Make your own biography or genealogy blog (video optional)

Video biography is just one way to showcase your biography or genealogy work. Another excellent way is through a blog.

Most people know about blogs these days. They look and feel just like a website - only better (you're reading one!). But not everyone knows how easy they are to open and operate. Ask my 12 year old son, he even has his own blog!

So, if you have been "umming and arring" this last little while, let me give you some ideas - and some courage - for getting started. And I'll keep it simple.

First off a plug for video - it is a fine way to showcase your biography, genealogy and ancestry work, as the Italian-American Giacchino story shows.

But blogs are pretty cool too. You can pack them with info, they're free, you can email links to them and they can be accessed anywhere in the world. People can comment on what you write and you can reply, you can update daily or yearly or never, always fix errors or mistakes (even after you've posted), plus add photos or documents or video or links to your favorite websites. And, you can do it all yourself. Really. You don't need a web designer or web master - you're the driver!

Me? I like Blogger and Wordpress. These guys host the blog (i.e. take care of the technical end). Just above is the sign up screen for Blogger, which is owned by Google. (Told you it was free, and quick.) You will need to dream up a name for the blog, enter your email address, come up with a password, choose a "theme" (what the page will look like), and you are off to the races. If you have text already, you simply copy and paste it in (I always save it as plain text first).

I find WordPress a little more wordy (more PC than Mac if you know what I mean). It has more choices in themes (page looks) and it seems to give you more configuration choices. But, it probably isn't as easy for the first timer as Blogger (my 12 year old uses Blogger) and you do have to pay to add video directly to your blogs (unless you embed a link to YouTube or another video hosting site).

Now, you'll want to add widgets (Blogger-speak) or gadgets (WordPress-speak) to your blog. These are just the little doo-dads you see on the side of blogs like this one (links, recent posts, archives, labels, or "quote of the day" - check the bottom of this page - and so on). There are hundreds to choose from. My advice: stick to the classics. And experiment. (The only difference between us and the kids with all this new technology is we think we will break something - and they know you can't. It's all just zeros and ones!)

OK, you're thinking, maybe I'll give Blogger a try. But what if I get stuck? Well, you probably will get stuck at some point. Especially if you want to do the tricky stuff. Both Blogger and WordPress have very helpful search boxes where you can type in your problem or question (WordPress fractionally better here for me). And if all else fails, delete the blog and start again.

Need inspiration? There are thousands of excellent biography and genealogy blogs. A good place to start is GeneaBloggers - everything you ever wanted to know about starting and running a genealogy blog plus countless links to excellent biography and genealogy blogs. Or, click on my friends' faces on the right and follow the "links" to their blog pages, such as Grandma Austin's Diaries, 100 Years in America, Grandma's House, and The Thacker Chronicles.

So, if you have a life or family you want to celebrate, come on in - the water's fine!

By the way, I stumbled across this tidy comparison chart between Blogger and Wordpress this morning. If you've had experience with WordPress or Blogger, leave me a comment! Read more!

Heritage images from the LOC

It was time for some new birthday cards to use in our video biography business. And what better way to celebrate a birthday than with images that form part of our national heritage?

This one is called "Ears that hear not". It was taken around 1914 in the Appalachians. There is a vast visual treasure in our national museums and collections. And with the magic of modern technology, we can view items - from repositories like the Library of Congress - in the comfort and convenience of our homes.

Here is another favorite image of mine. It's a picture of Joseph Schollick, an osteologist at the National Museum in Washington - taken in 1923. (I think we have moved beyond the wholesale exploitation of nature that, sadly, marked previous centuries.) The LOC make images like these available in a number of sizes, including (for some images) uncompressed "tif" files up to 50MB!

And Yosemite, "Overlooking nature's grandest scenery", as the picture title has it. Dating from 1901, the original image was a stereograph, designed to be used with a stereograph viewer for a 3D effect.
It's fairly common for us to use these or other archive images in our personal history projects. Since many of these images are now part of the public domain, they can be used without restriction in video documentary projects.

And my Mom's favorite: "Farm children playing on a homemade merry-go-around, Williams County, North Dakota." It was taken by Russell Lee in 1937 as part of the Farm Security Administration's national photographic project. (Grandparents can show it when the grandkids ask, "What did you do before computer games?".)

If you are interested in viewing more images from the wonderful collection at the Library of Congress, start here: LOC Images

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Orange County's forgotten history Wild times on San Juan Creek

Most of us traveling the Ortega Highway these days drive pell-mell just to get across the Santa Ana Mountains and onto the 15 Freeway.  We barely notice the creek or the valleys along the way.  Or the history. 

Not so for Doc Wylde.

Doc Wylde is an impassioned naturalist.  Not the airy-fairy tree-hugging kind, but someone who has hunted and fished and camped nature all his life.  Now 82 and living in San Clemente, he remembers as a child traveling along Highway 74 in his father’s Model A Ford to get to the family cabin 13 miles from Capistrano on the San Juan Creek. 

As a youngster he hoisted trout out of San Juan’s pools by hand, moving them from smaller to larger pools so they would survive the summer dry spell.  He collected wild honey from the hills, being careful to avoid the mountain lions that lived in the clefts of Sitton Peak.  Later, he would give Elynor his Sigma Chi Fraternity pin during a USC pledge party at the cabin (properly chaperoned of course.) 

Some of Doc Wylde’s best memories come from San Juan Creek.

Like how he and his buddies (and their girl friends) used to sneak into the thermal pools along the 74.  The pools were part of the old San Juan Hot Springs Resort, long ago boarded up, but still making a hot water stream along the 74.

Or the time Doc went shooting quail along the 74 with his shotgun.  Not hitting any birds, he volunteered to use his posterior as a test target.  (“I was wearing jeans,” he protests, to avoid being thought too bone-headed.)  Sure enough, the problem was not the gun, and Doc was pulling shotgun pellets out of his bottom for weeks.

An even less pleasant memory of San Juan Creek comes from the war years (WWII).  Doc let friends talk him into breaking into cabins along the creek.  They got in, got out, and Doc became very popular giving the loot away at school.  Then the sheriff arrived at school.  Doc spent two weeks in the Orange County lock-up.  “It sure taught me a lesson,” he says today.  “I never broke the law ever again.”

As well as a naturalist, Doc is a historian.  Not the pipe-smoking, tweed jacket wearing kind, but someone who all his life has photographed, filmed, processed and preserved his own history and that of his family.  He has created an archive of more than 10,000 images and over 50 hours of film and video footage (including rare 8mm color footage of a fishing trip to Mexico using home made scuba equipment).

Doc the Naturalist and Doc the Historian is an Orange County Original.

Doc is also part of a growing number of Orange County seniors who are preserving their life stories with private, personal history documentaries. Doc created his video biography so that future generations would know his story. "I want them to know something about me and our family history. This video biography is something that I can leave them."

It is increasingly common. There is an enormous interest out there among the baby boomers who see that their parents have lived so much history. According to the Association of Personal Historians, an organization representing personal historians and video biographers from across the United States, membership of the Association has climbed to over 600 from less than 50 only a decade ago.

To see an excerpt of Doc Wylde’s Video Biography, including some of that astonishing home-made scuba footage, follow this link: Wylde Ride
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Our own Ken Burns moments

I am a big Ken Burns fan. Ken Burns makes PBS-aired documentaries on big subjects - baseball, jazz, the civil war, WWII. And starting Sunday September 27, 2009 - there will be "National Parks". While Ken Burns' lens may focus on the larger themes in this country's experience, he leisurely and lovingly builds up his stories from small, personal experiences. Experiences such as those our parents and grandparents might have had.

Interviewed about his new documentary: "The National Parks - America's Best Idea", Ken Burns explained why biography is so important to history:

It has become the fashion that biography is dismissed as hagiography or hero worship and we turn to other forces for explanations – economic, political, social forces that affect events, and they certainly do. But it is so interesting to see, particularly in our history, that individuals do matter, that people can come across something and be a catalyst for change.

Ken Burns is still that curious, quiet kid who discovers an old shoe box of black and white photographs in his grandparents' attic and who holds them, and stares at them, until he has almost willed himself inside the picture. And look! Over there in a box is a bundle of old letters tied with string. Hard to make out the writing ... but what do they say? Wait, are those 8 mm film rolls? I wonder if there's a projector around here...

And so his documentaries unfold using personal history and the artifacts of passed lives to recreate an earlier time and experience. They show that the places and events that our grandparents knew as personal were actually part of a broad current and shared experience.

In the video biographies we make, visits to National Parks often feature as important, formative experiences. In a project we delivered just today, Roger Peck first visited Yellowstone National Park as a child in 1934 (that's him with the bear). In 1949 he returned with his wife-to-be (properly chaperoned of course) and posed in front of that deer antler house (see below). In 1961, he went back again with his own two children. Roger learned to became a naturalist from his parents by visiting wild areas like Yellowstone. And he taught his own children about the wild at that same park years later. And now, at the age of 82, he has preserved his past - including his images and his memories of national parks - in a video biography


Ken Burns inspires us all to preserve our own family history. As accomplished and as polished as his films are, he pulls them together from the simplest of ingredients: photographs, letters, memoirs, interviews, contemporary video of places - all things available to us all. He shows us the ease and simplicity of preserving family history by blending these elements together into a compelling and important story. And he makes us realize that our own unique experiences - aggregated together - constitute the broad flow of history and culture in this great land.

"National Parks" has more contemporary footage than most of his recent documentaries. If the preview material is any guide, it will be a feast for the eye and the emotions. Watch video clips from the documentary. And it should be a prompt for us to go looking through those attics!
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It's not about the toys

I was reading a blog today by Russell Bishop on Huffington Post. He nicely put into words what family history and video biography mean to me:

Distinguish... between material world success (things) and the deeper, more meaningful levels (enriching experiences)... (M)ost of us would prefer inner peace, grace, loving, expansion and caring over material world possessions.

Of course, we all need a basic level of things before we can enjoy those enriching experiences. Most of us remember Mazlow's "hierarchy of needs", his famous 5-level pyramid setting out the foundations for a successful life: physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem then self-actualization. We never get to the higher order needs (like esteem) unless we satisfy the lower order needs (like eating and shelter). Obviously food and shelter are essential things - but some people elevate the drive for things to a competition, i.e. "Who dies with the most toys wins".

I have interviewed hundreds of people in the course of my Your Story Here Video Biography business. Usually, the subjects are over 60 years of age; many are well over 60. The interviews sometimes take 4 or 5 hours. One thing that people almost never mention is the things - the stuff they have acquired along the way.

People remember kindnesses, their parents, fears, challenges attempted and challenges met, friends and siblings, the birth of children. They remember mistakes and they remember successes. They remember falling in love. They remember the name of their first grade teacher more often than you would credit! And though almost everyone wants to talk about their first job and how much they got paid; almost no-one wants to talk about their last job.

No one - so far - has come to the interview with a list of assets or even an outline of their material successes. When the time comes to reflect, I believe the subject knows in their heart what the next generation will truly care about. As Ellen Goodman once wrote:

"What the next generation will value is not what we owned but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved."

Creating a video biography or personal history documentary is a chance to reflect on what one has seen and done and what one has achieved so far. It allows the subject to talk about those who have already passed. It is an opportunity to pass on personal philosophies and hard-won wisdom. It is a gift and a duty to the generations that follow (even if the subject is reluctant) and it is the best chance we have of achieving a kind of immortality.

It's not about the toys. Read more!

10 things (apart from photos) to include in a video memorial

When a loved one passes, many people decide to create a video memorial to honor and remember them. (I have written about my first video memorial in an earlier blog: January 2009.) Time is usually short, and often the best that can be done is to gather the available photos and have them put into an automatically generated slideshow using programs such as iMovie or even Powerpoint.

Special care should be taken in preparing the montage images and I have given hints about that previously: Fixing photographs.

I like to help people create truly memorable tributes to their loved ones which will be treasured for years to come. Today I am going to help you go beyond the simple image sequence.

Your Story Here has created a number of video memorials recently (and sadly). And the basis for each one is normally a series of personal pictures. But what else can you include apart from photographs? Well, the idea is to gather as much and as varied material as possible that helps convey and preserve the uniqueness of the subject.

Stories: A passing is often the occasion for families to reunite - sons and daughters fly in (sometimes from interstate or even overseas) and people's thoughts turn to the happy memories. Some people will be writing and presenting eulogies. We try to take advantage of these impromptu reunions and capture short recollections of the subject from family and friends; often informally before the event. Where we can't record the person directly, we record via webcam or just record audio over the telephone (Skype can help with this) and have it played over an image of the person telling the story.

Captions: You may know the time, place, people and occasion of the photos. If you do, include that as a caption. And always look on the back! There is often a description; and if it's in the person's handwriting, then make sure you scan that and have it included (possibly with a split screen).

Old video footage: In most cases there is video footage of the subject somewhere in the family. You just have to ask! Nothing brings a person back into our memories better than film - ideally with audio also.

Cards and letters: Grandparents - especially - accumulate cards and artwork from their grandchildren. I have never met a grandparent who has thrown away a single picture or letter from a grandchild! These can also be included in the video memorial to show how loved and honored the person was in life.

Poems and sayings: Death, for all its pain, is a prompt to ponder the big issues in life. And a collection of sentiments that the person lived by or that represent their beliefs and philosophies helps us to focus our thoughts. Sometimes a person was known for their sayings or homilies. These can be included as simple text screens or as text "crawls".

Voiceover: One member of the family is often designated to present an overview of the person's life at the service. That same person is often well placed to supply narration or voice over for the visual elements of the video memorial. Sometimes it's enough for the person to review the images and other visual material then say a few words about some of them.

Clippings and memorabilia: Some people have been featured in newspapers or magazines or have kept scrapbooks of high school or college athletic or arts achievements. Some people have trophies and awards, or collections.

Handwriting: I always try to include samples of the subject's handwriting. It may be from a photo description, an old (possibly last) shopping list, or it may be a letter written a long time ago or even recently. It may be a signature from a driver's license or passport.

A DVD box cover: Having put together a stunning video memorial, you should have it packaged so that it is immediately identifiable and records the significant milestones of the person's life. You can also include maps. Family and friends will likely want a copy to keep so it's worth making the project recognizable.

A web posting: Actually, this is the 11th thing. But with the vast choice of free online web hosting available, many people opt to post their video memorial so that it is available at any time and from any computer for any friend or family member.

This is a lot to think about, especially if time is short. But after a while, perhaps with the anniversary of a passing coming up, folks sometimes revisit the subject of the video memorial. With the additional time and thought, a fitting video tribute can be created with photos, and other important artifacts of the life.

Death is life's greatest challenge. But it is only in death that we come to appreciate the true gift and miracle of a life. We encourage people to use the burst of emotion and energy that accompanies these occasions to create a fitting tribute to their loved ones. Make your video memorial truly memorable. Read more!

Copy it right: Video Copyright

What I really love about video documentary is the freedom to integrate footage, sounds, images and words from diverse sources into powerful, emotional, multi-media extravaganzas. But there's a danger lurking here: US Copyright laws. Just because you find it on the web (or the TV, or your CD drawer) doesn't mean you can use it. So, what can you use?

Well, I am no expert, but according to my internet resources, here are some things which might be available:

Video you shoot: In general, you own the copyright in the footage you shoot. The main exception is a "work for hire": if you shot the video as an employee or if you shot it for another producer as part of a larger project then you probably don't have the copyright. There are a couple of other minor exceptions: US Copyright guidelines.

US Government footage: The federal government is not entitled to copyright protection. Generally speaking, works created by the US government that have been made public are free of copyright restrictions. This category includes a vast archive of historical images and film footage (especially war-related): Issues affecting the US government.

Material in the public domain: Pretty much anything on which copyright has run out can be used in your video biography. The trick is knowing when that has happened. The general rule is that copyright lasts for the life of the author - plus 70 years. For corporate works (e.g. a Disney cartoon) the term is 95 years from first creation. Works created prior to 1923 (e.g. early Charlie Chaplin films) are now in the public domain: UNC Table.

Short clips that help explain: Copyright law allows "fair use" of a work even though copyright is owned by someone else. This area is a bit murky, but using copyright material in a documentary in a historical sequence or to illustrate an argument or point may well qualify as "fair use". Among other factors, it would be important that the source was attributed, that the extract lasted no longer than strictly necessary, that more than one source was used, and that a license couldn't be obtained or its terms would be excessive for the project: Best practices in fair use.

Works with the author's permission: This is obvious, but if you really want to use some piece in your video - it never hurts to ask. If the piece is non/low-profit and not destined for broadcast, the copyright owner may just say yes. Especially regards music, new bands (look on MySpace) are often keen to have their music featured (and credited) in a film for no charge. If you are lucky enough to get the permission, get it in writing.

Other laws, other factors: What about the situation where you shoot some video to which you own the copyright, but the subject refuses to give permission to use it, or changes their mind? It is never a good idea to go against the wishes of the subject - it is bad business (if you are in business) and with all the laws floating around out there, it is potentially very time consuming. For example, in most states you can be sued for "publication of private facts": Citizen Media Law Project. While there seems to be a high threshold for this kind of suit, it is always best to get the subject's consent for publication - up front and in writing.

Disclaimer: This is just a short summary based on some internet research I did recently. No one should rely on this material in making decisions that could affect their legal rights. If you have any questions involving copyright, consult your attorney!

And good luck with your video biography project! Read more!

Our 95 year old Pollyanna

I love receiving letters - especially the old fashioned kind.

Recently, we created a video biography for Hazel G. She was a delight. Kind, lively, sharp, matter-of-fact, and a total optimist.

So we open the documentary of her life with something she said during the interview. She had said that she was like Pollyanna - in the famous 1913 story. She always believed in looking for the best in a situation - something to be glad about.

In our work we try to discover a defining character- istic of the subject - not to limit them but to alert the audience to a unifying theme in a life. In Hazel's case, she was definitely a "glass half full" kind of person.

Hazel had a store of priceless old family photos, many from her family's early days in the San Joaquin Valley. But some were not in the greatest condition. We spent hours restoring them to their former glory: (See my blog on restoring photographs).

Hazel's grandson Alan wrote me a nice note after we had finished the project:

My grandmother, Hazel, is 95 years old and going strong. We came to realize that she is the only keeper of much of our family history, and the only one who can identify many of the people in our family photos. So we engaged Your Story Here to document her life. I thought I knew my grandmother quite well, but Your Story Here's detailed and thoughtful process brought out the story of her life in a way I hadn't imagined, and which will be a family treasure forever.

Through a process of pre-interviewing me and Hazel, and of going through over 100 family photos, Jane was able to build a basic outline of Hazel's life to guide her through the actual video interview. Because she was so well prepared, she was able to ask the right questions throughout the taping to bring out layers and textures from Hazel's life story instead of just a telling of events.

As for our family photographs, Your Story Here not only scanned them all in and edited them into the video at all the right points, but they also used technology to clean up the cracks and discolorations so the pictures actually look better in the video than when you look at them directly. In addition, they added historical photographs depicting events Hazel was describing but of which we have no pictures of our own. For example, Hazel described the tent city her parents lived in after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and as she describes it we see on screen pictures of an actual tent city from that event.

Jane was even able to record Hazel's answering machine message, which she hasn't changed in 20 years, and include it playing over the closing credits. A great touch!

The final product flows very smoothly from Hazel's earliest memories through her current perspectives on a long life and the world today. It is the story of her life, fit deftly into the context of the times in which she has lived. I can see now that any attempt to do this on my own would have come up woefully short. Your Story Here produce a professional documentary of a quality that an amateur cannot match.

Of course Hazel will pass one day, but our family has such joy in knowing that we have preserved her voice, her smile, and her stories on video. We have them to enjoy and to share with our kids and their kids. That is truly priceless.
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"Book of the movie": DIY personal history publishing

Increasingly, clients are asking us to create books using the old photographs we have restored and the narration and captions we have used in their video biographies. The end product, a kind of "book of the movie", is usually delivered alongside the personal history documentary which we created. There are now a host of self-publishing options including Blurb, Lulu, iUniverse, Snapfish, Asuka, WeBook, Qoop - and many others. Maybe you have thought of using one of these services, but haven't yet.

What are you waiting for? It's a blast!

I must admit that I have only got as far as Blurb. But over a number of projects they've given me no reason to shop around. You download their free software, select your template, import images and text, move things around a bit and presto! It's a book!! You upload it to Blurb (a very tidy site), select the "private" or "public" option, and order as many soft or hard copies as you need (around $10 paperback - $60 hardcover). Turn around time is between 1 and 2 weeks. You can send links to family and friends who can preview the first 15 pages and order their own copies.

Quality? Actually, very high. Not quite a high-end art book but very nice all the same.

Now, I have heard many people say Lulu is better (it's been around longer). And I have experienced a number of glitches and crashes with Blurb which can be frustrating, as is its slowness (reason: it's always auto-saving so relax, you never lose anything). And Blurb is constantly updating their service (e.g. you can now upload PDFs).

So, if you are curious - and if you have the stamina for what can be a fairly fiddly job - you may well be as pleased as I (and my clients) have been with DIY personal history publishing.

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