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Monday, November 05, 2007

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!

7 comments:

  1. It was a lot of fun! It's always a lot of fun! Thanks for hosting the scanfest Miriam. I always look forward to getting some scanning done and meeting up online with others. It's a great idea!

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  2. I had a great time as usual, and you can bet I'll be one of the first to log on in the new year. Thank you, Miriam, for everything you do.

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  3. Super-fast photo scanning. Just read about your Scanfest. I'm in New Jersey and have this tip for those not near you.

    Read this USA Today story from October 31st, called "How To Digitize Your Life" and sent my pictures to Scanmyphotos.com. They charged just $50 to scan 1000 pictures. Turnaround was speedy. They scanned my snapshots, whichb included some Polaroid's the day it arrived.

    Here's the link to the article:

    http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-10-30-backup-side_N.htm

    - Barbara

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  4. Barbara, that would probably be okay for modern photos, but there's no way I would let my precious antique or one-of-a-kind ancestral family photos out of my sight. Besides, Scanfest is more than just a preservation event; it's social networking, and just plain fun!

    Thanks for commenting!

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  5. Lee, as always, it's a pleasure to have you with us!

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  6. Miriam:

    Thank you so much for hosting Scanfest. I really enjoy it and all my fellow GeneaBloggers.

    You are a terrific hostess!

    fM

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