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Posts Tagged ‘vintage photos’

How to Plan the Future of Our Treasures?

Posted in family heirloom, Family History, Genealogy, tagged , , , , , , on February 10, 2021| 25 Comments »

I began writing a post about one of my grandmother’s siblings and quickly realized it will take more than a week at a time to write about each of the siblings. There is simply too much material to put together into a cohesive narrative. While I am working on the first one, I thought in light of last week’s DeKorn treasure I would write about the subject of:

WHAT TO DO WITH OUR TREASURES AND HEIRLOOMS?

Recently I’ve had several people mention that they have no place to leave their treasures at end of life (or before). They have no children or other relatives who have shown any interest, or they have no close relatives at all. In many cases, they have photographs. In most cases, they have done at least some family tree work, if not extensive work.

This rings a bell to me because I feel similarly. I have a beautiful collection of family photos and documents and have spent a lot of time organizing and researching. I have cousins with children who may or may not have any interest in the treasures or the organization into story. I do plan to eventually pull it all together into one digital format and distribute to everyone. Then they can decide what to do with it. God willing, I will be able to complete the project.

But this still leaves me with two problems. One is that it’s possible that not one of the people I give the digital copy will end up passing it on to future generations. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a storage place for all this that would go on to “live” in perpetuity?

Do you consider an Ancestry family tree to be just that, if one adds all the photos and documents for each family member? I know that Ancestry has been a bit unreliable with DNA, but I don’t foresee them shutting down the giant tree they are constructing. Anything is possible, I suppose. I also use My Heritage, but have not gone through the laborious process of putting photos and documents on my tree over there.

Or are there other ways to save the information for people outside the family?

The second problem is that I still have to find an eventual home for the original photos and documents and other treasures (to be stored with their stories). How does one go about finding a young relative who actually cares about these things and would like me to pass them on to her or him when I am done with them? I could hold a contest and assign treasures to the contest winner, but it’s a contest nobody would show up to!!! LOL

A little side note: I have shown an interest since I was college-aged, which is why I was given photos and glass negatives and lots of stories. Imagine if somebody had already done all the work I am doing three generations before me? WOWSA, that would be something.

As I work on the organization and research of my family, I am sending folders to my daughter to hang on to as a backup. She knows who to send them to in the event of my sudden death. My daughter and son were both adopted and neither is very interested in history in general and their family history interest is mostly connected to the people who have affected their lives–their grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and their Kalamazoo great-grandparents (Grandma and Grandpa Zuidweg).

I’d love to hear your ideas.

Photo: part of a children’s coffee and tea service originally owned by Therese Remine

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Kids Out in Front of the House

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Michigan history, Richard DeKorn, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2019| 37 Comments »

Here are two photos of my mother, Janet, and her brother, Donald. Take a look at the similarities and differences.

The one with Mom holding her doll shows a glimpse of their front porch on Burdick Street. Don is wearing short pants and long striped socks. They both have cute little hats on. The back of the photo is labelled April 1938. My mother was born in 1934 and Don in 1936.

Then this one:

In this photo they seem to be wearing the same outfits, although Don’s snowpants are now on and Janet has a scarf around her neck. There is melting snow in the yard.

So were they taken on the same day or is the second photo earlier than April? What do you think? Notice that little “trike” or whatever it is is in the same spot in both photos.

Another thing of note in the second photo is the phenomenal neighborhood view. This is the best neighborhood view down Burdick Street I can remember seeing. In fact, you see that brick house in the distance to the left of the tree? That is the Richard DeKorn house where Grandpa himself grew up. There are a couple of houses in between, then the service station Grandpa owned, and then Balch Street. The house is across Balch from the station. Grandma and Grandpa’s house where Mom and Uncle Don grew up was at the corner of Burdick and Emerson.

 

 

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Now the Work Begins

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Joseph Peter DeKorn, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2017| 32 Comments »

This past week I was back in Michigan for a visit with Mom who was having surgery. Surgery went very well, and Mom is doing great!

I came home with some vintage and antique photos. Eventually I will share some of them.

For now, I have to go through the process I use for all these photos.

  1. Scan each photo, using the scanner attached to my computer. I originally bought it for business, but it’s just a simple home scanner. I scan them into .tiff so that the best quality is preserved.
  2. The originals are then put into acid-free clear (plastic) sleeves and sometimes then into acid-free photo boxes for storage, preferably in a fire safe (locked file cabinet that can withstand fire up to a certain temperature).
  3. Then I use my zamzar.com account to convert the .tiff files into .jpg. Jpeg is easier to use as I wish because it’s a very accepted file type. Each new jpeg has to be downloaded to my computer individually. This takes a bit of time. Zamzar is the best program I have found for file type conversions, and it is well worth the subscription.
  4. I create appropriate folders and store the .tiffs and the .jpgs together in the folders.
  5. Photos from the 60s and 70s sometimes need a little TLC as they are already turning yellow or even brown. I use Picmonkey not because it’s better than photoshop (it isn’t), but because it is extremely user friendly and doesn’t take up too much time.
  6. I create another folder for each new folder. These use the same folder names, but add the term “watermarked.”
  7. Then I use Water Marquee to create a watermark for thefamilykalamazoo.com and watermark one full set from each “watermarked” folder.
  8. At this point, I have both watermarked and unwatermarked jpegs for sharing.

That’s it! Then I’m done. What is your process for saving old photos?

From a Joseph DeKorn glass negative

Adrian Zuidweg (Grandpa) on the right

The dog is Bobby

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Do You Know Anything About Antique Cars?

Posted in Chicago history, Family History, Genealogy, Klein, Photography early 20th century, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2015| 27 Comments »

I am not a car expert by any means. I hope I never have to identify a getaway car, for instance. I can give a description of details, but I can’t identify the make or year of a vehicle. My husband can. I am amazed sometimes at how he can tell me a year of a car when it sees it way down the street. But I am not asking him the questions I have because the answers lie in the early history of the American automobile–and I doubt he knows much about those first cars.

So I ask you: is this first one a Model T car? Or is it something else? And what year might it be? Sometime in the 20s, I believe.

 

The car is driven by my great-grandfather, Frank Klein. That’s my grandmother sitting shotgun. In the back is her sister Helen and her mother, my great-grandmother. Their house in Elmhurst, Illinois, is behind the car. That looks like a sawhorse on the left. I wonder what is underneath and why it’s there.

Here’s a photo of what I think is a different car. Notice the different roof, headlamps, etc. Do they both have the same double windshield? I can’t figure out the background/setting at all. I love these “motoring” outfits. What kind of car is this?Do you have old photos with cars in them? How did you determine what kind of car?

 

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Balding with Glasses and a Mustache with Personality

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Netherlands history, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2015| 24 Comments »

Here’s another unidentified photograph. The cardboard frame says it’s from Kalamazoo, but of course, it could be a copy. That said, I have noticed that most of my photographs of adults have been taken in Kalamazoo, not brought from the Netherlands or mailed from the Netherlands either. Nevertheless, maybe my unidentified pix fit into that latter category!

 

I have no notes from Grandpa on this one. He’s certainly Dutch, even the frame is from a Dutch photographer.  He’s balding, but tries to make up for it with his rather wild mustache.  Looks like he uses a curling iron for it.

His glasses are noted. But what I find particularly interesting is the color and tie. Surely that is a style from a certain period? Maybe even the cut of his coat lapels?

His posture is ramrod straight, so he at least wants to give the impression of a business man or upstanding citizen.

Any ideas about this one? Decade? His age?

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