Speaker 1: 0:03

Every single one of these has a story associated with it, and that's part of the puzzle, that's part of the fun.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Krista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. Today on the podcast, you get to hear from Eric Allen. Eric is one of the vice presidents of marketing at Ancestry and he has picked up an interesting little hobby over the course of the last couple of years as it relates to family history. He and I have a really great discussion about that hobby and about some of the things that he is learning and some of the stories he's discovering in kind of an unconventional family history approach. Eric, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:06

You and I have worked together for a few years now at Ancestry, so tell me a little bit about why Ancestry. Why did you want to come to work for the company?

Speaker 1: 1:17

I don't know. I loved Ancestry and I loved Ancestry before I even worked there. I had started doing family history, helping my father-in-law, actually in like 2010. And he'd had this mystery he was trying to solve and so I was helping him. We signed up for Ancestry together and we were working on it and that was a few years before they'd even called me, and so when the opportunity came up, I was familiar with the product, I was familiar with how it worked and I just loved it. I just love the family history concept. Genealogy, dna like as a thing. I like that like just started to come out and so I knew that was happening. It seemed like going to be exciting, going to be a big thing, and so, yeah, it was. It was super cool opportunity. So, yeah, that was 2012. So I'm coming up on 12 years there now. So, yeah, it's been awesome and I just love the product.

Speaker 2: 2:07

It's great stuff. So you had this interest, you had this exposure. What was it? That you were working with your father-in-law? Is that something you could share?

Speaker 1: 2:14

Yeah for sure. So what had happened? Was he at that point now, 2010-ish, 2009,? He had started to digitize his family content, like things that they'd had and we were using like what we had available, and we were using his printer scanner or something, and he'd started to sort of gather this, these pictures, and during that process of like talking to his siblings and saying, hey, do you have this photo? And so we're scanning it, these stories started to come out and these mysteries started to come out.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Who is this person? Or you know, he had this one photo of his second great-grandfather and he said it's a great shot of him sitting in this chair, his long beard On the back. It says you know, something like great-grandpa Stevens was his last name, 1901. And my father-in-law said but no one knows where this person ended up. It was in 1901. So I'm like, come on, we can find this person. And so actually just started digging and so we started building this tree and trying to figure it out. I actually ended up finding a death certificate, not even on Ancestry, but on a different site. That said, when he died and the family just lost their minds. Everyone just couldn't believe it. We closed this thing like found this person. It was amazing, and so that just, we just got bit by the bug after that and so, yeah, like we, you know, we was recording all of his family stories and his photos and things like that, and so that just sort of created this passion that I've never since let go.

Speaker 2: 3:46

I love that so much so you did that project with your father-in-law. Have you delved into that at all with your side of the family?

Speaker 1: 3:50

yeah. So I so logically like I helped him and I was like, okay, you know we signed up together but now I'm gonna go do sort of my stuff as well. Now my family history you know, well documented. My paternal grandfather was a historian and so super passionate about genealogy and history and recording stories and and pictures and things and so like a lot of that we we felt pretty good about it and I was like I'll just go validate and build my own tree out.

Speaker 1: 4:15

And so you know, through the process of doing that, you know, I I came to either confirm things that he had found, which was a lot there, and then or disprove a few things which you know, no fault of his, what was available at the time he was doing a lot of this stuff was much different than what's available today was available to me at that point. And so, yeah, it just became like I need to prove everything here, I need to make, validate these facts, I need to make sure, you know, we have the latest. And I was able to move back even further than he was able to in a few places just because, again, the technology that became available. So so, yeah, like my own family became a passion of how I record their stories, how I record their images and content became really important to me and yeah, and so, like you know, ancestry became that vehicle and I vehicle and I, just I just stayed with it still going with it, still not done, like nowhere near done.

Speaker 2: 5:09

So yeah, we always think right like there's got to be an end somewhere. But there's mysteries to solve. Always there's new information to find, oh yeah totally there's.

Speaker 1: 5:18

There's plenty of mysteries. I think I have, yeah, like a very vanilla tree, and yet there's still things in there where I'm like, oh, that's super interesting, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have like thought that about this person or known this about this person, and I, you know, put a couple notes in trees and things.

Speaker 2: 5:32

But I feel like there's a little scandal there, maybe, or a little something you can share.

Speaker 1: 5:37

There's always scandals. I no, I don't. I don't have a deep, you know deep, you know, on my side anyway, a deep family history scandal that I've worked on. There's a few on other trees that I've helped people with, but just like little things. Like my maternal grandfather, you know, I found a record I love him, he was a wonderful man A record of him hitting a cow one night. You know he was a truck driver, you know, and nobody knew the story. But there's a, there's and I don't know like there's a picture of him in the newspaper. You know, after hitting a cow, uh, another, uh, family members, grandparents, someone yeah, not mine hit a person and nobody knew that story, you know. So a couple of little things like that where, like those stories sort of and it doesn't change the way you view someone, but it is like an interesting thing, we're like that no one ever shared that story Anyway.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Well, there's something about rounding out people's personalities, though, right, like you're looking at a photo, right, and it's so one dimensional. And even when you hear stories, sometimes they tend to be a little two-dimensional.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Right.

Speaker 2: 6:42

But the more you learn, the more they become a whole person. You bet Right.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, that's exactly it to me. And even like helping my father-in-law with his photos yeah, you look somebody in the face and it totally changes who they become to you, right? And so that's where that sort of passion really just like came out of me and I was like, yeah, I want to be the modern historian person relative to some of these people, like my grandfather, and I want to record photos and images and any content I can get about them that isn't just a fact on a record sheet or something became so important to me. So that's how I sort of started down that journey. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2: 7:21

That's such a great Genesis story and not everybody comes into family history the same way, by any means 've shared my genesis story here. We've had other guests who've done the same, so I love this concept of artifact and historian and like owning that space in your family, yeah, um, so tell me a little bit more about your grandfather like he was the historian right, like what do you know about his journey into family history and how he approached his role as documentarian or historian in your family?

Speaker 1: 7:46

Yeah, I don't really know how he got started into it, because when I came into his life obviously he was an older person at that point and I just always knew him as sort of this you know, wise, sage man who was, you know, very, very heavy in documenting things and telling stories and having the facts and being, you know, being the we used to, as kids, used to quiz him to try and, you know, stump him on just random facts. He was an avid Jeopardy person and so every night watching Jeopardy and we'd watch him just like beat the contestants every night. So he was that kind of a person just obsessed with history and facts and information. And so when I sort of came into that, you know, it was more just as a child, like sort of absorbing him as he's, telling stories and information about who we came from and all of that. And then as I became an adult and got a little bit older, he and I started to really connect on some of this stuff and I'd had a actually had a work trip I think it was 2015 to Raleigh, north Carolina.

Speaker 1: 8:47

I was speaking at a conference there and I had, you know, in my tree, traced as far back as I could, on my Allen side that's my last name to this person that lived in not far outside of Raleigh, north Carolina. So I connected with my grandfather I said, hey, what can you tell me about this person, what do you know? And he said that's a Revolutionary War soldier who fought in the Battle of the Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, which looks like it's only you know, maybe 45 minutes from where you're going to be. So I rented a car and I drove out there and I mean it was just just an amazing family history experience for me because it was the first time like one of the first times that it just became so real to me.

Speaker 1: 9:26

And I found a worker at this museum that they put together there who walked me out to the battlefield. You know. He looked up my ancestor and walked me out there and we stood and he said he would have stood right here with his gun facing this way and his group with him as they came over this ridge over here and started firing at each other. And it was just one of those existential like, oh, wow, like, and this moment where he's standing there with you know, with his, you know his rifle loaded could go either way and I don't exist, you know. And so it was just, it was just great moment where I felt really connected to this story and this person and my roots.

Speaker 1: 10:11

And so my grandfather and I really connected over that and and then I started going to his house when he was, he was getting up there in age and he started sharing more and more things with me and I think he really took to the idea that, ok, now I've got a keeper of the of the story, a keeper of the content, and I sort of became his conduit for the conduit for the future. So, as a part of that process. He just I would go over with a hard drive and he would just move everything he could onto my hard drive images, stories, you know, papers, anything he had digitized, and he digitized things sort of in the best way he could at any given moment. You know, like he had digitized old photos, old slides in the 80s or 90s, I think at the time what they would do is they would put them on a projector and take a picture of the wall, you know and he was like, oh, here's this photo.

Speaker 1: 11:08

So I I just amassed this huge collection of all of his content. When my grandfather passed away in 2019, um, we started going through his things, clearing out the house, and I had said to the family like, if you know, I'm happy to take this role on. You know, grandpa and I sort of connected on this, and so if you have any of that content, I'll take it and we'll, you know, I'll digitize, find a way to get it preserved, get it shared with the family. And so we're going through his house and just box after box after box of stuff, and, in particular, he had boxes of old 35 millimeter slides, and so I took those and I didn't know what to do with them, but I had these images he'd given me, which were bad copies of them.

Speaker 2: 12:01

So these are the same slides that he had tried to digitize himself Exactly.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Yeah, and so he had lesser quality stuff, and so then I got into this like, okay, so now I've got modern technology, I've got modern equipment, modern tools. I need to figure out how to bring this to you, know this quality, this modern. I need to figure out how to bring this to you, know this quality, this modern. And so I went really deep into researching how do I digitize this stuff? What's the right mechanism, the right tools, the right? You know research I need to do to understand the concept and just went to work I think it was. I think he had like 7,000 to 10,000 slides, wow, and COVID hit not long after this, and so we were all stuck at home and so I was looking for a home hobby and it worked out great. So, yeah, I just I just became incredibly passionate about digitizing all of these, this old content, and were you able to burn through it all.

Speaker 1: 12:55

I did. Yeah, I actually burned through it, probably disappointingly quick, because I just got addicted to it and it was just such a. It was so fun yeah you know, every single slide I'd stick in my machine would just pop up on my screen with this beautiful image. And it was. It became a treasure hunt right, they're all story.

Speaker 2: 13:12

Everyone is a story, exactly everyone is a story.

Speaker 1: 13:15

So what I did? I digitized, I went through every box that he had and then I set up a call with the family, because to me it's always really important to share this stuff and I don't view myself as a you know, I don't, I don't own the stuff. I'm the facilitator of sharing the stuff. Right, I only do it so that I can share it Like I love it, but I also want others to enjoy it. So I set up this family call with my dad and his siblings and my grandma, who's still alive, and we did a zoom one night where I just clicked through thousands of photos and, uh, I'm proud of myself. You'll be proud of me too. I, I, I recorded it Very smart, yeah, uh, and I don't even know why.

Speaker 2: 13:57

I was like you know what I'm proud of myself?

Speaker 1: 13:58

You'll be proud of me too. I recorded it Very smart, yeah, and I don't even know why. I was like you know what. I'm just going to record this because I'm not going to be able to remember it all.

Speaker 1: 14:05

But now I have this like priceless video of just clicking through images and hearing my grandmother, who's in a nursing home at the time, just shouting out who's in the photo, you know, or what was the story, or when was this photo taken, or you know why, and and so now I've gone back and tried to catalog these things, because at the time I had no idea, I didn't know any of the context of these photos. Right, I'm just digitizing them, sticking them through and then we click through, so anyway. So so from there it sort of just became this passion of like I need to, I need to get all the content, like I need. You know, I jokingly call myself like a digital hoarder, like if you have old media that you know needs to be preserved, I feel passionate, like I'll take it, like you know, yeah, so so there's this interesting thing though right, Ten thousand images, yeah, Like that's overwhelming to anybody.

Speaker 1: 14:58

For sure.

Speaker 2: 14:59

And was there an order to them? To begin with, I suspect maybe because of the nature of your grandfather's work and his passion on that side, but also then, as you share them, I love that. That's a beautiful story of having your grandmother involved in that, and the stories over the Zoom call. But then what's next with that content? Is there a format to put it in? Is there a story that they can tell together as a, as a collection of images? Like? What's next with all of that?

Speaker 1: 15:25

yeah, so I think there is. I mean, every single one of these has a story associated with it, and that's part of the puzzle, that's part of the fun is figuring out well, okay, so I just scanned and yes, there was some. There was like similar photos were grouped together. You know, moments were clearly grouped together in my grandpa's cataloging, um, but there's still.

Speaker 1: 15:49

I didn't have full context on a lot of them, but so I I'd scan 15 photos of atlantic city in the 60s and go what are they doing in Atlantic City, you know, and I could see my dad here and he's I don't know 10 years old, 11 years old.

Speaker 1: 16:07

And so then it became I need to figure out what they're doing in Atlanta, Like, why did they go there? What did they do while they were there, who was there with them? What was you know, what was the circumstances? And so what I started doing is I uploaded them all to Google Photos and put them in a Google Photos it just, and I would mark dates, you know, as best I could, and I would mark locations even as best I could, and then tag people in photos and there's a little section for notes you know that I would try to put in if I knew something you know, trip to, you know, or move across the country from you know New Jersey to Los Angeles and you know here's Yellowstone or here's wherever they were, and you know just trying to try to record that kind of thing and then sharing that with everyone right, tagging it and then sending out a. I just always have a shared folder picture album that I'm always sending to the family.

Speaker 1: 17:00

So yeah so it's like that's why I feel like I'm never done, because I have thousands and thousands of these and you know some of them I have context on Some of them I still don't. And it's just this, this game, this puzzle between you know, I got records that my grandfather wrote. I've got, I've got audio that that my grandfather wrote I've got, I've got audio that he's recorded. I've got, you know, pictures and some documents. So, puzzle, putting all that together is really important and I'm still chasing that down all the time.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Are there still stories coming out, like when you share those things out? Are there new stories that come out you haven't heard before?

Speaker 1: 17:34

all the time, yeah, yeah, for you know a lot with my dad as I connect with him. You know, I scanned a bunch of photos not long ago, less than a year ago, of a family funeral in the 70s, and so I've shared it with my dad and so I'm simply saying who are these people you know? And then they're able to input some stories. I think this is so-and-so's brother and that's so-and-so's cousin, and we didn't really know them. They just came to the funeral and, like you know, figuring out who people are, it just I don't know just creates some sort of a relationship to people, some of whom are alive, some of whom aren't, that I never could have otherwise connected with, and I just feel this you know lots of stories.

Speaker 2: 18:16

I love that, you know, and it's interesting because when you start thinking about family history and family documentary history, like we have all these pictures and photos and artifacts and stories and it's not just family members in them.

Speaker 1: 18:28

No, exactly, I have so many photos of strangers, people. I have no idea who they are, and that's part of the puzzle too for me is so, as I started to do this and I just started going around to the families saying, hey, does anybody have this stuff? Like, do you have negatives, do you have pictures, do you have slides? Like I want to know. And so I just started grabbing them from everybody I could and I sort of became this. Everyone was like, oh, you're the resource for this, dumping stuff on me and I started scanning. It's actually my wife's grandfather, who lived in Hawaii in the 50s and he had all these. He had some slides, and there's this one that I scanned, which was this beautiful image of these two little girls in Hawaii, and he'd written on it their first names. And I was like all right, I got to see if I can find them. I knew where he was. He'd written their names and he wrote Hilo, hawaii, 1950 or 1949 or something. It's super high res, beautiful images, two girls in flowery dresses.

Speaker 1: 19:36

And so I went on a search and you know I'm using everything I can. I can come up with Google, ancestry, you know Facebook, whatever it is, and I'm searching and I happened to find, after I think it'd been hours, a man who passed away, who had two daughters with those names in Hawaii. And so from there I was like all right, now the chase is on, and started searching around. I'm looking for Facebook, I'm looking for obituaries, and you know, it took me days and I finally got to the point where I got some courage and I'm like I'm going to be a little bit creepier. I'm going to start reaching out to people when I can and say, hey, I have this photograph To me. It would be very valuable if someone had it of my family. Don't mean to be creepy here, but if this is of yours, I want you to have it. I don't, you know, I don't want anything, I just want you to have it.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Eventually chased down a Facebook, someone on Facebook who is the granddaughter of one of these women, and I sent her a note with long I'm not trying to be creepy and it took 30 seconds and she responded that's my grandma. I can't believe this. I've never seen a photo of her at that age and that's her sister, who passed away a few years ago. And she said my grandma lives down the this. I've never seen a photo of her at that age and that's her sister who passed away a few years ago and said my grandma lives down the street.

Speaker 1: 20:51

I'm going to print this off right now and I'm gonna take it to her house. She's gonna love it and and I left it there. That was it. Yeah, but you know, for me that is what makes it all worth it, because I think for those those people there's an experience there of, you know, priceless images that happen to be in a random box that happened to land, you know, at my house that I was able to digitize and then and then share with them. And yeah, I'm always chasing that, that same feeling now.

Speaker 2: 21:24

I love that.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Yeah, it's interesting because I think so many of us have this embarrassment of riches and I find myself in a similar position thousands of photos, slides from grandpa, both sides of my family. I have slides and photos and negatives, and I mean my great grandmother kept photo albums from the early 1900s that I have inherited, like so much, and there are people in there who I don't know, and there are also people who, like this woman, never has seen a photo of a family member at that age, may not even know photos exist Like, and so it's almost a it's almost an obligation.

Speaker 1: 22:00

Right, right, I feel a ton of pressure right.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Find these people. I started doing that. When I can figure out who someone is, I will upload it to a profile on Ancestry or FamilySearch or something. It just in hopes that someone eventually happens. I don't know any of their descendants, you know, but like I hope at some point someone can get some, you know, meaning out of that. The other thing that was interesting is I actually have a lot of photos Not a lot of photos, not a lot, but I found several, maybe a dozen or so, maybe a little more of people who died young and never had, you know, posterity, and because of that I feel an obligation to create their profile and to put their photo on, because, because my grandfather was that person to everyone else, the way I am, people just bring him stuff and so literally old photos that were like early 1900s, where you know I'm looking up the person because their name's on the back, and it turns out they died young and you know that they're that famous saying that you, you die twice, once when you really die, and once the last time someone says your name Right, and so I feel like then it becomes my obligation, obligation to keep that person alive for a little bit longer in that scenario, upload their photo, tell their story, even though no one directly descended from them will ever have that, because they don't.

Speaker 1: 23:21

They never had kids, but family around it. I still think there's a story there and an experience there that's worth having yeah, for sure we get to do the coolest things, eric we do it really is like our.

Speaker 1: 23:33

You know, genealogy is so it has so many different angles that just can't find in a lot of things. Yeah, so much fun.

Speaker 2: 23:42

Yeah, I love that and I love that you like. I mean, your career is marketing.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Sure.

Speaker 2: 23:46

But you're, you've found this passion and this doorway into family history that dovetails beautifully with the work that you do, which, like, not everybody, gets to do. That, yeah that's right.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Yeah, I do count myself lucky that way. Like you know, I get to go to work and some days, you know, when I have a break or I'm really tired of meetings, just pull up Ancestry and nobody gets to question what I'm doing on Ancestry, because I'm doing product research. I'm working on our product, you know. But some days, you know that's how I get by.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Right, it's a lot of fun. Okay, let's nerd out a little bit. So you talked about this setup at your house, that you've got to scan things, like what can you tell people, like, if they want to do this themselves? Or like is that the best route to take Should they find someone like you in their life? I?

Speaker 1: 24:31

mean there's a lot of different ways you can go. First of all, there are a lot of companies out there that will digitize your old family history, media artifacts and I think they're great. I've used some of them in the past as well. So if you, if you can find one of those there's a lot of local companies, people will do it in their local area. There's some bigger names out there in the space that you can look up and you'll send them your stuff and then they'll digitize it and send it back.

Speaker 1: 24:55

That never really sat right with me, and not because I'm. I mean, I think they're trusting you can trust them. I don't think that's a problem, but for me I just maybe it's part of the journey, maybe this is like Curse of Genealogists, like because like the journey is part of what I enjoy out of it, and so I'm like you know what I have to just do this myself, and so, yeah, so I went out and started acquiring equipment myself. So and it's not professional grade, I wouldn't call it, but I would call it high-end home, you know, residential grade you know, and amateur grade.

Speaker 1: 25:27

So I got, you know, a device off of Amazon that will scan a slide at you know, 7,200 DPI, which is really high, like ridiculously high, more than anybody would ever need, I think the human eye sees at like 800 or you know, maybe even less, and so you don't need to scan an image that big, but I do a lot of times because I care about that quality. I have a sickness there, I think. So I bought one of those and then from there, as I started to just get more and more content, started just acquiring this, you know, this equipment trove. So I went to eight millimeter video, you know, digitization equipment and audio reel to reel and VHS and cassette, and I've done 35mm slides, 35mm negatives, medium format negatives, so that on a flatbed scanner all the way down to like you remember, 110 negatives.

Speaker 1: 26:22

No, they were like these little cameras in like the 90s, 80s and 90s. Oh, yes, that were like these little cameras in like the 90s, 80s and 90s. That were like flat and long and you snap the negative ends up being about the size of my pinky nail. It's really not a good quality image like it never is. I think about them as like polaroids, like it's the best I'm gonna get out of it, but yeah, all the way to digitizing that kind of stuff and creating a copy of it. So yeah, I mean, I don't know how deep do you want to go?

Speaker 2: 26:44

Well, no, I mean, you start thinking about that and it gets a little overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 26:48

It is overwhelming, right, I can admit that, and I think you know. My advice for people would be start with a company. Sure, you're going to pay a little bit more. You're going to get the best quality possible, though, and it's, you know, it's something.

Speaker 1: 27:03

Yeah, and what people don't realize about this stuff, which I'm super passionate about, is that it's going bad, and that's the scary part about it to me is the stuff sitting in your basement or your attic or your garage is actually eroding and what your ability to turn it into something digital is going away. I don't know how long the life of these things are, but I mean, I have eight millimeter video. You know, that was from the fifties, and now we're 70 plus years late. I don't imagine we have a lot more time where that's going to be able to produce a high quality image, and so, yeah, I feel some urgency around that too. So I would suggest you know, if you have stuff sitting around, you do what you can do, what you can send it. I'm at costco, I've heard, does a great job with some of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:48

You know there's there's ways to do it, um, but just do it yeah, for sure, and not only is it at risk because of the degradation, but also it's just at risk in general right right, I mean you and I have a co-worker who whose family lost everything in the paradise fire in california years ago and and lost everything like all the photos all the yearbooks, all the family letters, and that is heartbreaking. It is yeah. I mean, I have family in New Orleans Hurricane Katrina. We lost like tons of family artifacts because of that.

Speaker 1: 28:17

That breaks my heart.

Speaker 2: 28:18

So the process of digitization is? There is an urgency? Yeah, there is.

Speaker 1: 28:22

And that's the other part of it too. Multiple copies is really critical here, so I always keep a copy in the cloud and a copy on a hard drive, and then I keep a copy in my safe on a hard drive as well, in a fireproof safe. Now, that's probably maybe overkill. I don't think the cloud is going down. I think this is here to stay, but it's important to me to have all of these.

Speaker 1: 28:48

And then I'm you know, because I'm this way with media I never throw it away Like I can't. I can't bring myself to throw away a slide. So I bought boxes that I have just stacked up, you know, but but they've all been digitized and so I'm comfortable with that, knowing that I have a digital copy of it, no matter what. Sure, and I'll say I fumbled my way into this like being good at it, because it's just been, you know, so many, so many, so many times. So now I've got this whole process all the way from scanning, you know, I use scanning equipment, scanning tools. I use a, you know, I store it in the cloud. I use Photoshop if I can't get a little scratch out of it. I do have tools to clean negatives and slides.

Speaker 1: 29:27

And then, you know, even go so far as there's this wild product, edval no Scratch, which is a little bottle about the size of like a fingernail polish that you can put on a scratched slider negative makes it look perfect. But that stuff is not cheap. It comes in this little tiny bottle and it is very expensive, and you know. So you go through all that. Then I Photoshop. I've gotten to the point today now where occasionally, I'll drop it in an AI as well and get a really clear picture out of one of those. So the technology is also moving rapidly here and I'm comfortable that in the future it's going to be even easier for people to do this um and and get you know this stuff preserved at the best possible quality, color, all of those things.

Speaker 2: 30:12

So is there any um concern about, like, migration of technology? So you've digitized things, yeah, but now, like, if you've got it on a hard drive, like, is there any concern that that should be accessed every once in a while to make sure it's still readable by the current technology?

Speaker 1: 30:26

yeah, that's what I do. I do pull those hard drives out every once in a while and just create a backup of it. You know, I I think my grandfather in 1990 would have been like, hey, I got it covered, like I've digitized all this stuff and that's part of why I can't get rid of it, because I don't know what's coming right, I don't know where we're going, um, but I'm comfortable, you, you know where I am today with this stuff and then you know where I can put it, store it. I think it's, you know, it's a generation or two, it's probably safe, and then we'll see what happens. Sure, you know, I don't know. So, yeah, I'm comfortable with what I have today, but it is something I'm constantly keeping up on and then creating new backups and new copies of.

Speaker 2: 31:03

Yeah, this is important creating new backups and new copies of yeah, this is important, so I love it. I love a good nerd out over technology. Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, um, so it's. There's this really interesting like story arc almost of your journey, right, your grandfather and his experience and your experience with him, and now you've kind of taken over the reins and and so what's next like are you looking to like preservation, is this legacy of him? And now it sounds like for you, like, are you looking to like preservation, is this legacy of him? And now it sounds like for you, like, are you looking forward at all for what? What's next there?

Speaker 1: 31:32

Yeah, I'm, I'm always looking for the next best way to preserve it and share it. And so, you know, for me at this moment, yeah, I'm using the best mediums I have available to me. Like I said, I'll upload to Ancestry or you know another genealogy site. I'll share with family where I can text, et cetera, and then I just make sure I always have that copy. And then I don't know what happens down the line, if I'll have a son or a grandson or a nephew or a niece who will develop the passion and I'll do what my grandfather did and be able to sort of complete that same journey of, hey, this is now in your hands and I want you to, you know, be the be the keeper of it and store it.

Speaker 1: 32:09

So, yeah, as far as like my, my personal situation to it, I don't feel I'm even close to done with it. I'm, you know, I feel I've, I'm barely scratching the surface of what I want to do with all this stuff, even after it's digitized, because you know how I preserve it, how I share it, how I clean it up and tell the stories behind it, still looking for the right mediums to be able to do all that all the time and so anyway, yeah, I mean I'm, we'll see how things change, how technology changes, and but but yeah, I don't, I don't feel like I'm anywhere near done, you know, with what I can do here.

Speaker 2: 32:45

So I hope not. Yeah, no, for sure, that's awesome. Okay, let me just wrap up by asking you this is kind of where we ask all my guests this question which is your hope for the future? When you think about story and how those stories evolve and how they get passed down and what that means is that story kind of comes through you to the next generation or the one after that, what do you hope for the future?

Speaker 1: 33:09

yeah, I hope it just gets easier and easier and I hope that the world becomes more and more connected and, in particular, you know, I, I even have stories. This, I mean silly little things. My third great-grandfather was killed by a bull. It was a crazy story there. He was gored in the neck by a bull and died in a field. I think he was in his late 60s or early 70s. He was supposedly a stubborn old man. That's a story.

Speaker 1: 33:43

That's a crazy story and, by the way, I still use that as a cautionary tale with my children. Like you know, we have stubborn in the jeans, right? Like you know, don't be dumb, don't go walking through the bullpen, you know, because that you might get gored in the neck. I Don't know how many descendants that person has, but it's got to be in the thousands at this point. Yeah, I always wonder how many of them know that story. I'll bet it's not that many. And so for me, what I hope for the future is a place and a connection, a way to connect with others, to share those stories. So we all have, you know, that power of a story. And now that's a silly one, maybe silly, I mean it's. You know he died, but there are many, many stories like that that are powerful and important, and so my hope would be finding ways for people to connect with one another around this and then, you know, unite against those with, along with those stories.

Speaker 2: 34:39

Yeah, yeah, that's my hope. I love that Beautifully said. Okay, before we go. If people want to follow along on your journey or learn from your tips and tricks, where can they find you?

Speaker 1: 34:50

Yeah, I do have an Instagram and so you know, like I mentioned, as I've been collecting a lot of content, I've also been collecting some strangers' content, as people don't know what to do with it. They're like I'm going to go to that guy. So I've been digitizing a lot of old content and uploading it to an Instagram that I have. It's called Bliss it Was, and that's Bliss underscore. It underscore was it's an old Wordsworth poem Bliss it Was, and that dawned to be alive, you know. And so I post stuff on there. I have posted some tips on there as well and some of my stories about how I digitize things, and then there's just some.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Really, I try to post what I think is very interesting old content, so you'll see pictures of, you know, San Francisco in the 50s, or I have you know, Paris in the 60s, you know, as I've digitized stuff. So I think you know there's some interesting, fun content on there to engage with. I don't, it's not a business, it's just a hobby, it's just fun. But you know, if anyone wants to follow along or reach out and ask questions, by all means I'm happy to take them over there.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Love that. Thank you for offering that Absolutely Well.

Speaker 1: 35:48

Thank you Appreciate you Absolutely Right, thank you.

Speaker 2: 35:50

We work together every day and I feel like I know you better now, after 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: 35:56

Yeah, my pleasure. This was fun, it was. I love it, and I appreciate being able to spend time with you, and I appreciate our relationship at work as well. I learn from you and your other genealogists around you every single day. It's part of why I love my job so much. Again, I have this passion, and so it's really nice to be able to glean what information I can when I can. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 36:17

Hey, we're going to get the message to the world that they all need this right.

Speaker 1: 36:19

I think so, I hope so.

Speaker 2: 36:22

I'll do this. You do what you do. We got this. We're trying. Well, that's all I've got for you on this episode of Stories that Live In Us. But here's some great news One of the most valuable things you can do to help me and other potential listeners to find this show is for you to both rate it and leave a review. So, as a special bonus, if you write a review, take a screenshot of it and email it to stories that live in us at gmailcom and I will send you a free ebook with my top tips for discovering and sharing your own family history stories. Also, please share, share, share this podcast with anyone you think might enjoy it. Until next time, remember that sharing your family stories means better perspective, deeper connections and a more empowering identity for you, your children and your grandchildren, maybe even for generations to come.