All Blog Posts Tagged 'Memories' (115)

We received an email from a reader suggesting we write an article comparing the cost and time it takes to create your own keepsake video as opposed to hiring us to create a Legacy video for you. We thought this was a great idea.

When you walk into your local computer store, you are met with aisles of the newest technological toys. They are enticing…

I have been watching “In Treatment“, an HBO drama about a psychotherapist, Paul Weston (with award winning performance by Gabriel Byrne). Each episode is a session with one of his patients, including one session with his own therapist, Gina, at the end of the week. The session with Gina covers some of the things that are going on with his patients…

Growing up and living in the United States, I had never heard of Ted Grant or been exposed to his photojournalism, so I was not really sure who this keynote speaker was at the Association of Personal Historians 2010 Conference in Victoria BC earlier this month. For some reason, his name kept conjuring up the news anchor on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. ( Then I found out I had been confusing the editor, Lou Grant and the anchor Ted Knight and created my own…

I recently returned from the 2010 Association of Personal Historians Conference held in Victoria, British Columbia. The theme of this conference was “Voices of the Elders” and was named as such to “honor the First Nations, the first peoples of Canada, on whose traditional territory we met, as well as the elders of all nations, whose stories we help preserve.”…

I was just reading about a woman whose computer was acting up so she called a computer technician out to her home to save her from the dread ‘blue screen.’ Apparently she had 10 years worth of genealogy research stored on her computer and NO BACKUPS! Just thinking about that makes me shudder.

If you’ve ever lived through a hard-drive crash, you know it is one of the scariest and most humbling experiences. We tend to relate to our computers as…

Since 1995, Ira Glass, one of the greatest storytellers of our time, has been the host of the radio show “This American Life,” a weekly hour-long show that is primarily journalistic non-fiction but also features essays, short fiction and occasionally memoirs.

I had the pleasure of seeing Ira live this past weekend at Jones Hall here in Houston. My experience was less like sitting in a…

This website link from Boston.com was recommended on a listserve that I subscribe to and I wanted to share it with my readers. I can’t believe how haunted I am by these photos.

They were taken between 1909 and 1912 by a photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II to…

When my own children were young, my father suggested taking a photograph of them every month, in the same location and pose. These photographs, he explained, could later be assembled into a type of time-line of their growth and development. While I did take many photos of both of my sons, I never did manage to do that specific project, although it still think it’s a terrific idea and would have been a wonderful thing to have now.…

Share your family stories before it is too late. That’s my motto in a nutshell. I believe everyone has a story to tell. It’s just a matter of digging deep to find those memories. Of course, proof is in the puddin’ - alright, no more tacky clichés - I'm about to issue you a challenge:

• Grab a pen and paper.
• Number your paper from 1 – 13.…

I was recently in China for 10 days, visiting the main cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. What I found most interesting is how different the context of their beliefs and practices are to my own. Because I am a video biographer, some of the things that I noticed have cause me to look at my field and how much I take for granted about what I do in the context of our American culture.…

My grandmother almost carried the recipe for her famous cookies to her grave. She was a marvelous cook and had several recipes that were family favorites. She loved getting the praise and glory for producing these specialties for us and could never be coaxed to share the recipes.Finally, at some point in her 80s (she passed away in 1997 at the age of 93) she beautifully typed up the recipe and gave a copy to me and a copy to my sister. I’m not…

I recently got back from a 10 day trip to China where I visited the main cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I had a really great time although I haven’t finished organizing and tagging all my photos and hope to get that done soon before I forget all the finer details of where each photo was taken. As I go through notes and photos I’ll be adding some thoughts to this “China Diary” over the next couple of months. …

My friend Maureen Taylor, aka www.maureentaylor.com The Photo Detective, just published her newest book, “The Last Muster.”

“A remarkable work of documentary history, The Last Muster is a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographic images—primarily daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and carte des visite paper photographs—of the…

For a good part of my life, I had a tin cracker box filled with old letters. Most of these were letters sent to me by old boyfriends, away at college or otherwise separated from me and declaring their affections. There were also some letters from friends off on a big adventure somewhere and I found them so well written, the details of their experiences so juicy that I chose to save them. There were a few letters from one of my parents who…

I rode in the backseat of our 1979 Pontiac Bonneville. The scarlet plush interior cushioned my cheek while the top of my head rested against the rigid window pane. There was a faint smell of peppermint from the hard candy my dad tucked in the pocket of his cheek – melting slowly as he drove the rural highway. On occasion, he’d slip me a piece of…

A few weeks ago one of my clients, Dan Duncan, a well known businessman and philanthropist, passed away. His passing was unexpected and we were just days away from shooting new footage for a another tribute video on the Duncans. Both Dan and his wife Jan were chosen as the 2010 Tapestry Award recipients by Interfaith Ministries, a local non-profit whose mission is for all faiths to work together to create a more compassionate society.…

Aside from creating a family history so that future generations of your family will know who you are, one of the nicer gifts you can give

your family is a graphical representation of your family tree.

I recently learned about Arbor Arts, an online company that provides beautiful family trees

at a reasonable price. They have 16 tree templates to choose from that

are about…

America is riveted right now by NBC’s hit show “Who Do You Think You Are?” which, in partnership with Ancestry.com, shares the genealogical history of well known entertainment personalities Spike Lee, Brooke Shields, Susan Sarandon, Lisa Kudrow (who is also the Executive Producer), Sarah Jessica Parker & husband Matthew Broderick as well as Emmitt Smith. It airs on Fridays at 8/7 PM. You can find more information about the show including the schedule and full episodes at…