Day 4 – Current Family Picture

The activity for today’s Family History Connections Experiment is to post a current family picture. This is the most recent family picture I have for my U.S.-based side of the family. It was taken September 8, 2018 at my brother Dean’s wedding. Sadly, my sister Laura is missing. When you have a family this big, it’s tough to get everyone together. So, taking a cue from my husband’s nephew (who once “Photoshopped” a container of Wendy’s fries into his brother’s wedding photo!) I took the liberty of adding Laura and her husband into the photo. That should confuse future genealogists, for sure!!

If you have a photos of large family gatherings be sure to somehow identify each person in order to save your descendants a lot of angst. One way to do that is to use a photo editing program that allows you place text on top of the photo. However, if there are many people it can become very difficult to place the names.

Here’s another solution:

For this “lower-tech” solution, I outlined the original photo (see original below), scanned it and added names in mostly the right places. I think it’s easier to see names using this method. Printing the photo in black-and-white before outlining makes it a little easier as well.

Not the best version of that photo! I scanned it from the picture in our family history book, Our Archipelago, originally written in 1976 by Scott’s dad, William Holman. My sister-in-law, Laurel Goodgion, and I updated the book and reissued it in 2015.

The activity for you, readers, is to go through your recent family group photos, especially those held only digitally. Print them out and label the people. Your descendants will appreciate it!