by Lisa Cooke | May 18, 2016 | 01 What's New, Craft & Displays, Gifts, Kids, Photographs
Coloring books are all the rage for adults and kids. Let this project and these free online tools inspire you to create a coloring book to celebrate your heritage.
Last Christmas, my mom Cheryl McClellan created a coloring book for our extended family out of family artwork. She requested copies of line drawings from every willing relative, especially her grandchildren (ages 3-20). Then she added her own childhood artwork, some of mine, and some of her mother’s, so four generations are represented.

The flowers on the left, originally painted by my grandma, wasn’t as easily colored because of all the dark areas. My mom’s childhood drawing and my son’s, on the right, both made very “colorable” images.
Then she simply photocopied each page to make it into a coloring page. She experimented with the black-and-white settings until she got the best quality reproductions for coloring.
The grandchildren’s artwork came out the best because they created images meant to be colored (with lots of lines and spaces and no shading). The older artwork reproduced with varying degrees of success. But all were fun to include. She chose not to bind the completed book, so the pages would be easier to color, but instead put each person’s collection of coloring pages in large envelopes.
More tools and ideas: Create a coloring book
To create your own family coloring book, gather family photos (or artwork) from your family archive that would be interesting to color. Consider pictures of relatives, homes, heirlooms, or other objects of significance to your current family life or your family history. The best images will have plenty of contrast in them (lights and darks).
Choose your favorite free online photo editing tool, if you have one. Examples include Pixlr.com and Snapstouch.com. I chose Snapstouch because it’s super easy. Here are the instructions on Snapstouch:
1. From the home page, select which final visual effect you prefer: I chose Sketch. (Depending on the photo and the desired effect, you might also choose Drawing or Outline.)
2. Choose your image file from your computer.
3. Select additional options, as shown here. (In Sketch mode, you can choose a darker pencil sketch and faces to be refined).
4. Click UPLOAD. Wait for the file to upload to the site.
5. After the upload is complete, you’ll see the option to click SKETCH. Click and wait for a moment.
6. If the final image is not to your liking, play with the options (you don’t need to re-upload the photo to do this). OR switch to a different visual effect and experiment.
7. Click DOWNLOAD when you’ve got the image you want.
by Sunny | Mar 16, 2018 | 01 What's New, African-American, Digital Archives, Irish, Scottish Genealogy, Swedish
Do you use digital archives in your genealogy research? You should! Check out these new digital archives relating to notable women in the U.S. and Sweden; Scottish WWI hospital records; the WWI Armenian genocide; Ohio; Irish-Americans; and African-American military...
by Sunny | Feb 21, 2018 | 01 What's New, Conferences, RootsTech |
We are rolling out the red carpet all week at the Genealogy Gems booth at RootsTech 2018! Don’t miss exclusive free classes, prizes worth over $2000, a Saturday prize wheel for Family Discovery Day, and more. It’s time for genealogy’s biggest party of the year:...
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 5, 2015 | 01 What's New, Records & databases
Every Friday, we blog about new genealogy records online. Do the collections below include your ancestor? Don’t forget: tomorrow is Lisa Louise Cooke’s FREE live streaming class on using Google Tools to Solve Family Mysteries–use them to find more records like these! (Details below.)
This week: Irish newspapers, London electoral registers, Ohio naturalizations and Virginia vital records (through 2014!).
IRISH NEWSPAPERS. Subscribers at FindMyPast can now access over a million new Irish newspaper articles. These eight papers have updates: Cork Examiner, 1841-1896, Derry Journal, 1825-1950; Freeman’s Journal, 1820-1900; Roscommon Journal and Western Impartial Reporter, 1828-1864; Saunder’s News-Letter, 1773-1864; Ulster Gazette, 1844-1871; Waterford Chronicle, 1827-1870 and Waterford Mail, 1824-1870.
LONDON ELECTORAL RECORDS. Nearly 3 million indexed records have been added to the free England, London Electoral Registers, 1847–1913 database at FamilySearch.org. The overall collection contains more than 660,000 digital images of electoral registers filmed at the London Metropolitan Archives.
OHIO NATURALIZATIONS. Over 80,000 indexed names have been added to the US, Ohio, Southern District Naturalization Index, 1852–1991. This database covers a prime migration route: north of the Ohio River (records include courts at Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Steubenville). The index points toward records that can traditionally be tough to find because people could naturalize at any court.
VIRGINIA VITAL RECORDS. Ancestry subscribers can now access these new databases: Virginia, Divorce Records, 1918-2014, Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014, Virginia, Marriage Records, 1936-2014 and Virginia, Birth Records, 1864-2014. These records–available through 2014–come from the Virginia Department of Health.
Here’s a tip: Harness Google’s power to search for specific record sets in which your family may appear. Watch Lisa’s free live streaming class TOMORROW, June 6, “Google Tools and Procedures for Solving Family History Mysteries.” Click here for details. Can’t watch tomorrow? You can still register to watch the class in the SCGJ archive through July 5.