Report on October Scanfest

I have been remiss not to inform my readers of what a fun and interesting time our Scanfesters had a week ago Sunday, October 28th. We had a group of six, including myself, that scanned and chatted using Windows Live Messenger for three hours that afternoon.

Lee Anders of I Seek Dead People was back after a hiatus, and it was a pleasure to "see" her again! She was busy scanning her Craddock collection: photos from her grandmother's accumulation.

Jasia of Creative Gene was scanning her mother-in-law's photo album of her growing-up years in the coal-mining West of Pennsylvania. Jasia is one of our regular scanfesters and the creator of the Carnival of Genealogy.

The footnoteMaven is another of our faithful attendees, and she was working towards a proposal for a book which I hope will soon be available to the public. I won't tell what the subject is--it's a carefully guarded secret--but I can tell you that if you love old photos, this will be a must-have for your home library!

Colleen from The Oracle of OMcHodoy is a fairly recent Scanfester, but she's been a regular ever since she joined us for the first time in August. While simultaneously chatting with us, she watched football and scanned her paternal grandparents photos from their years in the coal-mining East of Pennsylvania!

Our newest Scanfester was Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy. Lorine owns over 3,000 cartes de visite (photos from the Civil War era) and was organizing and archiving them while--get this!--her husband was busy scanning them for her! The rest of us Scanfesters agreed that he deserves some sort of award, such as "Best Genealogy Spouse"!

I scanned more of the Hoekstra, DeVries, and Valk documents that have been sent out West from the estate of my late maternal grandparents. There's quite a lot more to do, but I put a sizable dent in the "To Scan" pile.

It's always so interesting to get to know other genea-historians and genea-bloggers through Scanfest! I learn a little more about my online friends each time we meet, and I'm sure they can say the same about me. We come from diverse backgrounds and interests, yet share a common love for family history, genealogical research, and preservation of our precious family artifacts. We exchange resources and ideas, too. One resource that I shared was the free e-book by Sally Jacobs, the Practical Archivist, titled 8 Blunders People Make When Scanning Their Photographs...And How You Can Avoid Them All! You can download this from her website; it is a freebie bonus for signing up for her free newsletter. She also has a blog where she has begun to feature podcasts she's doing.

Due to the upcoming holidays, we will be taking a break from Scanfest until January 2008. Stay tuned!