by Lisa Cooke | Mar 3, 2015 | 01 What's New, Craft & Displays, Gifts, Heirloom, images, Inspiration, Listeners & Readers
“I am a quilter and love doing special pieces that tell our family history at the same time. I think you would enjoy [this] story and the pictures [that go with it].”
This note recently came from Genealogy Gems listener Sheri Lesh. She wrote in about a quilt she created for her father’s 80th birthday celebration. It was a very special quilt, made from pieces of old family clothing and even a wool jacket and wedding dress.
Well, Sheri, I thoroughly enjoyed your story and your unique, beautiful quilt (which you can click to see below). Heritage quilts created from family clothing items are so special!
I especially loved Sheri’s idea for her grandmother’s wedding dress. Instead of cutting into pieces for the quilt, which would have destroyed a beautiful dress with a fabulously-preserved lace collar, she tacked the entire dress to the back of the quilt! Then she labeled it so cleverly, so future generations will know exactly who this dress belonged to and when it was worn.
Click here to go to Sheri’s blog and learn more about this beautiful, inspiring quilt. If you like old quilts, click here for my own Genealogy Gems story about heritage quilts in my family. You’ll see the shownotes for a free podcast episode along with a short YouTube video to watch. As I say in that post, “Women may not have had a lot of time to use the power of the pen to document history, but they did have some mighty powerful sewing needles!”
by Diahan Southard | Oct 16, 2014 | 01 What's New, British, FamilySearch, Maps
Did you know that FamilySearch has an interactive map to help you find English parish boundaries in 1851?
Daniel Poffenberger, who works at the British desk at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, showed me this map gem. He says this map was about 7 years in the making!
English parish boundaries: map on FamilySearch.org.
Before you click through to the map, you should know:
- Use the main Search interface to search by a specific location.
- Click on layers to indicate whether you want the map to show you boundaries to parishes, counties, civil registration districts, dioceses and more.
- Click and drag the map itself to explore it.
- Wales is also included here but the Welsh data doesn’t appear to be entirely complete (try it anyway–it might have what you need).
- The map isn’t yet permanently operational. It does go down sometimes, possibly because they’re still working on it. It doesn’t print easily. It’s suggested that if you want to print, you hit “Ctrl-Print Screen” and then paste it into Word or another program that accepts images.
Click here to see the FamilySearch England & Wales 1851 Parish map.
Want to learn more about using maps? Premium members can check out my video, “5 Ways to Enhance Your Genealogy Research with Old Maps.” Not a Premium member yet? Click here to learn more.
by Diahan Southard | Oct 23, 2014 | 01 What's New, Digital Archives, Photographs
Matt from Omaha, Nebraska (U.S.) recently told me about a project his cousin is working on that is so cool the story was picked up by U.S.A. Today.
While poking around at an 1800s-era Iowa prison about to be torn down, Mark Fullenkamp came across boxes of old glass negatives. Upon closer inspection, he found they were intake photos of the inmates. Some were 150 years old!
Mark first set out to digitize and reverse the negative images of over 11,000 prison inmate photos. Others gradually became involved, like scholars at University of Iowa where he works and even inmates at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. A doctoral candidate who was interviewed by U.S.A. Today says she’s struck by the moment these photos were taken: when their lives were about to change forever. Though many look tough for the camera (and presumably the other inmates), she sees a lot of emotion in their expressions: “The eyes are everything.”
Now Fullekamp’s team is trying to connect names and stories with the photos. It’s not easy, but many of the pictures have inmate numbers on them. Some files have surfaced with inmate numbers and names in them. Others are stepping forward with memories.
Read more about the project on Matt’s blog.
Got a digital photo archiving project of your own? Click here to learn about a free ebook published by the Library of Congress on digital archiving.
