Fancy Gadgets for Genealogists

["Arturo Ramos" <arturo.ramos2@...>]

In case anyone was wondering what the gadgets that Emilie is talking 
about look like and cost... I am a big technology junkie but the film 
scanner is way beyond my means.

http://www.heritagecreations.com/products/st100.php

http://www.expansys-usa.com/product.asp?code=119781

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Emilie Garcia" <auntyemfaustus@h...> 
wrote:
>
> Mary, I don't know how much you know about all the new-fangled 
technical gadgets besides audio recorders and digital cameras that 
are available to serve our genealogy purposes, but if you could, 
maybe you could get some and take them with you.  You might be able 
to access some computers in certain towns at internet cafes too if 
you can't take a laptop along.  The people at the genealogy society 
here and at the local FHC have some amazing things.  One lady showed 
me a gadget she uses to scan books.  Honest, it was no bigger than a 
ruler and she would start at the top of the page and move it down, 
then she showed me on the computer what it had scanned.  Amazing.  
Then others have these little tiny things no bigger than a lipstick 
case that attaches to the back of the computer and they upload or 
download all sorts of stuff.  There are also these microfilm viewers 
that attach to your laptop so you can download images directly, no 
need for a copier, etc.  They also have tiny portable copiers for the 
laptops.  It is just amazing what tools are out there.  Even if I 
could afford them, I probably wouldn't know enough about how to use 
them (sigh).  I tried going to one of the genealogy society's 
computer classes, but it was all above my head.
> 
> Joseph's suggestions about interviewing techniques are right on the 
mark too.  I am so grateful to those university students who recorded 
oral histories on my mother's cousins and neighbors and in-laws.  
Also kudos to those WPA projects where writers would go out and 
interview people in various communities during the Depression.  I 
have found many of my relatives' and their neighbors' stories in 
these records, and some are online, others are on tape at the 
universities and they will make copies of them for small fees.
> 
> Have a wonderful time in Mexico,
> 
> Emilie Garcia
> Port Orchard, WA  ---
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Mary Allen<mailto:mary.allen3770@s...> 
>   To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com<mailto:ranchos@yahoogroups.com> 
>   Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 5:46 AM
>   Subject: Re: [ranchos] Collecting Oral History: Re: Travel to 
Mexico
> 
> 
>   Thank you, Joseph.  With all the wonderful suggestions I am 
receiving, it will be possible to put together "Oral History 
Interview 101"  This is really important because one could blow a 
meeting and even cause annoyance or alienation.  It already happened 
with our last surviving uncle.  I asked an innocent  question and hit 
a nerve.  A good warnwing for newcomes; we don't need to learn some 
things genealogical by experience. Mary
> 
>   Joseph Puentes <makas@n...> wrote: 
>     Mary just a quick word about collecting Oral history. You 
probably have been doing it for a long time so please excuse me 
saying stuff that you might already have been practicing (just 
pretent that I'm talking to someone else). I've found that if you go 
into an "interview" loaded with questions you won't get as far a if 
you just let "them tell their story (their stories)." Many times 
asking "when did so and so pass?" will make for a difficult question 
as compared to "Were you married when so and so died? . . .and "were 
any of your children born yet when so and so had passed?" Later you 
can calculate from their birth the date. Something about asking them 
to remember exact dates that throws a wrench in the whole works. I 
have had good success with questions like:
> 
>     "Tell me about what things were like when you were in grade 
school?"
> 
>     "Tell me what it was like during the depression?"
> 
>     "Tell me what things were like when you were 20 years old?"
> 
>     "Oh, tell me more about that story?"
> 
>     "Oh, tell me about your parents and did they ever tell you 
stories about their parents?"
> 
>     "Tell me about if you heard of relatives living in other parts 
of Mexico?"
> 
>     "etc., etc., etc.,"
> 
>     Once they start rolling on some story let them go even if they 
stray, but be ready with some related question to gently bring them 
back on topic if the straying goes to far. Its amazing how much 
people that say they "don't remember anything" know when you let them 
just tell stories.
> 
>     joseph
> 
>     Mary Allen wrote:
> 
>       Thank you, Victor.  Now I know where San Felipe is located 
and it is not a surprise visit. And I will purchase a cellular 
phone.  There are two more places I need to visit, but perhaps not on 
this trip: San Luis Potosi, SLP and Salinas, SLP.  Something to look 
forward to.
> 
>       It's a strange feeling: I have been working so intensely on 
this project for the last few weeks.  Now that I have a few 
photographs,  their faces  are so etched on my mind that I dream 
about them.  I feel as if I know them and I am just going to 
go "meet" them on their own turf.  I have been sharing each step with 
my family and we all feel as if something great is about to happen, 
as if one of them walked in the front door, we wouldn't be 
surprised.  It's just  that we have been looking for them for so very 
long and now, suddenly, they start to appear with their stories, some 
of them quite sad. They are more than names and dates and pictures; 
they are real.  As if they are coming home to us. 
> 
>       Mary
> 
> 
> 
> 
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