Using photos from albums to create Memories

The other day I decided to capture some special moments I shared with my cousins. I have about twelve cousins, only two of whom I have seen in the past 4 years, and I wanted to record some shared memories with them. I selected some photos from various albums and shoe boxes which I felt captured the moment accurately (digital cameras hadn’t been invented for the dates I was looking at)!

I wanted to use MyMeander, rather than social media, so that I could control who sees each memory shared. I also wanted all the recorded memories to be sorted, identified and available to the people involved. And I need to be able to edit the details of any memory in the future, as I haven’t got a clue about the dates for some of the photos!

I used a light box to take a digital photo of each picture, and then saved them in folders on my laptop. I have also used a mobile phone in the past which works almost as well (I am fussy with photos). And if you have a scanner and are also fussy you will get the best results by scanning negatives and slides – the added advantage here is that often a set of 36 negatives might cover many months or even years, which helps work out the dates!

I had to keep interrupting my wife, Jodie, to ask her for dates of various events and moments – weddings, funerals, birthdays. If your partner is not quite as awesome with dates as Jodie, a diary (if you kept one) is very useful, otherwise old calendars and the details in photos like hair styles, houses, clothes, apparent age of kids and the old cars can help. Of course, you can always get help from the people involved if you are still in touch with them. Or you can guess, which is mostly how I did it!

I added my cousins as Friends in MyMeander and shared them into various Memories. I am sure they will correct me on the dates and maybe add their recollections when they send Memory Bubbles.

Although this took some effort I know that I will not have to repeat this (although I can always add or edit the data) and my cousins didn’t have to do anything to benefit, as the Memories are on their time line too.

So, identify a project and give it a go! Happy Meandering!