Have you been thinking about preserving your family’s history, but aren’t sure where to start? Here are 11 fun and creative ideas that will motivate you to kick the project off today:

1. Turn Photo Albums Into Memory Books. Instead of simply slapping your photographs into an album, create a memory book by including a brief story about each picture and identifying everyone in it. Viewers, especially future family members, will be grateful for the explanations of who’s who and what they’re doing. Be sure to use acid-free products so that your memory book will endure for many years to come.
2. Create Heirloom Jewelry. Jewelry doesn’t have to be expensive to be meaningful. You can turn everyday pieces into heirlooms by linking each to a specific interest, moment, or event in your life. Think about collecting charms for a bracelet or adding a photo of a special relative to a locket.
3.  Grow Family Memories. Are you an avid gardener?  Whether you grow prize-winning American Beauty roses or the ubiquitous zucchini, you can encourage and pass the love of gardening on to the next generation. Share some seeds or a cutting from a plant with a family member. Bake or cook with a young relative, using the bounty of your garden.
4. Share the Love of Food. Write out favorite family recipes—Grandma Sarah’s corn bread, Aunt Mary’s turkey stuffing, your mother’s prize-winning strawberry shortcake—on pretty recipe cards. Or collect them in a book.  Add your memories of the times these dishes were served and savored and what made them so special to you and your family. The collected recipes and stories would make a wonderful gift for a newly married relative or young adult setting up a new home.
5. Document Family Heirlooms. Do you own something that once belonged to an ancestor? Does that item hold great meaning to you? Ensure that future generations know its history by documenting it. Write down everything you know about the piece, including how it came into the family and who has owned it over the years. This is a great way to connect your descendants with the past. Be sure to keep the written record with the item. Check out the Heirloom Registry for an easy way to record the items.
6. Set up a Family Photo Gallery. Are vintage photographs of your ancestors lying in dusty shoeboxes or hiding in old photo albums? Bring them out into the open. Local craft shops sell a variety of frames at a reasonable cost, and for just a little investment of time and money your gallery will generate interest, curiosity, and pleasure for your family members. Be sure to use acid-free matting and hang pictures away from the sun’s destructive light.
7. Craft a Comforting Memorial. If you can thread a needle you can create a beautiful tribute to a deceased family member by making a teddy bear or quilt from a shirt or other item of clothing that they wore. This can provide great comfort and solace to others following the loss of a loved one. And the newly crafted item becomes a family heirloom that continues to tell the story of that family member’s life.
8. Use Technology to Tell Your Story. Using video or audio recording equipment to preserve stories and memories is easier than you might think. First, make a list of stories you would like to talk about. Then set up the video or audio recorder, make sure to eliminate any competing sounds (e.g., ticking clocks, humming refrigerator), and tell your stories. If you prefer to focus on pictures, there are plenty of computer programs that can help you easily create a slide show from your family photos. Looking for some help? The friendly staff at Reel Tributes is just a phone call away.
9. Proudly Display Family Documents. My husband’s great-great-grandfather was the justice of the peace in Hardin County, Kentucky, after the Civil War. Fortunately, his Official Certification from the state of Kentucky was passed on to my husband. I had it framed, and this bit of my husband’s family history is now displayed on a wall in our home—next to my husband’s honorary discharge papers from the U.S. Army.
10. Write an Ethical Will. Just as a Last Will and Testament is a tool to pass on the “stuff” of life, an ethical will is a tool to pass on personal beliefs, values, life lessons, and blessings. Ethical wills have been with us for more than 2,000 years; authentic and readable ethical wills dating back to 1200 A.D. are still valuable for their literary content. This document has been found to be a tremendous blessing to family and friends.  Check out www.ethicalwill.com for information on how to write your own ethical will.
11. Engage the Younger Generation. Kids have stories to tell as well. Ask your children or grandchildren what is important in their lives right now and record what they say, either with pen and paper or with an audio or video recorder. Not only will you learn a lot, but future generations will also be interested in what they have to say.

However you choose to preserve your family’s history, begin now.  Don’t let good intentions be just that. Cherish the role of preserver of memories for your family. You won’t regret it for a second.

Do you have other creative ideas to share? We, at Reel Tributes, would love to hear them.

Many years ago I began keeping a daily journal about my life’s activities.  Over the years I have found it interesting to go back and see what I was doing, feeling, and thinking years ago. Recently, while reading an old journal entry, I read about a heated disagreement I had with a friend. With hindsight I realize now I had acted petty and immature.  It made me appreciate that I’ve done some growing up since then!

A few days ago it dawned on me that many of the reasons for journaling could also be applied to the value of making a personal history film or video biography.

As in journaling, a personal history film provides you with the opportunity to:

1. Document the stories of your life – the good, the bad and the ugly!
2. Record the great things that have happened to you and to your family over the years.
3. Record how you have felt about the world around you.
4. Record your personal and professional achievements (and disappointments).
5. Record hopes, dreams and beliefs – for yourself and for your family.  Learned life lessons and wisdom become clearer with age.
6. Record meaningful personal and family events to pass down to future generations – even those yet unborn!
7. Provide an opportunity to express gratitude for the opportunities and things you have.
8. Record significant events in the world around you and how they have affected you personally (such as WWII, social and global financial changes, etc.)
9. Provide an opportunity to reflect on and evaluate the experiences of your life.
10. Share relevant stories of the past for the benefit of future generations.

Everyone has a life to celebrate.  Lessons learned, problems solved, tragedies survived, observations made, creativity expressed and maturity gained.

For whatever stories about your life you’d like to share, consider a journal or a personal history film in 2013.

So you’re feeling a little anxious, shy or self-conscious about being interviewed for your personal history film? You really want to save your memories for your family but when you think about actually doing it, all you can think about is that public speaking class that you took in high school.  Your palms still get sweaty when you recall standing up in front of everyone. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

The concerns

You might be thinking about such things as:  What if I don’t know the answer to a question? What if I trip over my tongue or forget what the question was?  Maybe you’re worried about sneezing or burping during the interview. Or you’re concerned about being surrounded by cameras and lights.

You’re not alone

Well, the good news is you are not the only person who has these sorts of concerns. In fact, most people have never been interviewed on film before.

I’m here to help you get over those nerves.  I have been interviewing folks for fifteen years.  I understand where this nervousness comes from – it comes from a fear of the unknown.

Three reasons why you shouldn’t dread a personal history interview

Reason 1:  You can prepare. Before the actual interview you will have an opportunity to speak with the personal historian who will be interviewing you. You will have a critical part in creating the interview questions.  You will know the answer to each and every question because you will play a role in designing the interview guide yourself.  Know that the personal historian who is interviewing you is not trying to trip you up or turn the interview into an interrogation.   Her goal is for you to look and sound great throughout the interview.

Reason 2:  Editing is magic. Are you worried about tripping over your tongue, sneezing or even burping while on camera?  The beautiful thing about video is that the camera can easily be turned off for a moment and then turned back on when you are ready to resume.  A huge part of making a personal history film is the editing process.  This is when any of the blurps, bleeps or tongue contortions are edited out, proverbially landing on the cutting room floor.

The finished film will only contain the best of the best of your interview.  You will truly rival George Clooney or Audrey Hepburn!

Reason 3: You will feel relaxed. The personal historian takes great care to make sure you are comfortable and relaxed during the interview.  Before the interview begins, she will answer any questions that you might have. She will encourage and affirm you throughout the conversation. Whether it is a need for a bio-break, or the desire to re-phrase the answer to a question, it is the personal historian’s job to reassure you that everything is still okay and on track.

The camera equipment may initially seem imposing to you, but it is the personal historian’s place to create a connection with you. Soon the camera equipment fades into the background and it is the engaging conversation that becomes the focus.

Where do we go from here?

There is a little quote that I like a lot.  It goes like this:

Blessed are they, who know the way,

To bring back memories of yesterday.

Author Unknown

As a personal historian, I take my job and all that goes with it very seriously, and I know that other personal historians feel the same way.  I feel honored to play a small role in preserving your life story.

So, are you feeling a little better about the interview now?  Take a deep breath, and start the process of saving your stories while you’re on a roll.

When I tell people what I do for a living, they often give me a puzzled look. “What is a personal history film?” they ask, wondering if I’m a historian, a filmmaker, or something else entirely.

I like to start off by explaining exactly what a personal history film is. Keep in mind there are a lot of names for this product, including video biography, video memoir, life history video, tribute film, or family history movie. For this article, we’ll call it a personal history film.

So what is it? A personal history film is a 30-60 minute documentary chronicling the stories, remembrances and history of an individual, couple, family, or a business. Think of it as a custom-made A&E biography. Rather than it being about someone famous, it could be about anything…including you or your parents. The film could be historical in nature, soaring through the highlights of a person’s life. Or it could be more philosophical, expressing one’s values, beliefs, hopes, dreams and the lessons learned from living life (commonly known as an “ethical will”). It could focus on one moment in time—such as grandpa’s experiences in the War—or cover 300 years of family history. The possibilities are endless.

With the use of today’s digital technology, a personal history film can record a person’s life as no other medium could do in the past.  What makes a personal history film so special? Rather than explaining it with a list, I thought it would be more interesting to ask you to consider the following:

• Seeing your grandmother’s sweet facial expressions as she recalls memories of being a youngster in the 1920’s.  She tells of the summer she spent picking blackberries and being paid just enough money to buy a special dolly at the local Five and Dime.  Her cat Sally sits on her lap as she tells this particular story while being filmed.
• Listening to the loving tone of your mother’s voice as she reflects on becoming a mother for the very first time.   She speaks of her initial concerns about being a good mother, but recalls that upon caressing you for the very first time, all her fears vanished.
• Watching Uncle Joe smoking his cigar, telling his corny jokes and doing his all-too-familiar magic tricks. Somehow everything old is new again.
• Hearing your great aunt Rosemary share stories of living through WWII.  She talks about ration tickets, black out curtains, not having real butter to spread on toast and having to walk to and from church on Sundays because there was no gasoline to put in the family car, a 1939 Nash LaFayette.

Did these elicit an emotional response? They are the sorts of memories of the past that can easily be captured on film (but less so in a book or an audio recording).  Of course your own stories will be a little different, but that’s what makes personal history films so powerful: they’re tailored to each person, each family, and each moment in time.

One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the Irish dramatist, novelist and poet.  Wilde said, “Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”  Today, think about moving some of your special memories from your (mental) diary to a timeless digital film. And if you’re interested in learning more about personal history preservation, I highly recommend the following books:

The Story Only You Can Tell – Creating Your Family History With Ease and Expertise by Toni Sorenson Brown

Ethical Will – Putting Your Values on Paper by Barry K. Baines, MD.

Tell us about your own personal history film. What has it meant to you and your family?

Imagine

Close your eyes and imagine. You open a dusty photo album to a faded photograph of your great-grandfather. You gaze long and hard at his face. It is an interesting face. It is a face that reveals character, humor, tenacity. It is a face that resembles your face.

You’ve heard his existence led directly to your existence; the conditions of his life led directly to the circumstances of your life; his ingenuity and hard work created your destiny.

But who was he, really? What events shaped his life? What were his dreams and hopes?  Why did he work so hard? What were his choices and challenges? Why did he believe in the family business? What were his thoughts and feelings?

Unfortunately, no one bothered to ask.

You close the album, slowly, and ponder: just what was my great-grandfather’s story?

Intangible Asset

Families understand the importance of trusts and estate plans. Multigenerational transfer of tangible assets such as stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, art, jewelry, antiques, collectibles, and country club memberships is commonplace.

Although tangible assets are important, there is an even greater, often unrecognized, intangible asset: the family’s story—the story that tells what the family has been, who it is today, and what it can be.

Obligation

Mrs. Lavern Norris Gaynor, heiress to the Texaco fortune, suggests that is the family’s obligation to tell its story. She closes her memoir, Lal: A Legacy of Gracious Giving, by saying:

“This brings me to the end of my story—but not really. My story didn’t begin on my birthday. And, now, it won’t end with my death. Through the experience of telling my story, I’ve come to understand it was my obligation.

I close with love, blessings, and a peaceful heart. Finally, the Norris family legacy of generosity, caring, and gracious giving will reach out and touch tomorrow.” 

Touch Tomorrow

Family stories can touch tomorrow in a range of ways. I’ve touched on a few of them below:

• Recording and celebrating the family’s history
• Passing on values, traditions, goals, and culture
• Affirming the family’s mission, core purpose, and original dreams
• Bestowing knowledge and wisdom
• Sharing hard-learned life lessons
• Sustaining and building family relationships
• Creating a sense of belonging and loyalty
• Offering advice and guidance
• Documenting and preserving philanthropic traditions
• Giving meaning to the human experience
• Building a lasting legacy 
• Promoting the continuity of a family business

Story Forms

Many people tell me they understand why it’s important, but don’t know where to start. Luckily, we have a variety of forms to choose from when telling a family’s story:

• A Family History is a comprehensive approach to recounting the people and the events that span generations. Family histories include genealogical research and are rich with social context events.
• A Memoir is usually told from the perspective of a single narrator.
• An Oral History preserves stories in a question/answer format. Transcribed verbatim and lightly edited, it records the exact nuance, flavor, tenor, and tempo of the narrator’s voice.
• A Chapters of Life Memoir preserves life’s defining moments—life’s steppingstones. It is an anthology of short stories usually built around a collection of photographs.
• A Business History records the stories, mission, values, and aspirations of a company’s founder(s).
• A Culinary Memoir preserves favorite recipes, stories, and photographs. Recipes are scanned in the cook’s handwriting and, complete with spill marks, they memorialize life’s favorite meals and events.
• A Tribute to Life Memoir honors the life of a deceased loved one. The story is told from the perspective of a family member or cherished friend.

Ultimate Memoir

Then there is the Ultimate Memoir. The Ultimate Memoir is, well, ultimate. It is a beautifully designed, heirloom-quality book and companion video. Any of the above story forms are appropriate. Narrative, combined with custom design, complemented with a professionally orchestrated video, creates a vanguard presentation of the family’s story.

Someday List Syndrome

Whichever form your family selects, the operative word is “selects.” Way too often a family scribbles “tell our story” on the Someday List. But when the Someday calendar page turns, it’s too late.

Please don’t allow your family to become a victim of the someday list syndrome. Start today. You won’t regret touching tomorrow. And your family will thank you– for generations to come.

About the author:
Dr. Judith Kolva is a personal historian, with a Ph.D. in the psychology and practice of preserving life stories. Her seminal doctoral research investigated the relationship between telling life stories and identifying meaning in life. She is the founder and CEO of Memoir Shoppe, an international organization that preserves and protects the stories of exceptional families.  Please contact Judith at judith@memoirshoppe.com or www.memoirshoppe.com

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) – April 19, 2012

Which parts of the story are true and which parts of the story are false?

This much I know: My grandfather, Zaidie, was a spry happy man with a wondrous smile that lit up the room. His brilliant blue eyes dazzled with every smile.

My mother told me that my grandfather never smiled until we, his grandchildren, were born. Grandchildren transformed Zadie from the stern, serious man my mother knew, into the fun loving, energetic grandfather I knew and loved. Zaidie played catch with me and watched me dance and sing – all with encouraging smiles and joyous laughter. He took me, and his four grandsons (I was the only granddaughter) to parks, beaches, on car trips and for ice cream. He couldn’t get enough of us and, likewise, we couldn’t get enough of him.

I thought I knew Zaide, but I realize I know very little about Zaidie. I know nothing about his childhood, nothing about where he lived, nor how he grew up. I know nothing about his parents, his siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I don’t even know how he met my grandmother.

I know that Zaidie was born in Poland, in a small town (shtetl) called Boger. From there, the story gets fuzzy.

Was it that…

In 1920 (give or take a year) my grandfather confiscated his dead brother’s visa and escaped to America, the land of freedom and opportunity. Since his brother was killed in the coalmines of Poland, either due to a job-related accident or at the hands of malicious mine workers, my grandfather grabbed that visa and turned his brother’s death into the opportunity of a lifetime.

Or was it the following…

Zaidie went to Canada, using his (older or younger) brother Myer’s visa. Myer,  somehow, was already living in America. From Canada, my grandfather smuggled across the border and entered the U.S.

Or maybe it happened this way…

In or about 1920, my grandfather joined the Polish (or Russian) Army, but instead of serving, he ran away (AWOL). Zaidie said he could not fight for a country that was killing Jews in the Pogroms, and escaped to the United States.

Which is true? I don’t know. I’m sure some variation is true. I have bits and pieces of stories handed down to me, but none of them are documented.

I do know that Zaidie eventually stowed away on a ship sailing to Canada. From there, he walked across the border into the U.S. telling the border guards: “Of course I’ll return to Canada, I’m just going to visit my brother, Myer.  My grandfather never returned to Canada. Instead, he sent money back to Poland, to my grandmother (Bubby), so she could join him and start a new life together in Chicago. But that’s all I have; it’s all I know about how my grandfather came to the United States. There is no one left to ask. My grandparents and the few relatives who survived the Holocaust are no longer alive.

I have tried to do the research and to put the pieces of the puzzle together. However, because of the Holocaust, all documentation, even the name of the town (Boger) in which my grandfather was born and grew-up, have all been expunged, purged from history. My family is left only to speculate about what actually happened.

I would dearly love to see a video of my grandfather and to hear him talk about his life and to hear his stories. But sadly, I cannot.

I have made it my job to tell my children what I do know about our ancestors.   I can tell them that their great-grandfather grew up in Poland, made his way to America around 1920, when he was about 18 years old, and because of Zaidie’s efforts; I was born in Chicago sixty-three years ago. My children will know that their grandfather had a large family, but sadly, they were all killed during Pogroms and in the Holocaust. My children and grandchildren will know of all the wonderful memories I have of my grandfather. They will hear about all the holidays we spent together, of the joy, love and a sense of family I received from Zaidie and Bubby. My children and my grandchildren will know because I am telling them and will continue to tell them.

Will your children and grandchildren know about your family? What are you doing to ensure that future generations don’t have to puzzle over mysteries they may never be able to solve?

As we commemorate Yom HaShoah today, let’s remember our ancestors and their struggles. But let’s not forget what we can do for the future. We owe it to Zaidie and Bubby to make sure our family’s stories are never forgotten.

–
Susan Harrison is an author who resides in San Diego, CA, where she works as an educator and a facilitator for GAB (Guided Autobiographer) and The Braille Institute. She has been published in various e-zines.  Susan is a modern grandmother and her favorite ‘job’ is reading books to her granddaughter via Skype.

Clack…..clack…..clack…clack..clack clack/clack/clack….

We all know the sound of an old 8mm or 16mm projector throwing Kodachrome home movies up on a wall. For all too brief a moment we look into a coruscating window on a lost or fast disappearing past. Images roll in: jump cuts, lens flares, shaky camera work. We squint maybe, trying to improve the focus. Real, but also somehow surreal, those old film images; transporting and magical.

That time machine costs how much?

I think of old home movies as a kind of time machine – but a time machine that really exists. What would we pay for just such a machine if we didn’t have one?

What wouldn’t we spend to peer through a time tunnel at our old grandpa digging in his “victory garden”, or to see mother on her wedding day? Old home movies are exactly that time machine, and yet we don’t always know – or value – what we have.

Dan Streible knows a thing or two about old movies. He is a professor of film at New York University and the founder of the Orphan Film Symposium – the biennial gathering of scholars, archivists, curators, and media artists devoted to saving, screening, and studying neglected moving images.

Dan says people underestimate the value and power of home movies – “these millions of feet of rediscovered family films, the millions of feet of film shot by mothers and fathers, aunts, uncles and friends throughout the 20th century (that) now make up the best record we have of daily life as it was lived during the past two or three generations.”

Of course, he is talking about other people’s home movies. And if you are lucky enough to have some of your own? Well, chances are they would be like Eisensteins in the Attic – dusty masterpieces of their kind left unwatched and slowly disintegrating*.

Priceless images in dusty boxes

Priceless images are stowed away in shoe boxes all across America, locked up in now unplayable film formats like Super 8, 16mm and 8mm; or in early cassette formats like Video8, Hi8 and Digital 8.

And if you did take the trouble 10 years back to convert to VHS, S-VHS or VHS-C? Then you did a great thing. But VHS is now obsolete; and sadly, the quality of VHS was poor from the start. You’ll get a much better result today retransferring from the original films or video cassettes.

The good news of course is that every old film and video cassette format can now be converted to digital video. Most people get their old home movies transferred to DVD. But here’s a tip: When you go to the expense of transferring, why not create an uncompressed video master file and get that put on a hard drive. (Uncompressed video is the best quality you can achieve.) Then, use those home movie master files to create your DVD, your YouTube or iPhone video (or whatever else becomes the device de jour).

Turn home movies into a personal documentary

And best of all, you can use that home movie master file to help create your own personal or family history documentary – your “Reel Tribute”. The only thing then remaining is to dim the lights, toss in the DVD, and become transported into “a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas”. You may miss the old “clack clack clack” of the projector, but the experience will be every bit as magical.

*Sergei Eisenstein: Pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist famous for his silent film Battleship Potemkin (1925). The sole copy of his unfinished Bezhin Meadow was destroyed in a WWII bombing raid (“Shoulda had it transferred...”).

Help us create a lasting Reel Tribute to a true visionary of our generation, Steve Jobs.
Click here for more information: www.reeltributes.com/stevejobs

Video offers a number of benefits for family history. In this blog, I’ll address five key reasons to get started on your family video today.

1) It’s a great way to tell a story
People will always love to gather to hear a really good story. But, while crowds once circled the campfire for tall tales, we now turn to the mysterious flicker of the television or computer screen. Though times change, the concept remains: a powerful story fuels the imagination. And few stories are as powerful—or as meaningful—as the ones that relate to our own lives. Our own ancestors’ triumphs, loves, and adventures are inherently fascinating, but never so much as when we can see and hear them unfold. Unlike dusty tomes of names and dates, neglected by all but the most savvy genealogists, video draws the entire family into the story behind the research.

2) Video preserves information for future generations
Documents disappear in fires and get pitched in overzealous spring cleanings. What would you do if your work was lost? A video production of your family history is easy to reproduce and upgrade to the newer technology as it becomes available. Books and photo albums may not stand the test of time, but video is one source of family history that will be around after other accounts have long vanished.

3) Video makes genealogy accessible to non-experts
It’s not just the researcher who will benefit from his or her hard work. Streaming videos online is now incredibly easy and video documentaries can instantly be shared with family members and friends around the world. Even busy uncles and squirmy kids can enjoy family history in a captivating film.

4) Video captures so much more than just data and information
You can’t put Grandma’s laugh into a book. You can’t hear Uncle Jim choke up, or see the look on his face when he speaks of his platoon brothers in the war, with a photo tucked away in the filing cabinet. A book can’t fill the home with the tunes that Grandpa John played during his short-lived musical career. Our children learn history in school, but do they feel it? With a family video documentary, your siblings, your niece, your grandchild, will not only learn. They will be inspired.

5) It’s much easier than you think
Making a video is surely worth it when you consider the joy and knowledge that you’ll share with family and friends around the world. Best of all, if you don’t plan on teaching yourself to become the next documentary guru Ken Burns, Reel Tributes is here to help you produce a customized broadcast-quality film. A professionally made documentary is like your grandma’s quilt– precious, irreplaceable, and full of stories. Each family has a unique and extraordinary history. Shouldn’t the documentation of that history be unique and extraordinary, too?