A new geek for me - colorizing photographs

After reading about how people are colorizing old photographs for fun, I decided I wanted to try it.  But I don't have Photoshop on my computer, which was the program used in the tutorial I discovered on a Genealogy page on Facebook that I follow.  I have always used Gimp, so off to Google I went to find a similar tutorial for Gimp.  This tutorial is what I found that made the most sense to me.  I also have been using this site as another reference for things like skin tone and the like.

I spent about five hours working on a few photographs.  I really shouldn't have been up until the odd hours of the night, but the process had me hooked.  Here is what I did in those five hours.  I also started a third photo, but it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to.  I had to crop the photo of my Vautier ancestor because some of the background was a little hard to color because it was out of focus.



The colored photos that are posted here are the work of Kelley Wood-Davis.  If you would like to use a copy of them, please ask for permission.

William J. Vautier, my mother's great grandfather.

The colored version of his photo - This photograph was colored by Kelley Wood-Davis March 2014.  PLEASE do NOT copy this without written permission!

Edward C. Waldspurger I, my mom's grandfather

The colored version - This photograph was colored by Kelley Wood-Davis March 2014.  PLEASE do NOT copy this without written permission!

I really enjoyed the process, and I may from time to time do this to other photos.  The fun part is trying to figure out what my ancestors' skin tones or hair color may have looked like.  For example, the photo I colored of Edward Waldspurger I used his World War II draft registration card.  It also helps that a number of family members today in the Waldspurger family have brown hair with auburn highlights, so I chose to make his brown hair slightly red..  It is in doing a project such as this, paying attention to complexion, eye color and skin color on a military form helps greatly.

RAOGK - good for the mind, body and soul

I recently walked the small city cemetery here in the town I live in, looking for some graves to take pictures of for Findagrave.com.  You see, some people who can't make it to the cemetery, whether it be because of disability or distance or whatever that keeps them away, request photographs of certain grave markers.  Whenever I can get to one of the cemeteries listed to fulfill their requests, I do. 

One weekend, I logged over 6 miles of walking in two days looking for markers and broke into a sweat both days as I walked back and forth amongst the rows of the cemetery.   I got a good workout as I searched for graves of people I don't even know so that a person too far away to search himself or herself could have a photo of the grave.

It was a random act of genealogical kindness, or in my world, a RAOGK

The world is full of people willing to do random acts of kindness for strangers.  In the genealogical circles, there are people willing to do look-ups of all sorts for others.  Some of these people work anonymously, whereas others seek recognition.  I myself enjoy what I do, and I don't seek accolades for doing it, though I do enjoy a very nice thank you.  I look at doing these acts as a way to  pay forward the help I received.

So I encourage any reader of my blog for whom genealogy is a hobby to find someway to help out, whether it be walking through graveyards snapping pictures, or offering on a forum to find someone's tax or marriage records at the local courthouse, to offering up info from your own family tree to someone who might want it without expecting any re-compensation.  It'll do your mind, body and soul a world of good!

Some links that can help you find a way to help:
Find A Grave
Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Wiki
US GenWeb Project
FamilySearch Facebook Research Communities

Lost photos are gems to find

Jesse Meyer and Jennie Hager Cox with sons c. 1942

Recently I found some old photos I thought I had lost. Most of them were in digital form made of scans I had done of photos various older family members had.  I lost them when my computer crashed over two years ago and was lamenting the fact that I might not be able to get them back, for I had foolishly not made hard copies of said photos NOR had I saved that particular set to a disk.  So it was nice to discover that I still had them.

These were photographs from my maternal grandmother's side, a side in which I do not have many contacts willing to share information, because many who had said information have passed on.

Where were the missing photographs?  They were still saved to my old email account's mail.

Dorothy and Jean Cox 1947

You see, I rarely delete emails if they have any family tree connection.  I will keep them for posterity in the account, and just happened to be looking through that account for something else when I discovered that the photos were still there. For those who were wondering - an initial search through the account after my computer crashed did not yield these photos, which makes me wonder if I was using the correct search terms the first time.

The pictures in question were among some that my mother's first cousin's ex-wife had sent me back in 2005 to add to my collection.  This is a family member that I sadly lost track of, so I couldn't ask for them back, nor could I find any of my family members that had these photos, so I was stuck with the fact that I'd never see them again.

It just goes to show you that you'll never know where you'll find photographs!