3/13/2018 0 Comments Mule Day MemoriesWhen I first moved to Columbia, Tennessee, I was surprised to learn that its claim to fame was being the “Mule capital of the world.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant or what to think about it. All I could think was, “I live in a town that has a Mule Day? And it’s apparently a big deal?” I have to say, I’ve really grown to appreciate this unique annual festival. Maybe its something about mule-drawn wagons rolling through town that reminds me of the Oregon Trail game that I played as a kid. Or maybe it’s hearing people reminisce about the parades and fairs and Mule Day queens of their youth. It could also be the mimosas in the President James K. Polk Home garden.
Do you have Mule Day memories? We want to hear them! And we are really excited to “team” up with the Maury County Archive to collect these stories of Mule Days past! We will have our recording equipment set up at the Maury County Archive on the afternoons of Wednesday, April 4th and Thursday, April 5th and we will be scheduling mini storytelling sessions to hear your Mule Day memories. E-mail [email protected] or reach out on Facebook to schedule a session. We will send you a free copy of the recording of your session and donate a copy to the Maury County Archive. What: 10-minute Storytelling Mini Session Where: Maury County Archive 201 E 6th Street Columbia, Tennessee When: Wednesday, April 4th and Thursday, April 5th E-mail [email protected] to schedule a time to tell your Mule Day Memories!
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12/13/2017 0 Comments Unique Family History Gifts
‘Tis the season to check off that gift list! I thought I’d let you know some of my favorite gifts for the family storytellers.
1. Services from Heirloom: Family Stories – Of course I think the best gift is the gift of story. You can prepay for any Heirloom: Family Stories service. Does your loved one love to tell stories? Take advantage of our $150 Storytelling Session special through December 24th! Or maybe they have a bunch of photos that they want to organize and use to tell your family’s story visually. Opt for a Family Story Book. Order today! Contact info@heirloomfamilystories for more information. 2. Research site membership or DNA kit – I love Ancestry.com and Fold3.com (military records) for research! I can get lost for hours learning things about my family. There are also DNA kits available (Ancestry DNA and 23 and Me are some popular ones) that might be of interest. I’ve never used these kits, so I can’t recommend one over the other. I know people who have had good experiences with both, though. For more information visit www.ancestry.com, www.fold3.com, and www.23andme.com 3. Ellis Island ship manifest prints – One of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received is a gorgeous print of the passenger list and ship manifest that lists my great-grandparents when they came through Ellis Island in the early 1900s. They are framed and prominently displayed in my living room. They make for a great gift and your purchase supports the Ellis Island Foundation! Go here to find your family (this may take some time and you may need to try various alternate spellings). Also visit https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/shop for other neat gift ideas. 4. How to Archive Family Keepsakes book – This book is an incredible resource for the person who has inherited boxes of family photographs and documents and isn’t quite sure what to do with them! (Affiliate Link) 5. Gaylord Archival supplies – Another great gift idea for someone who is trying to organize and preserve their family photos and documents. You can start with this great Family Archives Kit! 11/11/2017 0 Comments Keeping the story aliveYou might be asking yourself, “now what?” You have your family stories recorded and your family’s documents and photograph’s digitized, but they aren’t convenient to share. It’s hard to get people to sit down for two hours to listen to a whole interview, or scroll through an online photo album of pictures and documents without any context. While recording your stories and digitizing photos and documents are the most important steps in preserving your family’s stories, I see these as raw materials. Heirloom: Family Stories will take your best stories, merge them with your documents and photographs, and produce a unique family story book that is easy to share. Our Family Story Books feature up to 50 professionally laid out pages of your family’s best stories, photographs, and documents. You’ll be proud to display this beautiful book prominently in your home and share your family’s stories with friends, or reminisce with family. Contact us today to get started on your Family Story Book!
I started scanning my dad’s family photos and documents after my grandmother died and we were helping my grandpa sort through their house. Ideally I would say start this project at a less emotionally charged time, but sometimes things just are what they are. I am really glad that I worked on this with my family around, though, as I was able to get a lot of information from my grandpa as to who was in the photographs and approximations of when they were taken.
If your family is anything like mine, at least one person has boxes of loose photographs and documents, or maybe even scrap books and photo albums. They probably don’t get pulled out a lot, especially the boxes of loose items. Digitizing your family photos and documents is a great way to be able to share them with friends and family near and far. It also allows you to access the information and the stories, while keeping the original photograph or document safe. We can help you digitize many different types of materials including photographs, documents, negatives, and even VHS tapes. I recently scanned this 1878 autograph book for a client. It is an incredible piece of family history, but it is very fragile. With the pages scanned, this family can access the messages and the stories while safely storing the book. Contact Heirloom: Family Stories today for more information about how we can help you digitize your family’s photographs, documents, and videos. 7/25/2017 0 Comments Tell me a storyStorytelling sessions are my favorite part of this job. There’s nothing I love more than a good story! A storytelling session is very straightforward. We will sit down in person, or via video chat, I’ll turn the recorder on, and we’ll talk about your family stories. If it makes you more comfortable, you can invite a family member to sit in with you on the interview. They just need to know and agree to be recorded with you! Each storytelling session is up to two hours long. That’s a lot of time to talk, but many people find that at the end of two hours, they still have a lot more to say! If you find that you’d like to have more stories recorded, that’s fine. I’m happy to schedule a second interview session! Storytelling sessions require just a little bit of prep work on your part. All you need to do is fill out a basic questionnaire so that I can get to know a little bit about you. If you’d like, you can e-mail me a couple of photographs to use as prompts, or if the interview is in person, you can have them ready to go at the time of the interview. I’ll prepare some very basic and open-ended questions to start and guide the interview when needed, but the interview will not be highly structured. I want to hear from you! Because you lead, your interview will be unique to you and your family’s history. After we have finished our interview, I will transcribe it. I’ll clean up things like the “ums” and repeated words so that it is more readable. You will receive an audio file of your interview and the transcript. Stay tuned for more tips to have a great storytelling session, and how Heirloom: Family Stories can help you turn that session into a beautiful keepsake book to share with friends and family. Contact us to schedule your storytelling session! 7/10/2017 1 Comment Hey there, I'm JarynHey, there! I’m Jaryn and I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself before we jump too far into this. After all, if you’re going to trust me to help you preserve your family stories, you may want to know a little about me first. I grew up in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York, but moved to Middle Tennessee shortly after I got married. The story of that move is one that I have told so many times. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. But a few years out, it really does make for a good story! My intent in Tennessee was to get a teaching job. After all, when you go to college to be a teacher, you’re told that “you can find a teaching job anywhere.” As it turns out, that isn’t exactly true. It is especially difficult when you move to a small town where you know nobody, and all of the teaching positions you apply for are coupled with coaching positions. And there are a lot of people with coaching experience applying for those same jobs. So after a couple of years of substitute teaching and not making the progress that I wanted to be making, I started a graduate program in history where I found a new interest, Public History. Think museums, archives, historic preservation… anything that gets history into the hands and minds of as many people as possible. Through this program I learned skills like museum exhibit development, educational programming development, preservation and handling of artifacts, and oral history interviewing. By far, the two areas that interested me most during my MA program were museums and oral history. I’ve had the pleasure of putting my museum skills into practice at a local Presidential museum. I also have had many opportunities to work with local non-profits to organize and execute oral history projects. I quickly set about putting my new skills to use preserving my own family history by scanning all of my grandparents’ family photos and documents, and doing recorded interviews with my grandparents. As I spoke to people about what I was learning and what I was doing for my family, I found that many people wanted to do the same but felt as though they did not have the time, equipment, or tech savvy to complete their projects. So that’s where the idea for this business started. I’ve got the time, knowledge, and equipment to help you record your family’s unique stories. Stay tuned here to learn more about the process of preserving your family’s stories! Photograph by Simply M Photography |
AuthorJaryn Abdallah, Archives
March 2018
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