WeGather for Photos and Stories

So this little puppy came in the mail today!

I was super excited to win the WeGather raffle at RootsTech. I feel like I never win, and I honestly didn't know I entered to win, so winning was a complete surprise.  But--I do not write simply because I won.  I have to report on WeGather because it's awesome, and I love the developer!

Stories are the currency of our past, present and future. Without them, we are bankrupt. Since family photos trigger those stories, we should save and share them.

-- Rachel LaCour Niesen

So I met Rachel at her booth at RootsTech, but I had been following her site for months before that. I absolutely love her, I love her passion, her drive, her mission, and all that her site stands for.  We share our passion for photos and stories and she's got some amazing resources. I've learned some great tips and tricks from following her.  She has great insight into photos and stories and how they can impact who we are and who we can become. She has guest posted some great articles for FamilySearch's blog and other great sites.  One of my favorite reads was her guide to metadata. Here's a few of my favs:

• 3 Ways to Share Photos with Family Often and Easily
• 3 Keys to a Great Photo Backup Plan
• Your Family Photos Are in Danger, But You Can Protect Them Using This One Simple Trick

I absolutely recommend checking out and subscribing to her site if you're interested:
www.SavingFamilyPhotos.com

Also check out her latest tool, featured at RootsTech, WeGather.  I've already used it for a few photos that I didn't know who was in them.  I posted it to WeGather, shared the link with family via FaceBook and watched as the memories, and information flooded in about the photos. It was THAT easy!  A great resources for those of us who have inherited old photos, and have no idea who's in them.  Check it out:
www.WeGather.co

Best of all it's all free, so you can't go wrong! Thanks Rachel for sharing your wealth of knowledge with the rest of us!

Happy photo preservation.

Everyday Genealogy for the Crazy-busy Life - RootsTech 2017

So just finished my last classes at RootsTech today.  I had the opportunity to teach 1 on Wednesday and 2 more today.  It was an incredible experience to have the opportunity share the things I love with so many interested and anxious learners.  If you came to my class, thanks for coming, and I hope that you have tons of success moving forward. I hope that some of you will take the time to share some of those experiences in the comments.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out in the process.
For those who attended and wanted the links here's a copy of my syllabus and the slides:


   
Download the Syllabus PDF to use the links



UPDATE: Use the following URL for Zoning
https://familysearch.org/zoning/ 

Preserving your Family History in Fun & Modern Ways -- RootsTech 2017

I've been teaching this class for a few months now and have quickly gathered so many great resources that I want to share, but 1 hour just never seems to be enough.  So I'm going to share some of the class info here, just so class participants can come here to learn more since we won't have a change to address all of the cool programs out there.

First of all here's the class syllabus and slides so you can go visit the links and play around with the programs yourself:

Download the class syllabus with live links.

Then here's a playlist of tutorials I created on YouTube for helping you see how you can use the different programs for your family history creations.  DISCLAIMER: They are FAR from professional, just tutorials I put together quickly using free programs, so I'm sorry they're not higher quality, but hopefully they'll still be helpful.

If you have questions, feel free to comment here, or on the videos, or just email me.  Hope you have tons of fun and success as you start working on your family history creations!