Saving Your Family Treasures
Visions of the Future
by Maureen Taylor

Last month I saw the future of photography, not in a crystal ball, but at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City. Aldus Huxley in Brave New World couldn't have imagined where the medium is going. If you're having trouble adjusting to digital photography, just wait until you see what's new. I've got the latest scoop on cameras, new products and even what photography will look like in the next decade.

Over 24,000 people attended this annual event. Although it's intended for professional photographers and advanced amateurs I find it a great way to see what will filter down to the consumer level, i.e. the family photographer. I got to play with new devices, talk with industry representatives and look at a lot of cool stuff such as:

• Kodak's new EasyShare-One Camera. It's 4 megapixels, stores up to 1500 pictures (depending on size) on its 256MB internal memory and has Wi-Fi enabling users to upload their pictures to the Kodak Gallery or send pictures to their printers with a touch of the rotational screen. Ever wish you could show Aunt Betty all your family photos when you visit? Well, with this new camera you can access all the picture files you've stored online and show them off using the screen on the back of the camera. Wow!
• Crane, the company that makes fine writing papers and pens now offers a two-sided digital inkjet printing paper called Museo that is 100% cotton and acid free. Different size paper is available from 17 by 22 inches for framing to pages perfect for scrapbooks or on rolls for banners or panoramas. Several card formats are also available. (Just remember that in order for your digital picture printouts to last for generations both the ink and the paper must be long-lasting.) For more information consult Wilhelm Research's website (www.wilhelm-research.com).
• Do you bring extra digital memory cards on vacation so that you can maximize the number of images you can bring home? These little devices are very fragile, but now Gepe offers Card Safe, a shatter and waterproof case for carrying them around. At their booth, the company had one floating in a fish bowl. The best news is you won't go broke buying another gadget. They sell for around $25.00.
• When Kodak stopped making slide projectors, I received a lot of questions from genealogists wondering about their slide collections. You can still buy slide projectors, Gepe.com offers a couple of different models. They don't use Kodak carousel trays, but it's nice to know that you can still project those images.

This year the highlight of this photo and design conference was the keynote talk by David Pogue, Technology Columnist for the New York Times. You can read his columns free on his website (www.davidpogue.com). His presentation "Technology: Visions of the Future" included interviews with representatives of several camera companies. This wasn't just Pogue's sense of where the industry is headed but words from people in the business of developing cameras. It was an entertaining presentation full of fun facts and interesting trends. I'll be watching for the following developments:

• Touch Screens
  The new EasyShare camera uses a touch screen rather than buttons as controls. Other manufacturers are sure to follow. Screens are a big power user on digital cameras so manufacturers are developing new energy efficient displays.
• Different Shapes
  According to Pogue, digital camera design will stop imitating the look and feel of film cameras. Look for unusual shapes and materials.
• GPS Labeling
  Labeling your pictures will be easier than ever once cameras automatically record not only the date and time of the image but where you took it. GPS or Global Positioning Systems, like those road navigation systems in your car, are coming to cameras. You can learn more about GPS online at GPS World (www.gpsworld.com/).
• Better Batteries
  Running out of battery power during a family reunion is no fun. If you're prepared for this inevitable problem then you've packed an extra charged battery. Manufacturers are working on this annoying issue and it looks like the solution might be hydrogen fuel cells. That's all I know at this point.
• Amazing Software
  This is something every family photographer can appreciate. Soon cameras will have internal image recognition software that won't take a picture if anyone blinks or doesn't smile.

All through Pogue's presentation I kept saying, "Oh." Photography is changing rapidly and within a few years those film cameras will look like museum artifacts. The digital revolution is here to stay and it's going to change how we take pictures, share them and even think about our family photographs.

Maureen is the author of Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs (Family Tree Books, 2005) and Preserving Your Family Photographs (Betterway, 2001). E-mail Maureen at mtaylor@taylorandstrong.com.

Copyright 2005, MyFamily.com.

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Ancestry Quick Tip
Upside Down Tombstone Photos
Harry Short

How many times have any of you readers found yourselves in a cemetery trying to photograph a grave stone or marker with the sun at your back and all you have is your shadow covering the marker? Just step to the other side of the stone to let the sun shine on the marker, lean over it and snap away. When you have the photo or digital image processed, just turn it around and behold--you have nice looking photograph with no shadows. No one can tell that you took the picture upside down.

Thanks to Harry for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to: ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Daily News and Ancestry Weekly Digest, please state so clearly in your message.

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FGS/NEHGS 2006 Conference News!

We hope you are planning on attending the FGS/NEHGS 2006 conference, which will be the largest genealogy conference ever. It will be held from 30 August-02 September 2006 in historic Boston, Massachusetts.

The first lists of speakers and topics for this Federation of Genealogical Societies and New England Historic Genealogical Society event have been posted on the FGS Conference Blog. Check it out and return frequently to see the future additions.

If you register for this conference by December 31 2005, you will save $50.00 off the full conference registration price! Registration is easy. Just go to the FGS website (www.fgs.org) and register online with your credit card.

If you are not sure about the fabulous conference meals yet, you can go back and register for those later by mentioning in the comments box that you are already registered for the conference.

See you there,
Paula Stuart-Warren, CG
2006 FGS/NEHGS National Publicity Chair

Clipping of the Day
California Centenarians
New York Herald (New York, New York), 01 December 1870, page 5:

The San Francisco correspondent of the Chicago Tribune says:--The census enumerator in Monterey county, Cal., returns this year an Indian woman of that county as 140 years of age. Marshal Morris, thinking that there must be some mistake about this matter, wrote to the enumerator to give it further investigation. His reply was in confirmation of his first statement. The Indians keep no record of their age, but endeavor to establish it by early contemporaneous events. This old creature says she was "a woman among women, like that" (pointing to a lady between thirty and forty years of age), "when the padres first landed in Monterey." That is known to have been on the 3d of June 1770, which brings her up to about the figure claimed. She was returned in the census of 1860 as being 130 years old. [Olmon?] Avilos, a soldier who landed with those padres under command of Fra. Junipero Serra at San Diego in May, 1769, 101 1/4 years ago, is still living at Todos Santos Bay, Lower California. That bay was named in honor of the Feast of All Saints, which falls on November 1, being discovered on that day, 1768. He was one of the discovering party, and was twenty-two years old then and a soldier in the Spanish army. One case more. I met at Pescadero, Santa Clara county, only forty miles from San Francisco, a year since, a Mexican vacquero, who delights in the name and title of San Salvador Mosquito. He does not know how old he is, but remembers distinctly that when the cattle which Captain Cook, the navigator, left on the Sandwich Islands had become so numerous that they were a nuisance, King Kamehameha I., of Hawaii, sent to California for a party of vacqueros, with their horses, to go and kill them off or capture them, and he was one of those who went over and did the work and got paid for it. He has been living at Pescadero ever since and the facts are matters of history. Go back and figure out your last century dates and figure out his age. I am happy to be able to add that his direct descendants of the first degree still increase at the rate of one annually even in the driest seasons. Let your next summer tourists to California visit Pescadero, inquire for Don Salvador Mosquito, and see if I am correct or not. I claim California as the oldest and best State in the Union.

Subscribers with access to the Historical Newspapers Collection can view this clipping.

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Fast Fact
OneWorldTree Bookmarks

Ancestry.com has added the ability to bookmark people of interest in OneWorldTree. There are three kinds of bookmarks:

• My Bookmarks
  Clicking the Bookmark this Person button while viewing a person in OneWorldTree, will add that person to the "My Bookmarks" tab of this page.
• People I've Added
  The "People I've Added" tab displays a link to a person that you have added to the OneWorldTree database.
• Recently Viewed
  The last six OneWorldTree person pages that you viewed will be listed on the "Recently Viewed" tab.

OneWorldTree is available by subscription. Click here to learn more.

Product Spotlights

		Unlocking the Secrets in Old Photographs by Karen Frisch Normally this book retails for $16.95, but today you can buy it in the Shops@Ancestry.com for only $11.95.

Thought for Today
Benjamin Franklin

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.