Throw Back Thursday: My Dad

It's Throw Back Thursday, a day when many genealogists and bloggers post photos from earlier years.

I love this photo of my dad, Cecil McGinnis, taken ca 1918 when he was just 2 years old. It's the only photo I've ever seen of him before his marriage to my mother.

You can see that I cropped it from a larger group photo. Today I opened it in Picasa and created what is called a Museum Matte to surround it and make it look like it is behind glass.

The original large group photo and the original cropped photo remain untouched - no changes were made to them. It's a good idea when playing with old photos to always make a copy and never alter the original.

I miss my dad. He died Christmas Day when I was just barely 14 years old. He was just 47 years old

Here's to you dad, you were taken from us at far too young an age.

Genealogy Christmas Idea

My husband and I were trying to figure out what to give his elderly grandmother for Christmas. It occurred to us that she might love seeing the old family photos. So hubby scanned them and we transferred them to a digital photo frame

If you haven't seen those, check them out. You can get one that takes your camera memory stick or one that allows you to transfer photos using a flash drive

There are even some that allow you to upload photos to a website, then the frame automatically dials in nightly using a phone line to download new photos that you have put there.

We chose the simpler and less pricey frame, simply because it has fewer buttons and gadgets. We didn't want Gramma to be confused by any technology. With this one we leave our camera memory stick in, and the frame rotates through the photos. We'll be able to switch out memory sticks by sending a new one which can be switched for the first one. Then the first one can be sent back to us for new photos. That way she will have new photos every so often.

It's also a great way to preserve your family photos from the 1800s or early 1900s if you have any. We're even thinking about scanning some of the documents we have found in our research and adding those to the photo display.