Episode 25 – The Remarkable Adventure Brought About By A Single Photo

podcast episode Jan 20, 2014

On today’s show Fisher gives his take on the movie “Philomena,” starring Judi Dench.  From ExtremeGenes.com, Fisher speaks of several great family history stories for this week.  The first is about a man from Idaho who dropped by Antiques Road Show with a 1920s era etching given to him by his grandfather. Then, producer Bill Elliott joins the show to talk about a photograph that led to a life changing adventure. Fisher next talks with Paul Nauta and Bruce Brand from FamilySearch about the upcoming RootsTech conference.

Transcript of Episode 25

Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show

Host: Scott Fisher

Segment 1 Episode 25

Fisher: And welcome back genies! It is Extreme Genes Family History Radio ExtremeGenes.com. I am your Radio Roots Sleuth Fisher and we have a lot going on this week. First of all, in about nine minutes I’ll be talking to a man whose photograph of the father he lost when he was seven months old, took him on a remarkable journey which resulted in all kinds of unexpected and very positive events. Wait till you hear this one. Plus, North America’s biggest family history conference is coming up in just a few weeks. No matter where you are you can be a part of it. We’ll explain as guests from FamilySearch.org map out what’s happening with Roots Tech 2014 later in the show. Have you seen the movie “Philomena” yet? I caught it last week and it stars Judi Dench and is in many ways an ultimate family history story as the lead character Philomena later in her life goes looking for the son she was forced to give up in Ireland fifty years earlier. What makes it particularly intriguing is that the story is true! Those are always the best kind, aren’t they? Certainly in Family History, but of course, sometimes we know stories in our lines are made up which is what resulted in this email from Amanda in Roanoke, Virginia about last week’s appearance on the show by Bestselling Author, Richard Paul Evans. She writes, “Fisher, I loved the visit with Mr Evans and the family history search and background he’s fabricating for the character in his upcoming book. I think I like his history better than mine. Could he make one up for me too while he’s at it?” [Laughs] Amanda, I’m sure he could, but be careful what you ask for. 

All right, our Extreme Genes “Find Line” is toll free 1-234-56 GENES That’s 1-234-56 GENES, G-E-N-E-S. You can call at 24/7 with your stories, comments and questions and we’re always happy to get back to you. Now for this week’s Family Histoire News from the pages of ExtremeGenes.com, there’s nothing like an heirloom to remind you of whomever it was you received it from. Generally they’re not worth much except sentimentally. Sometimes they’re quite valuable. And when they are, sometimes you don’t know it. Well, that’s why an unnamed Idaho man took an etching that once belonged to his grandfather for a visit to the Antiques Roadshow which had come to town. He explained that his grandfather had once belonged to the New York Society of Etchers and had a collection he started in the early 20th century. Well, the piece the man brought onto the show was signed by a guy named Edward Hopper. The visitor to the show had been around the piece his entire life, never realizing that Hopper was a highly renowned artist. He was a prominent realist painter and printmaker best known for his paintings of individuals in various scenes such as being alone at night or eating at a diner. Bottom line, the man owns an etching worth about $250 000. Yeah, a quarter million dollars and only 25 copies of that particular print were made. The owner remarked, “That’s more money than belongs in my living room! He’s probably right, but certainly he’s thanking his long deceased grandpa these days for a windfall he never expected. 

You can see the PBS Video of the entire exchange on our website ExtremeGenes.com. And if you’re listening to our show today via podcast you may need to search our site to find it. Put in keyword “antiques.”    

Our next story comes from the Antarctic Heritage Trust of New Zealand. They report that photographic negatives left a century ago and kept in Robert Falcon Scott’s last expedition base at Cape Evans have been discovered and conserved by New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust. The negatives were found in Expedition Photographer Herbert Ponting’s darkroom and had been painstakingly conserved revealing never before seen Antarctic images. These are amazing. The Trust Conservation Specialist discovered the clumped together cellulose nitrate negatives in a small box as part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project which has seen more than 10 000 objects conserved at Scott Cape Evans hut. The negatives were removed from Antarctica by the Trust earlier this year. Detailed conservation treatment back in New Zealand separating the negatives has revealed twenty two images. The photographs are from Ernest Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party from 1914 to 1917 which spent time living in Scott’s hut after being stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea. One of the most striking images is of the Ross Sea Party member, Alexander Stevens, Shackleton’s Chief Scientist standing on-board the Aurora. Although many of the images are damaged, the Antarctic Heritage Trust was able to recognize landmarks around McMurdo Sound although the identity of the photographer remains unknown. How amazing that must be for descendents of that party to learn of these pictures of their ancestors. They’re incredible for anyone to look at. You’ll want to see them. We have the link. Go to ExtremeGenes.com to check them out.

And finally, Kleenex alert! A 71-year old woman has received quite a holiday gift courtesy of the Baltimore Sun. Margaret Ann Wolf Harris of Catonsville, Maryland was only 17-months old when her father was killed in World War II. She has no memory of him of course. Not long ago the Sun discovered an old box in a storage room wrapped in rope that contained an old broadcast record. It was created in England just before the holidays in 1943 featuring interviews with servicemen from the Mid-Atlantic area. The Sun arranged for the 70-year old recording to be broadcast in the area last Christmas. Among people hearing voices of their relatives was Margaret Ann who heard the voice of her father for the very first time. He was killed only three weeks after the program was aired in a bombing raid over Germany. He even mentioned her by name in the piece, giving her a gift that left her speechless and us too.  And coming up next, I’ll talk to a man who lost his dad when he was only seven months old and the single photo of his father that took him on a worldwide adventure. Wait till you hear the story of Bill Elliot next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com

Segment 2 Episode 25

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Bill Elliott

Fisher: Welcome back to Extreme Genes, Family History Radio. It is Fisher here along with my good friend Bill Elliott who, we’ve known each other like three or four years now Bill?

Bill: Oh goes way back, yeah at least 40 years.

Fisher: [Laughs] Yeah, we went to high school together. Anyway, Bill used to work for NBC years ago, has travelled the world, and you started out your life in a very difficult circumstance. You want to describe that? 

Bill: Oh yeah. Let me tell you, my dad, Captain Arthur Elliott was a pilot. He was a war hero in World War II, and Korean wars, the fighters and bombers, he went to distinguish flying cross. And I know this because there was a military record and I have his medals. But he never kept any records of his own. And what I know about him really was just from that. If really want to live forever then try keeping a journal because I would love to have something that he had actually written.

Fisher: Sure.

Bill: When I was about five months old he was thirty five. He was based out of Charleston, South Carolina. He was unfortunately killed in an accident and my mom remarried and moved on and pretty much lost contact with the Elliott family over the years. 

Fisher: So your dad’s side you had no contact with.

Bill: Yeah, I grew up not really knowing much or anything about my dad or that side of the family and it was something that left a void in my life pretty much at all times. Then, it was Halloween week 1979 and I was doing some family history work for my dad, finding some stuff out, and I just felt this prompting like I need to find something out about my dad. And it was Halloween day and I tried calling my sister and I tried calling my mom and I was away at college and then suddenly my mom said, “Well, call your aunt, your dad’s sister.” And I’m like, “I don’t even know her.” She got me a phone number. I called her. She said, “Well, I don’t know what you’re looking for, try calling your uncle.” my dad’s brother Floyd. 

Fisher: [Laughs] Did you know him?

Bill: I didn’t have his number either. I met him once when I was twelve.

Fisher: Okay. [Laughs]

Bill: I got his number, I called Floyd and he goes, “I can’t believe you’re calling. It’s a miracle.” He said, “Did you know you had a half sister?” I said, “What?” 

Fisher: [Laughs]

Bill: He said, “Yeah, your dad was married before your mom and he had a daughter, she’s about ten years older than you. And when they divorced, the mom took her and eventually passed away and was legally adopted by her maternal grandmother, and she had been searching for our side of the Elliotts for years. And she had called him that very day having found an old article that mentioned the death of our father and listed surviving family members. And he said, “You have family but I don’t know where they are.” 

Fisher: Wow! [Laughs]

Bill: So he gave me her number, I called her Halloween night. I said, “Hello, is this Lynn Elliott?” She says, “Yes.” I said, “Well, this is your brother Bill Elliott.” There was a gasp and the phone dropped. 

Fisher: I can hear the thing clanging against the side of the wall back in 79.  Wow.

Bill: Yeah. It was amazing and she was only living an hour from us in Southern California and has a family resemblance and we’ve stayed close ever since. So, you know my search for my father and information about him continued. I went to Arlington cemetery where he’s buried and visited his gravesite. I was on business on a film shoot in Charleston, Carolina. I was looking for the house listed on my birth certificate, but the address was like 3 digits. I went to the street and there were 5 digit numbers, so I went knocking doors until finally a guy answered the door and he said, “Oh yeah, I remember your dad, he lived next door here. I was a pilot too.” And so he told me a little bit about my dad and the house and where we’d lived when I was a child before he died. 

Fisher: And this was right across the street from it so he was able to point out where you were born in too.    

Bill: Yes, exactly. And it was just you know, knocking doors and happened to find this guy who was a retired air force pilot. And then, around 2002 my sister found and restored an old picture of my dad standing on the street somewhere in uniform in maybe Europe or something. And I wanted to know the story behind the photo. So, I blew it up, I looked closely, and across the street behind him you could see a hotel that said “Ayrshire Galloway Hotel.” 

Fisher: Hmm.

Bill: So I sent it to a friend of mine in London, he said, “That’s Scotland.” So I sent it to the Scottish Tourist Bureau and they wrote me back and they said, “Absolutely. That’s Robert Burns Square in the Ayrshire County in Scotland.” And they said that Prestwick Air Base which is now Prestwick airport was the military airbase where air transport which my dad was flying after the war would have stopped and he would have spent probably the night there and maybe at that very hotel, had a meal that was in the background of that picture. 

Fisher: Ha!

Bill: So, it gave me some information about my dad that I didn’t know, and I learned about his world in military air transport flying from South Carolina.

Fisher: It’s been a tough go hasn’t it Bill, to get information on him?

Bill: It has been. It seems like years go by with nothing. And then suddenly I get this breakthrough. So you never give up. 

Fisher: Um hmm, um hmm.

Bill: And that led to 2004 when I was in London working on a show with Ewan McGregor and I was talking to Ewan and I said listen, I told him the story about my dad and he said, “You should go up to Ayrshire. It’s not that far from here.” He’s from Scotland so he knows the area. So I sent a note to the Tourist Bureau of Scotland and they said, “Absolutely. Come up.” As a matter of fact they flew me up the next day.

Fisher: What!? They sent a plane down for you? [Laughs]

Bill: A local airline. 

Fisher: Okay. [Laughs]

Bill: They made arrangements and I’d one free day so they flew me up there. As I flew in to Prestwick Airport I could imagine coming over the water that this is exactly what my dad saw when he flew in here.

Fisher: Sure. Yes. 

Bill: They picked me up at the airport. They took me to the Robert Burns Square and the town hadn’t really changed much in 50 years. And they had a photographer there from the local newspaper and they recreated the photo of my dad standing on the street and literally I was standing in his footsteps, only separated by time. And it was a magical moment to be there and I felt so close to him, probably closest I’ve ever felt as we stood there. And then went and had lunch at that restaurant in the hotel. It’s in the background, the Ayrshire Galloway Hotel.

Fisher: Unbelievable! What an experience! But it doesn’t end there.

Bill: No, it doesn’t. Well, they wrote an article for the paper and I had some wonderful letters and emails from people over there. One person recognized the old couple that were in the background crossing the street as their parents.

Fisher: What!

Bill: They had passed away years ago.

Fisher: Wait a minute! This is a 50 year old picture and they saw their parents walking around on the background?

Bill: Yes.

Fisher: Oh that’s fun.

Bill: They recognized it and they wrote to the newspaper and they wrote me and sent me the note. And then they decided a few years later to do another article and they decided to do the town of Ayr to do a nostalgia weekend based on the 40s era based on my story of finding my dad and his story of being there. So they had a whole weekend of big band music, of carnival, of food and people dressing up in 40s outfits and they ran the story again about my dad and his spending his time there and my efforts to find family history there. And it was just the most amazing thing. I had this kinship with these people in the little town of Ayr in Ayrshire.

Fisher: Right.

Bill: And all from doing a little family history.

Fisher: Isn’t that amazing that the one thing that leads to the next to the next? It starts with a photo and you blow it up so you can see what’s in the background.

Bill: Yep.

Fisher: You get a feel and then you’ve got this celebrity, Ewan McGregor saying, “Oh you’ve got to go up there and take a look around.

Bill: [Laughs] That’s exactly what he sounded like.

Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs]

Bill: Wait, that sounded more like Shrek.

Fisher: Well, it’s more like Sean Connery. Anyway, so you went up there and you’ve had all these experiences. Have you been back since, because that was a while ago?

Bill: I have not, but an interesting thing happened. I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day and I told her the story. She’d never heard it. I showed her the pictures. She looked at it. She said, “Do you know what my maiden name was?” I said, “No.” She says, “Galloway. That’s my family hotel in the background.”

Fisher: [Laughs]

Bill: As I’ve continued to do family history I’ve discovered some amazing things. You know, when I started out I mentioned that if you want to live forever write a family history or a journal.

Fisher: Sure, a journal, yes.

Bill: I would love to have anything written by my father but I have nothing and I’ve spent my whole life trying to fill the void. And then I connected family history and Elliotts back through Iowa to Ohio to Virginia to England and I came across an online journal of one of my ancestors who wrote about Thomas Elliott who came from London in 1724 on the ship Angolio bound for Virginia. They shipwrecked off the coast. They made it safely and the Elliott line was established there.

Fisher: Because of the shipwreck?

Bill: Yes. 

Fisher: [Laughs] I think we’ll stay here.

Bill: In the town of Accomac in the peninsula outside of Virginia. And they kept a journal and there’s this whole story of the voyage and what it was like and I thought wow, that’s how you get to know your family forever is to be able to write down your story and then let it be shared for generations. 

Fisher: So, now how far back does this immigrant ancestor go? I mean is he your fourth great, fifth?

Bill: This is seventh great grandfather Thomas Elliott. And in this journal that was written he mentioned that his father in London, in England was John Elliott and his father’s father was Charles Elliott and then William Elliott. So it gives me back about nine/ten generations.

Fisher: That is fantastic. And then of course hopefully, you can extend it from there. But you actually probably now know more about them than you do your own dad. 

Bill: I do, because somebody took time to write it down. And my dad was just busy being a pilot and living life, and you know, never thinking that at the age of 35 that his time would be cut short. But I’m grateful for the journey I’ve had in discovering his path and that has led me to my grandfather and to my father’s father and on from there.

Fisher: And all the way back and the whole line. You know the nice thing is your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids will have all this information because you got at it.

Bill: Absolutely. And you know you just never want to give up. Never give up. Just one more quick thing, my father’s mother Cora Belle Poe. I found out she was from Southern Missouri, right in the Ozarks there. I’d found nothing on her family until one day I finally got a birth certificate of one of her other kids, my grandmother’s other kids. And it showed that she was born in this little town Udall, Missouri, which doesn’t even exist anymore. And I picked up the phone and I started calling different places I found listed for that area of Udall, Missouri. I got the boat dock, I got the diner, and then I got some woman whose last name is Elliott and I said, “My grandmother was Cora Belle Poe. Her name was Poe and I’m just looking for any relatives.” And she goes, “Oh, Aunty Cora. I remember her.”

Fisher: [Laughs]

Bill: Her husband was a nephew of my grandmother and she lives on the family farm there to this day and I’ve been to visit her in that area of Southern Missouri on the Poe ranch.

Fisher: And so she’s filled you in on all kinds of stories about your grandmother’s side?

Bill: Yes and I went to the cemetery and I got all these great information and she said we’re actually even distantly connected to Edgar Allen Poe. My kids were thrilled. They started studying English more once they learned that and writing stories.

Fisher: Did you bring home a raven to keep in the house?

Bill: Yeah, just a picture.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Bill: It was kind of eerie though because there were some weird looking birds as I was walking through this graveyard at night. But it was fun.

Fisher: Wow! What an adventure Bill and thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us. And it’s really inspiring, certainly for people who, you know, struggled maybe for many years and just can’t get anywhere to hear that doors do open over time.

Bill: Yes, I mean this has been 30/40 years I’ve been searching for the stuff and finding it little bit at a time. So, never give up.

Fisher: Great stuff. Thanks so much for joining us.

Bill: You bet you. Take care, Fish.

Fisher: And coming up next. It’s the biggest family history convention in North America and it’s happening in early February. Our special guest will tell you all about it and how you can participate in it, no matter where you are, coming up next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com.

Segment 3 Episode 25

Host: Scott Fisher with guests Paul Nauta and Bruce Brand

Fisher: Welcome back to Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here with a couple of great guests. I’m excited to have in the studio Bruce Brand and Paul Nauta all ready to go with Roots Tech 2014 in just a few weeks. And Paul, tell us what’s going to be the highlight of this show? 

Paul: We’re really excited for Roots Tech 2014 this year. We’ve got some great keynote speakers including Ree Drummond, known as the Pioneer Woman. 

Fisher: What does that mean? I saw that, the Pioneer Woman. I’m sorry I thought they were all deceased by now. 

Bruce: [Laughs]

Paul: Ree is a very much alive and kicking. 

Fisher: [Laughs]

Paul: And for those that watch her on the Food Network, she’s got over twenty million followers. She’ll be our opening day keynote speaker, and she’s going to share how recipes and cookbooks are very much a part of family traditions, and family heirlooms and house stories are enriched and perpetuated and valued in family history.

Fisher:  Love that.

Paul: And those should be preserved and shared and integrated. 

Fisher: You know, for those who aren’t familiar with Roots Tech around the country, let’s start with, when it is, where it is, can people still get to it? Can they still be a part of it? And if not, is there a way to do so remotely? 

Paul: Absolutely. Roots Tech is an annual conference hosted by Family Search. It’s held in Salt Lake City every year. And this year it’s going to be February 6th through 8th, at the Salt Palace Convention Centre. 

Fisher: Okay.

Paul: Registration is still open, so if you live within an area that you can attend Roots Tech, we highly suggest that you do that. We’re expecting over ten thousand attendees this year.

Fisher: Wow! 

Paul: So it’s the largest conference of its kind in North America. And the focus at Roots Tech is a little different, in that attendees come to learn how they can connect with their family, past, present and future, by learning how to preserve and share the stories and the memories and photos of their family. That will be as highly treasured today as they will be 100 years from now. 

Fisher: You know, you are so right, I think a lot of people in my experience they tend to downplay the value of their own lives to their descendents, “Oh nobody’s going to care what I did.” You know we see that all the time.

Paul: Absolutely. 

Fisher: And I think a lot of people really will. 

Paul: Right. 

Fisher: And it’s amazing the little things that make such a difference in preserving memories and keeping traditions alive, going forward.  

Paul: I often ask people, how many people knew their great grandparents? Very, very few people ever knew their great grandparents. 

Fisher: Right. 

Paul: And I would ask them, “How much would you value to have just one letter from a great grandparent. Where they wrote what was important to them or what they valued or what a day in their life was like.” Unanimously across the room everyone raised their hand how valuable that would be. How much they would appreciate that. You’re going to be a great grandparent. You’re a great grandparent in the making. 

Fisher: Right. 

Paul: You just will never know your great grandchildren. 

Fisher: You know, I tell people, there are a lot of future dead people here. 

Bruce: [Laughs] 

Fisher: You’ve got to do something to be remembered. 

Paul: Or how would you like to be remembered? 

Fisher: Sure. 

Paul: You have the opportunity to preserve how you would like to be remembered. 

Fisher: Yeah that’s right.

Paul: We have the tools to do that today and we’ve got the foresight. 

Fisher: So Roots Tech’s going to be, what are the dates again?

Paul: February 6th through 8th is when the core conference is, and then there is an innovative summit on the Wednesday before, February 5th and we’d like to speak to that a little bit as well.

Fisher: Sure.

Paul: But Roots Tech itself is February 6th through 8th, a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Salt Lake City.

Fisher: Now I’m looking forward it, I’ve got a booth there for Extreme Genes Family History Radio and I know many others will. How many booths are there at this point? 

Paul: Over 200 booths. 

Fisher: Excellent. And I’ll tell you, last year was the first time I went. It was only what the third, second? 

 Paul: It was the third. 

Fisher: The third.

Paul: Annual Conference, yeah.

Fisher:  The first time I had attended, and I saw stuff there that still sticks in my head that I can’t believe people came up with. For instance, the software to match photographs and of different people in their lives to say this is the same person or this is likely not. 

Paul: Absolutely. 

Fisher: And what a great piece that was. And there were several other things that you look at and you go, “Where did this come from?” And that of course goes back to your innovative summit.

Paul: It really does. That’s one of the unique things about this conference. It was originally always with that focus in mine to connect families with a past, present and future, through stories and photos. However, there’s a unique element of it and that is, we make an effort to bring in the developers of technology and we’ve found is that it becomes very influential and proliferating new products and growing the industry and increasing the great experiences that end users will have. 

Fisher: Well you know part of the joy of it is it’s so cheap too. I mean it’s not an expensive thing to do for people. And I’ve noticed how people are just out there, “Here’s the product, take it.” A lot of free stuff all the time because they see it as a great service for families. 

Paul: Exactly. It really is under priced. But we do that on purpose, if you were to compare the content from Roots Tech and the world class productions that this is compared to others in the industry, you would find that it is a fraction of the cost, and that’s exactly why we do it. We want it to be accessible to families, so that you can bring multiple members of your family to the show. So there are single day passes, all day passes and there’s even a free day on Saturday that has a lot of family orientated tracks and content so the family can come out and enjoy lots of wonderfully rich pre activities and presenters as well.

Fisher: That’s awesome. And we’re seeing of course a lot of growth among younger people getting into this now. Do we have some folks that are going to be addressing that?

Paul: There are some great youth speakers, but the amazing thing is the youth today are so wired for technology that they don’t really need to have their own set of speakers per say. 

Fisher: [Laughs]

Paul: You tell them that here’s a Facebook application or presentation on how to use Facebook to share your family stories, memories, photos, the youth are right in there with the adults. But there will be particularly on Saturday lots of youth oriented production. 

Fisher: Okay, so for those people who are a little, shall we say unskilled in technology, I know there’s got to be a lot of effort there to help bring people up to speed so they can take advantage of all this great new stuff. 

Paul: Absolutely. There is an entire getting started track, so if you were to go to RootsTech.org and look for the getting started schedule, you’ll see that everyday there is a coded set of classes for those just getting started that feel like they are novices to all of this. So they should not shy away from technology. Check out the getting started track. You’ll find that there’s a full list of options throughout every day. 

Fisher: So, here’s a question for you then. For people, I’m sure there are a lot of people who are not going to be able to attend, they’re far away and they’re very interested in this stuff. How do they get to participate in Roots Tech 2014? 

Paul: Very good question. We will have some select sessions during each day, throughout the day that we will be broadcasting live for free online. So if you can’t make it to Roots Tech, there will be a sampling of our presenters and classes that we will offer online. So, go to RootsTech.org, February 6th and you can see the list of classes that day that will be broadcasted live. 

Fisher: That’s awesome. Wow, and that’s free? 

Paul: That’s free. Those will be broadcasted free. 

Fisher: All right Bruce Brand, you’re involved with a certain pre show for Roots Tech which is called the Innovative Summit. We touched on it just a little bit here with Paul, tell us about this. 

Bruce: Yeah, great question Fisher. So what’s happened in the past year with Roots Tech, there’s been a developer day. So developer day was a day for both software developers and other innovators to get together, and we’ve made a big change this year. We expanded beyond just the techies, the programmers, to include business people, or people that just have ideas. People who have a better way to present family history information, a better way to navigate or some ideas that might be all new. 

Fisher: So is this a discussion or is this a display, or how does the public interact with this?

Bruce: So the way it works is, on Wednesday the day before the traditional Roots Tech begins, which is Thursday to Friday. Wednesday the 5th, there’ll be about 17 sessions that day, there’ll be a keynote 11, with a lunch with a gentleman by the name of Chris Dansey, he’s just a fascinating guy. He describes himself as the world’s most quantified man, it’s just a fascinating guy. 

Fisher: [Laughs]

Bruce: He keeps of everything, from his online presence to sleep with his phone where he goes geographically, his heart rate, he wears one of these bands, it’s just fascinating.

Fisher: Wait a minute, I thought it was enough just to carve your name in a tree to say, “I lived.” That’s amazing. [Laughs]

Bruce: [Laughs] You know, it’s interesting, his session is keynote sessions to be titled “Facebook of the Dead” the idea is, as we go forward the things we capture on social media will become the history of our lives. 

Fisher: That’s right. 

Bruce: You know and in that concept, what do we want to remember? What would our grandchildren want us to Tweet to them or put on our Facebook page for them and what are we doing today to kind of capture that and make sure the most important things are available. So to just kind of sum up, the Innovative Summit is an opportunity for entrepreneurs, the software developers and innovators in general to be able to help them innovate and collaborate their ideas and it actually not just that Wednesday the 5th, but also has sessions that goes Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Fisher: So it continues right through.

Bruce: Right. And some of our key speakers in addition to Chris Dansey, I include for example Cyd Tetro whose an entrepreneur in residence with Disney. 

Fisher: Okay.

Bruce: As well as a couple of individuals from Google. And a gentleman who is with a very large family history organization called Archives.com that was recently purchased by Ancestry.com about a year ago.

Fisher: Right.

Bruce: So he’ll be telling his story going from a very small company to a company that was purchased for a hundred million dollars by Ancestry. So that kind of gives you a little better flavour of the kind of breadth that will be covered. 

Fisher: Well guys, Paul, Bruce, thank you so much for coming! I can’t wait. I’m going to be meeting a lot of people there and a lot of you. So we’re looking forward to it and see what more we can learn and how we can break down some of those walls because there’s big cities behind them. You ever notice that?

Bruce: [Laughs]

Fisher: Thanks for coming guys. 

Bruce: Thanks. 

Fisher: And coming up next, are you duplicating, replicating or copying? You better know the difference. Preservation Authority Tom Perry will tell you the difference, coming up next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com.  



Segment 4 Episode 25

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: Welcome back to Extreme Genes, Family History Radio, ExtremeGenes.com. I am Fisher. And Genies, we have the Preservation Authority master here, Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. Welcome back, Tom.

Tom: It’s good to be here.

Fisher: What do you have for us today?

Tom: Well, first off, to follow up the other segment on Roots Tech, we're going to have a, what we call the "TMC Island" there. We're going to have about the equivalent of six booths. It'll be called booth number 131, which will be right across from your booth.

Fisher: Yes.

Tom: And we're going to have a little theater there. And Marlo, the engineer guy, will be there with us.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: We're going to have a little theatre where you can come and we will teach you how to use your iPod and iPhone and different thing to make real easy family history treasures. Of course there's no charge to stop by and see us, so it'll be wonderful.

Fisher: That's going to be a lot of fun. I'm so looking forward to Roots Tech.

Tom: And also something that's really fun, CES, which is the Consumer Electronic Show, just finished up. And we've talked about 3D printers and things like that. [Laughs]

Fisher: Okay. Pick it up.

Tom: We've talked about 3D printers. Now something was really cool this year. They have 3D printers now that print in sugar.

Fisher: What?!

Tom: Yeah, they actually.

Fisher: What does that mean?

Tom: You can make these things that go on top of cakes, you can make all kinds of confectionaries, and the detail is absolutely incredible! It’s like making a doily out of sugar.

Fisher: [Laughs] So, you could take an old family artifact or a treasure and duplicate it in sugar and then share them with the kids, who could eat them.

Tom: Literally!

Fisher: Oh, that's great. [Laughs]

Tom: I mean, they were making things that look like origami that was out of sugar. It’s absolutely amazing. Now the bad side to it these things are about $100,000, but they're full color.

Fisher: Right. [Laughs] Well, they ought to be. [Laughs]

Tom: That's right, and a bit later this year.

Fisher: And you want to be able to drive them, too. [Laughs]

Tom: Exactly. And clean all your dishes and things like that.

Fisher: Yes.

Tom: Clean up after themselves. But just as a consolation, there will be a black and white version coming out later in this year that will only be $50,000.

Fisher: Ahh! But a lot of people though, businesses will be able to use those. Buy those and then you'll be able to through and for instance, we had talked when we had discussed 3D printers some time back. We talked about for instance, a fireman's medal from the 19th century that belonged to my great grandfather. You could actually duplicate that on the 3D printer. But the idea that you could make them in sugar is hysterical.

Tom: Oh, it is! It’s really funny. You can actually eat what you create. So it’s a lot of fun. One thing that we've heard a lot of questions on [email protected], they say, "What's the difference between taking a CD or a DVD and making copies versus duplicates versus replications?”  They say, "I'm confused. Which is which?" And we understand that. We have people calling, saying, "I need to replicate one disk." You don't replicate one disk. When you replicate, you usually make a thousand disks or more. These ones are actually stamped out, like a Disney DVD would be. If you're doing copies, those are what you do at home. You do one here, one here, one here. Now the disadvantage to that is, you're adding artifacts from your computer that you're using, because you're using your OS. When you go to a duplication all it is, is zeros and ones. There's nothing else that's put on there. It’s just zeros and ones. It’s almost like making another master of your duplicate.

Fisher: Well, that's a great and a great answer, so thanks for sharing that. And of course, you can learn more at TMCPlace.com. When we come back, what are we going to talk about, Tom?

Tom: Alphabet soup.

Fisher: All right. [Laughs] Back to it, the files, what you use, which different formats for all kinds of preservation, on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com.

Segment 5 Episode 25

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: Hey, you found us, Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. I am your congenial Radio Roots Sleuth, Fisher with Tom Perry back from TMCPlace.com, our Preservation Authority, and, Tom, alphabet soup. This is where we kind of straighten out everything about what formats to use for your preservation for photos, slides, for home movies, for videos. What are we talking about today?

Tom: We're going to talk about RAWs, PNGs, CMYKs, RGBs.

Fisher: [Laughs] Stop it!

Tom: TIFs GIFs.

Fisher: Stop it! Stop it! [Laughs] All right, let's do one thing at a time. You better take notes people. He's very annoying that way. Okay, go ahead.

Tom: Okay, first off, let's talk a little bit about scanning, kind of a follow up to what we spoke about a few weeks ago. People were a bit confused of when they're scanning, it says, full color, CMYK or black and white. How do you want to scan? And I always suggest people to always scan in CMYK or full color, which even if you're doing black and white pictures, you want to do that.

Fisher: Now is that an option that comes with your scanner and your software?

Tom: Exactly. I have never seen software that didn't give you the option to scan in color or black and white. And I don't know why you'd really want to scan in black and white unless you're just doing type.

Fisher: Or you're looking for an effect maybe.

Tom: Yeah, possibly. If everything's always going to stay black and white, never edit it, nothing like that, then that's probably okay if its black lines. If its photographs, we call them black and white, but they're really not, they're grayscale. And so, if you scan it in black and white, you're going to lose some detail. So I always scan everything in color. It gives you a lot bigger file. If you do want to go in and edit have parts that are cut out or torn and fix them up, like in some of the stuff that you've had where a mustache was missing.

Fisher: With Photoshop.

Tom: Exactly, Photoshop. It gives you a bigger box, so to speak, to edit with. So always scan in color. And then people say, "Well, I'm confused. What's CMYK and what's RGB?" Well, RGB stands for red, green and blue. Anything that's like optical, like a television monitor, your TV at home, anything that has basically light behind it is RGB, red, green and blue. You add red, green and blue together and oddly enough, you get white.

Fisher: Huh!

Tom: So if you get real close to your television and you see somebody walking across the screen in a white dress, if you look really, really close, you'll see all three dots, red, green and blue and lit up at the same time to make that white.

Fisher: I had no idea. I'm going to do that.

Tom: So it’s called additive color. You add the three colors together to get white. Now CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Those are subtractive colors, you take those colors away to get white. For instance, a magazine is printed in CMYK, when you print out on your color printer from your computer, its CMYK. So a lot of times people say, "Well, do I create something in RGB or do I create it in CMYK?" I say, it all depends on what your end result is going to be. If you're working on something that is going to be in a magazine, you want to go CMYK. If you're going to make something to go on your website, you want it to be in RGB, because it has light behind it.

Fisher: Will this include some of these published books that you can order online where you can make those choices?

Tom: Oh absolutely! Anytime something's going to be print, physical print you're going to hold in your hand, I don't mean an iPod, but like a book, you always want to go in CMYK, because those are the colors the publisher's going to use to create your project.

Fisher: Like a Shutterfly project or something.

Tom: Exactly.

Fisher: Okay.

Tom: So the thing is, if you create an RGB, they're going to have to go and do a conversion. And their conversion of their colors may not be what you really wanted, especially if it’s original art or something you're designing. So if you're working in Photoshop, you want to make sure you're working in CMYK if that's what your end result is going to be to get a better, you know, understanding of what you see is what you get type thing.

Fisher: He is a master. He's Tom Perry, our Preservation Authority. And of course, you could find out more about this on your website, TMCPlace.com, and of course if you have a question for Tom, [email protected].

Tom: And next week, we're going to talk about some tips to help you in scanning, when's the proper time to use things like GIFs, PNGs, RAW files and also a little about alpha channels.

Fisher: Alpha channels! You know, there's so much I'm learning about preserving all kind of different things. What are those?

Tom: An alpha channel is real simple. If you ever watch the weather where the weatherman standing in front of a green screen or blue screen, that's what an alpha channel is. We're going to teach you how to insert them into your iPads and your iPods in order to make family history stuff really cool.

Fisher: Hey, that wraps it up for this week! We're getting ready for Roots Tech. We'll talk to you again next time on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio. And remember, as far as everyone knows, we're a nice, normal family!

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