"Who are those people??" time to start asking!!

As scary as it sounds to many of my friends, some 40 plus years ago I was youth director of my church. We still get together for reunions and we still know everyone even from pictures from 40 years ago. Do you know all your friends in pictures from 40 years ago?  Get to work!!

 

 

 

 

WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE??

   At family get togethers and reunions the old pictures come out and then the questions follow. “Who are those people?  Who is that with mom?” Etc. Taking the time to write down, names and dates etc. is so important to local history and family genealogy. The who, what, when and where can save future family generations months of work. Just names and dates on old pictures can save and educate.  Putting down the correct information also helps.  A friend of mine could not figure out who “Aunt Sallie” was. He did all the family genealogy back to his great grandparents and still could not figure it out. His parents had died early and they had never said anything. Finally a distant cousin straightened him out. “Aunt Sallie” was not a relative at all, just his moms best friend growing up and all the family had always called her “Aunt Sallie”.  

   Locations can also be hard to figure out. My pictures were labeled but I had no idea where” down home” was. I finally figured out it was, the farm where my grandfather was born.

   Scanning and labeling old pictures is so important, I took it upon myself to scan all the old Delaware County pictures in my collection, all 3500. It took over a year and a half of scanning off and on. But now I can find pictures in an instant and know what I have to show. A friend of mine scanned all the important family pictures and identified all of them. She then made copy cds for each of her 3 children and gave each of them their own family history cd. Hopefully they want lose them.

   Asking the right people the right questions is so important. Getting the family “lingo” right can save lots of work. When I first became interested in my family history I could not understand why  ”granddad” lived in one place with “Aunt Marge” and “grand mom” lived somewhere else. My dad straightened me out. Grand mom and grand dad were divorced and Aunt Marge was actually my dad’s step mother.

   Preserving slides and old movie film is important too. Get the slides and movies on cds before the film falls apart. Local people do it and the price is reasonable. The results can be fun to see. My brother Andy was an All American Lacrosse player at Penn State and the old film my dad took of him playing was great to see. So was the old movie a friend sent me of my mom and dad at a party almost 70 years ago. To see my mom and dad, laughing, joking and even dancing was a shock! It is my favorite video.

  So winter is coming get out one of those old boxes of family pictures and start asking questions and writing things down, you will be happy you did.

 

Aston Township Historical Society

(ATHS) is pleased to welcome local amateur historian, Mr. Albert Eelman to their quarterly meeting on November 9Th, 2017, at 7 PM at the Aston Township Community Center.  The Community Center is located on South Concord Road just south of 5 Points and across from St. Joseph's RC Church.

Mr. Eelman, a longtime Concord Township resident,  will be speaking on the one of his few areas of American History that he concentrates on.  Mr. Eelman will fascinate us with the story of the betrayal by General Benedict Arnold.  There is a lot more to General Arnold's story that you might know and Mr. Eelman will share that with us.  What really motivated a military hero to turn coat of his country?   This timely lecture caps the anniversary of the 240Th commemoration of the Battle of Brandywine.

This exciting lecture is free and open to the public.  Doors open at 6:30 PM.  There is plenty of free parking, too!  Please bring old photos for scanning.  Please see any of the board members about interesting volunteer opportunities. Donations are always appreciated.  ATHS Tee Shirts will also be available for sale and make great Christmas presents!