Ask Maureen: April 2021

At the end of every month, I answer questions from listeners.

How do I safely remove photos from a spiral-bound album?

The kind with the sticky page covered with a sheet of cellophane Celia, that’s called a magnetic album and they were really, really popular and you can still buy them today.

There are so many family tree sites. How do we know which one might be best for us? Well, it depends because they’re all a little bit different.

What is the best way to scan pictures from a yearbook?

You can photograph the entire page with your smartphone. If you have a smartphone or you can lay that book down on a scanner, just be careful, you don’t break the binding and then scan the image that you want from the yearbook.

Do I have any experience with a Photo Stick or Album Saver?

A photo stick or albums saver. These are both USB storage devices and I actually do not recommend using a USB storage device. They don’t last very long. If you want to use one of those temporarily, just to share all your images with someone else then fine, but then upload them to another hard drive or computer.

I had somebody write to me this week and say that their great aunt gave them 76 photo albums and what they should do with them. And it was a long email, but we came up with a solution which is, you know, scan and upload and share and, you know, caption and all of that. This person whose name, I didn’t get said that their great aunt gave them a large collection of family photos shortly before she died, but she had no idea of who most of the people were.

Where is the best place to store digital pictures?

So I have several different methods. I use MemoryWeb, of course. And I love that it’s a photo organizer for genealogists. I use it because it also acts as a backup when my computer crashed and I had to have it taken back to factory settings.

I also have a portable SSD drive. It is a solid drive, so they tend to last longer, but these will all have to be replaced. The drives will have to be replaced.

They don’t last forever. And then I use iCloud because I’m on a Mac. So I have multiple backups and there’s even one collection that I have backed up on Dropbox as well, because. I don’t know what I would do if I lost that. It’s all the photographs scanned by a particular organization and I feel a great deal of responsibility to keep them for everyone.

Where are my photos that used to be in Picasa?

Google hasn’t supported the program for a number of years. Now, there are some articles online that you can read to try to help you find your online photos, which supposedly were transferred into Google photos, but not all.

How can I watch a class that I purchased at MaureenTaylor.com?

When you go to Maureen taylor.com in the upper right-hand corner, there’s a little log in. You’ll see the login with your username and password.

If you don’t know your password, you can reset it. And then once you’re logged in, you’ll see this menu on the left and courses is one of the options you click that, then click the title of the course, then click the title of the lesson and it’s all right there. And when you’re watching the class or a particular lesson, you’ll even see a little materials tag. And that will be for handout

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

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