather those photos at family reunions and family get together when you visit your relatives on vacation. Take along your Flip Pal or Zcan+, which you can purchase at Shop the Hound (last shameless plug) and you too can get those creative juices flowing.