How photo scanning links legacy and family history preservation.
If you’re a grandparent like our customer Linda Pompel, you likely have decades-old albums filled with photos from high school, college, the early days of married life, your children as babies, and numerous family vacations. You might even have albums that belonged to your parents.
Since you can still recall who is in what photo and when and where it was taken, this is the time to digitize those photos so they are preserved for your grandchildren – and future generations. It is exactly what Linda is doing, and having great fun with the project.
Linda recently sent us about 800 photos after taking apart decades-old albums. “I was married in 1967 and had photos for 50-60 years since I got my first little camera,” she recounted. “I sent them in [to ScanMyPhotos], and I was nervous not to have them in my possession, but everything went fine. I got back this DVD with all these wonderful photos.”
As she and her husband went through the photos, there were quite a few things she had forgotten about. “We went from picture to picture looking at our kids being born, growing up, our parents – all of our family was right there…. I have photos of the kids’ very first steps. I knew they were ready to walk, so the camera was right there. Those were really special.”
Having all of the photos scanned and preserved on a DVD has been a huge weight off of Linda’s shoulders. “That [preservation] work is done. I don’t want my kids to discover photos in a box when I’m not here.” Now that Linda has photos in a format that she can crop and fix, she is planning to make photo books of each of her kids and the trips they went on as a family.
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As it turns out, getting photos scanned has also really helped her learn more about her family. Her sister was visiting recently, and they worked on their family’s history together, learning a lot about their grandmother in the process.
“My mother didn’t talk about her much –she was killed in an accident,” Linda explained. “I never saw a photo of my grandmother when I was growing up, and we discovered these photos of her, but we had to find the stories. It’s through the photos that we’ve actually met our grandmother. I plan to put together a book about my grandmother, and those photos are what we really need to fill in the missing pieces.”
Additionally, she has been taking a memoir writing class and has begun embedding photos into her stories, including many of the photos scanned by ScanMyPhotos. The stories are about her childhood and raising a family – and they’ll be full of pictures. What a great legacy to leave behind!
