On this weeks show, Fisher talks about a ring swapped for chocolate at a World War II POW camp, and how it has found its way back to the prisoner’s family in America.  A man discovers his family history on Antique Road Show!  Chart maker Janet Hovorka visits with Fisher about how you can turn your family charts into works of art.

Transcript of Episode 8

Host: Scott Fisher

Segment 1 Episode 8

Fisher: Hey, welcome back! It’s Extreme Genes Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. I am your Radio Roots Sleuth Fisher, brought to you by TMC, The Multimedia Centers preserving your memories for over 40 years and so glad to have you along. You know we recently spoke to Stan Lindaas of Heritage Consulting. He visited and we talked about Oral Traditions. And Shelley Bachman in Lansing, Michigan emailed this awesome quote on it from some guy named Samuel Johnson. I have no idea who he is but he said something that really made sense to me. He says, “In an unwritten speech, nothing that is not very short is transmitted from one generation to another.” And isn’t that the truth? And with a lot of that short speech goes a lot of the details and the truth of the whole thing. You can hear the podcast of that show of that show by the way or any of our previous shows at ExtremeGenes.com or you can subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. And we did a poll of course on Oral Traditions last week and we asked you if you had any that were pretty much too zany to believe. I had one way back about some guy we were descended from who was leaving our family a fortune, and tracked it down and found the whole thing was a fraud from the 19th century. So, we were asking if you had anything like this and pretty much everybody who responded to the poll at ExtremeGenes.com said “yes” they had something like that. Love to hear some of those by the way if you want to send them to us via Facebook at Facebook.com/ExtremeGenes. Well, we have continuing news on the battle over the body of King Richard III. Yes, the King found under the parking lot. And as a result of that we thought we’d ask the question today in our poll, “Do you have a King on your family tree?” Now, it doesn’t count by the way if the person’s name was King. We’re just talking royalty here. Just a king and it can be from any country. I don’t care. England, France, Germany, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, I mean, it doesn’t matter. You know, maybe I can be broad on this. What about Queens? What do you think guys? Ryan, Booker? Yeah? Yeah, all right so they’re on board with that. You know, even though we ask it as a king, you can include a queen. We’d be all right with that. 

Have you seen the Cindy Crawford episode on “Who Do You Think You Are?” Cindy went to town to learn about her family for a Junior High project for her daughter and she’s taken back to early New England, not far where I came from originally, New Haven, Connecticut. She had an ancestor there, this guy actually left his family and returned to England and got married again over there. Left his kids behind so she wasn’t too happy about that, but figured she’d give him a pass for whatever reason you know. It was a long time ago. This guy goes back to England and wound up in the English Civil War. So this is one of those things, “Oh that’s bad. Oh no, that’s good. Oh wait a minute, that’s bad.” One of those kind of things because he does some amazing stuff defending people in battle in the English Civil War. And then Cindy has that inevitable line back to Charlemagne. You know, we talked about this in one of our very early episodes. [Laughs] And I think she’s under the impression she’s one of the few people descended from Charlemagne. By the way, Charlemagne himself, he had twenty kids, so that was a pretty good start on all of us descending from Charlemagne, no matter where you’re from because we had that whole article about how anybody who was living back at that time who has descendants living today is an ancestor of pretty much everybody living today. [Laughs] So, that’s how it works. Anyway, that isn’t what makes Cindy really special the fact that she descends from Charlemagne like everybody else on the planet. The fact that she personally got to go though through Charlemagne’s chapel, does. I think that’s something we’d all like to do at one time or another. This was not the amazing episode that Chris O’Donnell’s was, but you can find the link to the full story nonetheless on our website ExtremeGenes.com and you can find it on the homepage or enter the keywords “Cindy Crawford” to get you there. Then speaking of “Old England” it is the second week in a row for King Richard III to be making news. Now, that is typically something that is very difficult to do when you’ve been dead for 500 years and buried under a parking lot. And this guy has not been really active in the world scene for some time. Maybe this is basically how Elvis got the idea of how to do so much when you’re dead. Anyway, it has now been revealed that there was some major disturbance at least a couple of centuries back causing portions of the area around Richard’s grave to virtually disappear. Yeah, there was something and it was gone. I mean, they say it missed his skull by inches otherwise we wouldn’t have this discussion. The thing they say that protected him, by the way, his body, the outhouses located over the location. Yes, this poor king was not only buried under a parking lot [Laughs] but apparently was preserved by the presence of outhouses. [Laughs] Yeah, you’ve got to think if Richard had known that it would end up this way someone would have been held accountable in a very bad way. 

The battle between distant relations by the way, which is probably pretty much any relative at this point, they’d all be distant. And other interested parties over who will ultimately end up with the tourist attraction, I mean the final resting place, continues in court. And so if you enter keywords “King Richard” at ExtremeGenes.com you can pretty much follow all of the stories concerning this whole thing as it’s happened since the beginning. It’s an amazing saga that we watched. It’s constantly unfolding. It’s almost like we need a separate tab now on the website. Ryan, would you make a note of that? Closer to home, a couple of awesome feel-good stories that I think we can all enjoy. The first involves a guy who had lost virtually everything relating to his 19th Century ancestors until he spotted a personal friend on Antique Roadshow. Now, I’ve talked about how I found stuff on eBay and YouTube relating to my family. Antique Roadshow, this is a new one I would have never thought of. What the friend was discussing with the expert was an astonishing old framed family history record along with several photographs and yes, the photos of this man’s very family. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen a piece quite this elegant. You need to see it. The link is on ExtremeGenes.com, the homepage. The other story is of a deceased WW II Vet who told his family about a unique ring he traded to the Germans in exchange for chocolate to try to survive in a POW camp. So, here it is now almost 70 years later, the ring survived, the family was tracked down by people in Europe, and you can learn about the story of the ring, the man, the family, as well as those who took care of it over the years on ExtremeGenes.com, your “Drudge Report” for family history news.

Our DNA stories of the week include the attempt in Italy to determine the identity of the woman who was the model for Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. There are three candidates that are being exhumed (a nice way to say dug up) with DNA samples of descendants they’re working on determining the correct individual. They want to recreate the actual face to see how she resembles the painting. But, kind of like Richard III’s story, doesn’t it all seem to be about where to set up the tourist site? If it were my ancestor I’m not sure I would approve. In fact, if I were the ancestor I know I wouldn’t approve. The other stories from India were two babies with the same first name were born within an half an hour of each other. Somehow the staff got confused and couldn’t determine who belonged to whom. So they did a blood test and found both infants had the same blood type, so now they’re doing the DNA test to determine the family and won’t release either child to either of the two angry moms until the results are in. Talk about making family history right from the get go. So, for that one use keyword “Newborns.” As many stories were on the site last week, this week we added even more, so check our ExtremeGenes.com site every day because there’s always new stuff informational, entertaining as well as inspiring stories from all over the world. And just a reminder by the way, if you have a story you’d like to share  or questions or comments call our Extreme Genes “Find Line” toll free at 1-234-56 GENES. That’s 1-234-56 GENES. And while the show is on only an hour a week the “Find Line” is open 24/7. We’d love to hear from you and hear what you’ve got to say. And coming up next, Janet Hovorka is our guest because Christmas is on the way. And if you haven’t seen the holiday stuff on display yet, it’s coming soon, but how about planning something a little more awesome than that? Janet’s got some great ideas for family history type gifts but you have to get going on them right now, so wait till you hear some of these. It’s coming up next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com.

Segment 2 Episode 8

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Janet Hovorka

Fisher: And welcome back to Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. I am Fisher your Radio Roots Sleuth, brought to you by TMC the Multimedia Centers Preserving your Memories for over Forty Years and this segment is brought to you by Heritage Consulting Genealogy Services, your family history resources call: 8775372000. Guest today, Janet Hovorka! I’ve been looking forward to having you on from FamilyChartmasters.com.

Janet: I’ve been looking forward to it too. 

Fisher: And you know, we’ve been talking about this as we think about you know, the end of the year getting here eventually. This is really the time to get going on gifts for the holidays and family history. And I remember back several years ago we had a reunion of a couple of sides of my family and some of them had been oh back over to Sweden and back to the old country.

Janet: [Laughs]

Fisher: And they met some cousins who couldn’t speak a word of English and they took them to the site of the house where the foundation was lying and there was...what was it, the hinge of the front door was laying there, and they grabbed that thing and I guess there was still a piece of wood attached to it. I mean it had been there for who knows how long, and brought it home and cleaned it up and had it engraved and presented it to dad at the reunion.

Janet: Oh wow. I hope they asked, I hope they asked the person before they took it.

Fisher: Oh yeah they did. 

Janet: I’m sure they did.

Fisher: Does that make you nervous? What does it matter now?

Janet: [Laughs] No it doesn’t matter now. 

Fisher: Well it doesn’t matter. Come on. 

Janet: Yeah you’re right. [Laughs]

Fisher: So it was one of those teary moments. There were tears at several different levels. 

Janet: Oh yeah.

Fisher: One was for the thoughtfulness of it, the effort that went into it, the meaning of it that this was the immigrant’s home door and the latch and you know all this stuff, and we weren’t the ones getting it. [Laughs]

Janet: Yeah. [Laughs]

Fisher: That was the tears of the other side. [Laughs] That was like the greatest gift ever. And so, the bottom line is these gifts involving family history are the greatest kinds of gifts you can give for birthdays, for the holidays, for whatever any time of the year.

Janet: Yeah, absolutely.

Fisher: And so we thought maybe today Janet, you being an expert on so many of these things, charts of course is your specialty, that’s a tremendous gift and kind of an easy one compared to some of this other stuff. 

Janet: Sure.

Fisher: Let’s talk about what you know about some different types of gifts that are kind of unique for family history.

Janet: Well, around Christmas time a lot of people think decorative things, decorative charts that you could frame, something to put up on the wall and admire. And those can be really beautiful with our name and pictures and just all sorts of decorative things into it, documents, all sorts of things like that. 

Fisher: It is amazing how far they have come because I remember doing them way back in the day. You could go to a store and you’d get a place with little squares and you write your ancestor’s name it in, you paste them on. 

Janet: But now it’s all digital.

Fisher: Right.

Janet: So to do that, to take that and make it decorative, is a lot easier.

Fisher: Sure.

Janet: Even printing it on Rsx canvas and stretching it as a piece of art is just...you know you can do some exquisite beautiful things.

Fisher: And you can do it from the ancestor on down.

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: You can do it from you on back.

Janet: Right.

Fisher: You can do it from all the descendents of grandma and grandpa, which can go in every different direction. 

Janet: I think the one that is most common at Christmas time is maybe for your grandma and grandpa, or your parents, and then showing their descendents but also their ancestors. 

Fisher: Yeah, kind of an hour glass thing.

Janet: Right. 

Fisher: Where it comes back and down.

Janet: Right, or doing your ancestors but putting your brothers and sisters on it so that it makes instant gifts for your brothers and sisters.

Fisher: Sure. And then go as many generations as you want too.

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: I mean in terms of being applicable to them from the past down.

Janet: Yeah. But another great thing to do, besides just fitting it to a size of a frame, or fitting it to your wall, is to do one of those big charts. If you’ve got a lot of research and you’ve done a lot of work, you know really showing it off to the family and making it personal. Again, fitting those pictures in, even the documents, maybe the family motto, and things like that, really bringing that story alive. 

Fisher: Yeah you could do that couldn’t you? You know when my mother passed, we had a friend who took a bunch of old memorabilia from her life, I mean snapshots from her childhood, first day of school back in the 30s, and her actress card when she was in Hollywood in the 40s, and all these different things, they put them together in a montage. It was fantastic. And it occurs to me yes, you could do that with charts.

Janet: Oh absolutely.

Fisher: And you do this probably all the time?

Janet: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, you can do some spectacular things. Even for anniversaries, it doesn’t always have to be Christmas either, but you could do all sorts of things to make that story come alive. You know, a chart has usually birth, marriage, death information, and that tells you like who immigrated, what timeframes.

Fisher: Right. It’s a skeleton really of the story. 

Janet: Right. The reason I do what I do though, is because my mom had those pictures up on the wall and they intrigued me. When she said oh, you know, Grandma Swindermann used to lick her thumb and put it in the palm of her hand to make a wish every time she saw a white horse. I knew what that person looked like because it was up on the wall. 

Fisher: Sure.

Janet: And that’s why I’m so passionate about what I do.

Fisher: With the charts, yeah.

Janet: But to put it into an actual chart gives you a geographical reference and a time reference too. I can see on the chart who lived through World War II.

Fisher: I have seen it. I’ve seen you do that on one of your charts where it showed the people in the different centuries at the same time, and historical things going on at the same time in their lives. That’s fantastic.  

Janet: Yeah. And so it really brings that story to life but shows the relationships, and of course the person that you’re giving it to, especially if it’s somebody young, it’s all about how are they related to me, you know? I am the center of the universe. [Laughs]

Fisher: Sure. Yes, absolutely. But I am the center of the universe. [Laughs]

Janet: Right. But then finding out so much about where they come from, and that’s the other part I’m passionate about is just helping your family members really understand their roots because it’s so much of who we are, and so much of, you know, who they’ve become. 

Fisher: I just had this thought in my mind. You know my mom and dad, dad was always providing little pieces for a charm bracelet for my mom, and my wife often wears it now, one of the things on there is a 20 with a heart on, it was their anniversary, and all these different little charms that applied to her life. And we treasure and value that now but there’s got to be basically a way to do that same kind of thing on a chart with photographs and commemorate those great moments in their lives.

Janet: Absolutely.

Fisher: I think we tend to think of it as that skeleton of you know, here’s the mom, here’s the grandpa, here’s that one. He was born here, and here he died.  

Janet: [Laughs]

Fisher: There is so much more to it now and it’s a real artistry to create that. 

Janet: Right.

Fisher: And you not really stuck in a particular box anymore are you?

Janet: No. No, you want to make something that’s going to be beautiful in your home and it’s going to be really even the centrepiece in the heart of this family and you can do all sorts of to make this really a beautiful centrepiece to you home and something where everybody walking through, we have them up in our home and everybody walking through, besides my children, but everybody else can see what this family is about and see the shoulders that this family is built on you know?

Fisher: Yeah, well said.

Janet: See the foundation of why we are where we are you know, who immigrated, who got educations, who sacrificed, who did what they did so that we could become where we are.

Fisher: Sure. Now, I would imagine that you had people come in with ideas that are way out of line with anything you’ve ever done before. They’ve just come in, “I want this.” “I want that.” I know it’s happened. Tell us one of those stories.

Janet: [Laughs] Well, I think one of the great ones we did was a set of seven charts actually. It was for somebody who’s become a friend of mine who wanted to do a set of seven charts for a family reunion actually, one for each of the children in this family, her father’s family. She took... six girls and then the one son, she was descended from the son, and they all had these beautiful art deco photos and she wanted to find the descendents of each one of these and each one of them had their own separate charts. So, the siblings were all listed together, the ancestors were there, and then she showed the descendents of each individual person on each of these charts.  

Fisher: And she had to get photos of all of them?

Janet: She went through and got photos of all of them which was a huge undertaking.

Fisher: Whoa! [Laughs]

Janet: But the fun thing was, she went through and she found photos of when they were kind of in their prime 20s, kind of when they got married.

Fisher: Uh huh. 

Janet: They had these beautiful art décors 1920s pictures of these girls who had a photographer for a father. But then, those poor people that were in the 70s you know, it just was not... [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

Janet: But you know that just again makes it all come alive. 

Fisher: And the perms. 

Janet: Yeah. Yeah. And it made it all come alive and these charts turned out beautiful. She got a standing ovation at their family reunion. Everybody came because they had sent their pictures and so they were all invested. And then she had several people that were interested in finding out more about their family history. 

Fisher: Give us an idea about chart businesses as a whole. What kind of price range do these things run if you’re providing you know, all this material. And I know it’s all over the place. 

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: Because there are some that are very simple and basic.

Janet: Sure.

Fisher: And then you’ve got the ornate ones.

Janet: Sure.

Fisher: But again, it’s all driven by software so it can’t be that unaffordable.

Janet: No. No it’s not. We kind of divide it into working charts and decorative charts. Working charts are just get it out where you can see it, on inexpensive paper kind of for the family reunion, you’re going to write on it and add more information to it.

Fisher: Okay. Then you’ve got the archival side of it, right? 

Janet: Then you’ve got the art pieces you know, the things you’re going to frame, and different sizes and all sorts of things. I think most genealogy chart printing companies, I think they run anywhere from $20-30 dollars up to a $150-200. 

Fisher: That’s it. Can you imagine that because I mean you think about that, that’s what you’ll often pay for a great artist print, you know? 

Janet: Sure.

Fisher: And yet this is so personalized and customized.

Janet: This is something that will really shock the family.

Fisher: And it’s great too because if you need to make changes it’s not that bad to replace parts or change things out and share the costs with siblings. 

Janet: It’s also really easy to make copies too. Which again back to the gift giving, you know? Brothers and sisters, parents, children, all the time we have people coming back and saying, “Oh, my sister saw this and she wants a copy.” 

Fisher: She’s Janet Hovorka from FamilyChartmasters.com and this segment was brought to you by Heritage Consulting Genealogy Services, your Family History Resource. Call: 8775372000. And coming up next, Janet you’ve got to tell us a story, you shared this with me off the air about what was it, a toilet salesman? [Laughs] And what he wanted on his chart. We’ll tell you about it coming up next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com.   

Segment 3 Episode 8

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Janet Hovorka

Fisher: Hi, welcome back genies it’s Fisher here you Radio Roots Sleuth on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com, brought to you by TMC, The Multimedia Centers preserving your memories for over 40 years. We’re talking to Janet Hovorka from FamilyChartMasters.com [Laughs] and we’ve been talking about gifts and especially charts because they really are awesome gifts for the holidays. And this is really the time to be working on it to make sure they’re done on time. But off the air Janet had [Laughs] been telling me about somebody who had brought…what were they, toilet salesmen or something?

Janet: Right.

Fisher: Was this in the family or was it just one generation or what was the story?

Janet: It was one generation. It was his children and grandchildren and kind of how he got to that point but he had started a company and done really well and this was the proud part of their heritage. 

Fisher: If you’re going to be a toilet salesman.

Janet: Be a good one.

Fisher: You want to be the best toilet salesman.

Janet: [Laughs] Exactly. That’s exactly right.

Fisher: And so they wanted to do something around the chart involving the toilet?

Janet: Yeah. Yeah.

Fisher: Okay.

Janet: We’ve done that with lots of different themes.

Fisher: No, no I want to hear about this.

Janet: [Laughs]

Fisher: Fill me in about this. First of all, how big was the chart?

Janet: Just a decorative size chart, frameable chart.

Fisher: Okay, about what size? 2 x 4 or something?

Janet: I don’t remember. It was about 24 x 36 or maybe 36 x 48.

Fisher: All right, something like that. And what did they want to do with it as a photo of a toilet?

Janet: Yeah, yeah part of the company you know.

Fisher: Oh the logo and all that?

Janet: Yeah and all that.

Fisher: They didn’t want like a real seat to go in with it or anything?

Janet: No, no. 

Fisher: Okay, it’s just the photo.

Janet: I don’t know. He might have framed one next to it. I don’t know. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] But see, as funny as it is to us, I mean obviously it was just part of what their story is.

Janet: Part of their heritage, yeah absolutely. And so it can be anything.

Fisher: And you’ve had others?

Janet: Well, we’ve done a model railroad enthusiast who had train tracks as a border around his chart. We did a really beautiful one, more on the serious side, for a Pastor’s office, and it highlighted all the people in his heritage that held religious offices which I thought was really beautiful.

Fisher: Wow! Sure.

Janet: I did one for my son when he was little. He was all into ladybugs. We had one of those little kids where they raised ladybugs.

Fisher: Sure.

Janet: And he loved ladybugs so we had ladybugs around, hanging up in his room.

Fisher: [Laughs] He was happy. And then every time he goes through a new phase then you change it out.

Janet: Yeah, there you go. [Laughs]

Fisher: I’ve got a grandson who’s into robots right now.

Janet: Oh, there you go.

Fisher: In fact, robots become the verb that if you are really cool you are robot.

Janet: Oh. [Laughs]

Fisher: I don’t understand what it means but I’m going with it. He’s two, you know.

Janet: Oh, how cute. [Laughs]

Fisher: So, what else? What other gifts do you think now are out there that we should consider?

Janet: You know, my parents and my family have actually asked us to give them family history gifts at gift giving time. 

Fisher: Beautiful, yeah.

Janet: They don’t need things.

Fisher: Right.

Janet: There’s nothing they need, but family history gifts can be a real meaningful thing. And for those of you out there who are strapped that’s a really, usually inexpensive thing too.  

Fisher: Sure. Comparatively yeah, that’s true. 

Janet: Right. You can do a project or something. It could be inexpensive. On the other hand you could take everybody back to the family farm or whatever and it could be travel or something. 

Fisher: [Laughs] Sure.

Janet: It could be really expensive too.

Fisher: Go to Europe.

Janet: Yeah, right. [Laughs] So you could do all sorts of things there. But you know, my dad just didn’t want another soap on the rope. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

Janet: And so we’ve decided to 

Fisher: Well, maybe you could carve his parents into the soap. I don’t know.

Janet: Yeah, there you go. [Laughs] But we’ve done a lot of family history gifts in my family. In fact, just last month was my dad’s birthday and I sent him a little table top fireplace thing that comes from a factory near where his ancestors were from.

Fisher: A table top fireplace thing?

Janet: Hard to describe I guess. It’s a little natural gas type of fireplace thing that comes from a factory that’s just right adjacent to where his family goes back to the 1600s

Fisher: So it’s literally the family hearth here.

Janet: It’s really literally the family hearth, exactly. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

Janet: That’s the most recent one. We’ve done all sorts of things, digitizing projects. My children and I have done a digitizing project for my family a couple of years ago, even sugar cookie pedigree charts or gingerbread house.

Fisher: What? Explain that one, the sugar cookie pedigree chart. How does that work?

Janet: We did this one actually in the summer with a family gathering that we had where we took sugar cookies and made faces for each of the people in the family.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Janet: And took the liquorice and put them together and brown sprinkles for the hair.

Fisher: They don’t last long obviously.

Janet: No, everybody got to eat themselves.

Fisher: It’s not multi-generational in any way.

Janet: Right, right. Well, and that’s why family history is so perfect for the holidays too. It’s because that’s when the families get together. 

Fisher: Sure.

Janet: That’s the time to gather them around the hearth and invest them in these stories and inspire them with the heroes in their past and teach them the history and perspective.

Fisher: Is it you that’s doing the paper doll thing? What was that about?

Janet: Yeah, I actually was working on some paper dolls for some new books that I’m writing that actually will be out just in time for Christmas. Some more books for children.

Fisher: Okay. Those are kid things. For us guys you know, dolls I...

Janet: No. 

Fisher: Could you do like an ancestral bubble head or something?

Janet: Sure. [Laughs]

Fisher: Bubble head knight? [Laughs]

Janet: [Laughs] Well, there may be some other things that have to do with your family history.

Fisher: Sure.

Janet: So, if you have firemen in your family history or if you have something else.

Fisher: I do. 

Janet: Yeah, then some kind of heirloom or some kind of just meaningful gifts.

Fisher: Shadow boxes are great you know.

Janet: Yes,

Fisher: I remember going overseas in some of the ancestral home towns and getting for instance, there was a cathedral, no it was a church in London where my immigrant ancestor got married just before he came here name line. And a part of a wall had collapsed and there were little chunks of the wall lying on the floor and so I was able to bring some if that home because that was the church they were married in. And then their home was still standing back in the little town in Northern Yorkshire and so was able to go in the back and there was a little piece of the wall that had fallen out that had been there in the 1700s. So I had a little piece of that.

Janet: Wow!  

Fisher: And then a little rock from a graveyard or something, and you kind of mark where they came from and you know that would be an interesting thing.

Janet: Sure, little pieces of your history, literally yeah.

Fisher: Sure, yeah and it doesn’t mean anything to anybody else but it does to me, and to others in the family who might share that interest or might share the interest someday.

Janet: Right, right.

Fisher: You know, that’s always the key. 

Janet: And that is the key you know, doing something together that your family members did. In fact, one of the big traditions in my family is Grandma Schwendiman’s honey candy too.

Fisher: Oh doing the family recipes.

Janet: Yeah, the recipes are a big deal.

Fisher: Yeah! That’s a great idea.

Janet: Yeah, the traditions, all sorts of things that you can do to help your family with understanding more about where they came from.

Fisher: And so I remember my grandmother she was from Sweden and so she had this Swedish meatballs that we always ate when we were kids.

Janet: Yes. 

Fisher: And you know she’s been gone 50 years but we still enjoy the Swedish meatballs and share it with the kids. 

Janet: Yes. Perfect, exactly. We’re actually having this trifle every Christmas Eve and I am probably two thirds English

 Fisher: Yeah.

Janet: I mean I’ve got a lot of English heritage but I found out recently that mom said we have English trifle actually, know because grandpa liked it. That was it. [Laughs]

Fisher: That was it. That was the bottom line.

Janet: [Laughs] It wasn’t a big history thing, but it’s become a big history thing because now my grandpa’s gone.

Fisher: Isn’t that funny you say that. My grandpa’s big thing are Mounds bars. He loved Mounds bars. 

Janet: Oh, that’s a good one. 

Fisher: So now I never eat a Mounds bar without thinking of grandpa, you know from way back when.

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: So even something little like that can trigger a thought and a memory.

Janet: Yes, exactly. That same grandpa when he died everybody brought his candy to the funeral because he loved his candy.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Janet: We had a grand old time eating all that English toffee. [Laughs]

Fisher: Makes a lot of sense. Well, how far in advance do you think people should start preparing for this stuff?

Janet: Sometimes it can take a little bit of time, if you’re going to put together a big project, a scrapbook or a chart or something.

Fisher: I guess you could do it by category, so if you talk a chart would be what, because people who are in your business are going to need a certain amount of time?

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: I’m sure it gets jammed up when you get to November. It’s got to be insane.

Janet: Right, right. 

Fisher: That’s got to be devastating to hear, “Oh, I’m sorry. We can’t do it. You’re too late.”

Janet: Yeah. Two to three weeks usually on something really decorative.

Fisher: When it’s not the holidays though, right?

Janet: No.

Fisher: Or is it two to three weeks even?

Janet: Two to three, maybe four weeks of the holidays if it’s a real elaborate project.

Fisher: So no later than say, Thanksgiving or something if it’s Christmas time. 

Janet: Yes, Thanksgiving would be a good start.

Fisher: So that would be about as late as you want.

Janet: That’s probably true. You know, my mom often gives us little children’s books about our family history too. And it makes for a crazy December but those are what I would save in a fire because they are so wonderful. And yeah, probably a month is what you’re talking about with that kind of thing too. But a family history gift can be a real last minute thing too.

Fisher: What’s a quick thing?

Janet: What’s a quick thing?

Fisher: Sure, other than the cookies.

Janet: If you have someone who’s a budding genealogist in your family give them a subscription to a family history website.

Fisher: Oh yeah, yeah.

Janet: An instruction book on family skill, maybe woodworking or something like that if grandpa did a lot of woodworking. One my husband’s favorite family gifts that his brother gave him was like you said a shadow box of the arrowheads that were found on his great grandfather’s farm.

Fisher: Oh, that’s great.

Janet: Books about your family history, like surrounding your family history. My grandfather was an airline mechanic in WW II.

Fisher: Oh wow!

Janet: And so, you know we have a lot of models of books about that around and I have kids that are interested in that.

Fisher: You know, and it’s funny you mention that. It triggered a thought for me too because several years ago I had one of those miraculous discoveries of a picture of my great grandfather who was a fireman in New York City.

Janet: Awesome.

Fisher: And so, ever since then I’ve got a fixed search in eBay for anything relating to the Veteran Fireman Association.

Janet: Perfect.

Fisher: And I get more things that have nothing to do with anything, but once in a while something will come along. And there was this guy back in New Jersey who had somehow come across a batch of medals. Now, back in these days these firemen would go travel town to town and they’d be hosted by the other firemen groups and they’d parade. And they’d be honored and they’d each be given some kind of medal or a badge that would commemorate their visit with the date, a place on it from the late 1800s.

Janet: Wow.

Fisher: And somehow this guy in New Jersey got a hold of a batch of a bunch of them from Newburgh, New York where they had visited the New York Veteran Firemen Association in 1889. Now, I know my great grandfather would have been a part of that because he was in all of those things. So I was actually able to buy this badge like the one he would have worn. I don’t have it passed down but was able to obtain it and put it in a shadow box next to his picture.

Janet: Yes, awesome.

Fisher: And so there are actually many places where you can go and find things, because earlier today we had the story about the guy who saw his buddy on Antique Roadshow and he’s holding up this great family picture that had like a bible thing in the middle of it, and all these 19th Century photos around it. It was his family that his friend was holding up, and they were evaluating and appraising it. 

Janet: No way. [Laughs]

Fisher: He had just collected these things over time and it came into his hands.

Janet: Oh wow!

Fisher: And it was as gorgeous as any of these things you’ve ever seen. You’ve got to see it by the way on our website ExtremeGenes.com.

Janet: That’s what’s so fun about family is those serendipity thing.

Fisher: This is the thing.

Janet: Serendipity things.

Fisher: Yes, that you can see them and find them in pretty much any place.

Janet: Yeah.

Fisher: Antiques Roadshow, eBay, I found my father playing in a big band on YouTube five years ago back in 1936.

Janet: Yeah, I found YouTube videos about the canal that runs past the family farm.

Fisher: Yeah, so the stuff that’s there you can make gifts from that as well, but Janet, great visit with you today.

Janet: You too.

Fisher: Thank you so much for coming in and sharing your ideas. We look forward to hearing about your book in the fall.

Janet: Thank you.

Fisher: She’s Janet Hovorka from Familychartmasters.com, and coming up for you next on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com, Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com.

Segment 4 Episode 8

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: We are back, Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. I am your Radio Roots Sleuth, Fisher, brought to you by TMC, The Multimedia Centers, preserving your memories for over forty years. And this segment is brought to you by Heritage Consulting Genealogy Services, your family history resource, call 877 537 2000. We're talking to Tom from TMCPlace.com. Tom, we've been talking about special gifts of course as we get ready for the holidays, because family history kind of gifts, they usually take a little more effort, a lot more time involved in those. And you of course do all kinds of stuff, digitizing home movies, old audio recordings, oral histories. Tell us about some of the stuff that people can do through your type of business and how much time that takes.

Tom: It’s amazing. It’s based on your imagination what you can do. We were actually getting to our Christmas season right now, you know, as we can look out the window and see the leaves changing. It is time to start working on your Christmas memories. Because the thing that you have to remember is, when you're doing something like this, think if you go and buy somebody a new flat screen TV for your kids for 500 bucks, it’s going to last them, what, three or four years. You go and take those photos that have been sitting on the shelf and digitize them and give them to all your family, they'll have that forever. In fact, in our own family, my father passed away about ten years ago and in my mom's library, she had probably about ten feet of photo albums that he had taken over the years.

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: And everybody was always, you know, the elephant in the room, so to speak.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: Who gets the pictures! You know, when grandma goes. And the decision I just thought, well, I'm going to take them all to work and scan them all.

Fisher: How did grandma feel about that by the way?

Tom: [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: Grandma doesn't see elephants. She still has her rose colored glasses on and all of her children are perfect.

Fisher: Um hmm, um hmm.

Tom: So what I did, I took all the albums in, we scanned it, probably took three months of scanning, we had so many of them. And so, for Christmas, I gave all my brothers’ photo disks and my sister a photo disk of all the pictures. So now everybody had dad's pictures. It wasn't like, who gets them? So who gets the hard copy now? Why cares! Everybody has digitized versions of all these pictures. Plus we went additional and turned all the photos into a slideshow.

Fisher: Oh wow!

Tom: So you can pop in the DVD, you know, and just watch it and just enjoy it, and laugh and stuff like that or if there's a specific picture of you with grandpa or with grandma that you want to have enlarged for your kids or to put on your wall or something like that, you have the individualized jpeg also. You can go and make it into a canvas, do whatever you want with it.

Fisher: Give us an idea of generally what costs are for things like this.

Tom: Okay. Costs aren't too bad. You can go to the standard transfers. You can go to the high definition. But generally you can get transfers for as little as 12c a piece. Just look in your local yellow pages, call around a little bit, look online. And it’s pretty inexpensive to do. You can do it yourself, but always make sure you check with the people that are scanning, what kind of quality equipment they're using and what kind of pixels they're using to make sure you're getting something, you know, that's up to snuff. Don't just go and buy 200 bucks for an Hp scanner and try doing it yourself.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: If you want the best quality possible.

Fisher: Well, of course if you get a scanner, when you're done with your project, now what?

Tom: Exactly.

Fisher: You've got a very expensive thing. And I guess now a lot of people are renting these things out, are they not?

Tom: Exactly. There's places all across the country, including us that will rent you a scanner for any kind of a party you're having. You can call it a scanning, family reunion, and that way you don't have to buy anything. Us as long as the other people will supply you the scanner, the computer, the M disks, everything you need, total turnkey to go and have your scanning party. And you can save a lot of money by getting your family in on it, getting your friends and neighbors on it, however you want to do it and get the absolute best quality scan you can for, you know pennies.

Fisher: Boy you think about that. That's right. If you had, you know, twenty people and you're dividing. How much is a rent do you think, roughly?

Tom: Usually we rent them for $350 a week, and that's a full week.

Fisher: Wow! [Laughs]

Tom: If you want it on Tuesday, you get it on Monday. Don't return it until the following Tuesday when you're done with it.

Fisher: So it’s ten or fifteen bucks maybe a person if you had twenty people in on it, for the week!

Tom: Oh yeah!

Fisher: To go through everything you've got. That has got to be a phenomenal experience for people.

Tom: Oh it is, its total turnkey. You get the computer, the software, the M disk that will last forever, you get everything.

Fisher: And as we get ready now to think about, you know, gifts for this time of year, what are some of the other things you've seen? Now we've talked about photographs, you've got the home movies.

Tom: And slides. I am still surprised everyday how many slides come in.

Fisher: Really?

Tom: There are so many slides out there, especially from the '70s, people in the military, people doing job service type stuff, missions, all kinds of things. There's just so many slides out there, I'm just absolutely blown away how many slides we still do every month.

Fisher: You know, I would think there would be a certain point where you'd throw them out because you just figured, there's nothing I can do with these, you know, I can't. But there are ways now to digitize those. You have the means to do that as do many other places. How long does it take to go through, say, 100 slides and get them digitized?

Tom: Oh usually a day or two. We can knock them out pretty quick.

Fisher: Wow! All right, and so you can make photographs of these, even slideshows out of them as if they were on the old projectors.

Tom: Exactly. What a lot of people choose to do, they want to preserve all their slides, but they don't want everything in a slideshow, so they go and scan them, they take the disk home, write down the numbers they want on the slideshow, bring it back and then we can make that into a slideshow. If they want just some of them printed out, they can print them out at us or any other facility across the US or on their home computer, they can do it on the internet. You know, there's just so many ways with electronic media what you can do now. You're not held down by anything, no matter where you live in the world. If you have a decent internet connection, you can do anything.

Fisher: Wow! [Laughs] That makes you think about a lot. We're talking to Tom Perry, by the way, from TMCPlace.com. And Tom, let's talk about home movies a little bit now. Now you've done a bunch of them for me and the results are spectacular! The colors come back because of the new technologies that are there. So you know, grass looks like grass, its unbelievably green. Facial tones are beautiful. I guess the question is, once you get all the bulk stuff in, because you just bring in tons of these reels, how do you get them into some kind of order and narration? Is there a method to do that?

Tom: Oh yeah, same thing. If you have even a decent computer at home, we can put all your film, and a lot of other places can put your film right on a hard drive. Then once it on a hard drive, you can take your time editing, moving things around, do any color correction you want, go in and add a narration, which I think is so, so vitally important.

Fisher: Yes.

Tom: Probably more important than anything.

Fisher: Sure. Especially because, I mean most of these films are silent.

Tom: Oh yeah.

Fisher: There's no audio on them, very few anyway. And a lot of people maybe even your parent don't remember everybody that's in those pictures. So if you still have grandma and grandpa around, you want to be able to sit down with them, turn on a camcorder with audio and they can be sitting there watching the film and saying, "Oh yes, I remember this. I remember this." And just let them talk. Let them ramble about what's on the film, then you can go back, you know, in your editing suite at home and, you know, take out the snippets of grandma describing who these people are because a few generations from now, they're not going to know who they are.

Fisher: Exactly.

Tom: But if they can hear grandma's voice describing who aunt Ethyl is and why she's so special to family or the lady down the street why she did so much for mom and dad when they were growing up or when they were first married or whatever. Those things are just priceless. You've got to get them down on some kind of format, whether it’s the camcorder tape, an audio cassette, anything to get it preserved and then edit it when you get time. If you want a turnkey, you can bring everything in to us or any good video producer in the yellow pages you can look up who can put all the stuff together for you and then you have it done. Or if you're a do it yourself guy, do it yourself. You know, we offer every level, do it yourself, we'll teach you how to do it, we'll help you do it or we'll do the whole thing for you. And there's producers across the country that do the same thing.

Fisher: So if somebody wanted to present perhaps a script that involved some of these inserts, they could actually wind up actually narrating the thing with the inserts, with a musical background, eliminate all the home movie parts that really aren't essential and turn it into something pretty special.

Tom: Oh exactly. I mean, some of the things that we've seen come out that our clients have done is just, I mean, it’s breathtaking! You don't even know who the people are, but it’s still a masterpiece.

Fisher: Um hmm.

Tom: It’s just absolutely incredible the heritages that they have created.

Fisher: Well, and the childhood memories too. I mean, the stuff you did for me, hey we didn't even know we had it! Because you know, they're buried in these films. And it’s like, oh man, I remember that toy! When I got that bike or that tricycle or that merry go round, and what the circumstance was around that.

Tom: Oh exactly! In fact, I found some old slides of my dad's I didn't even know existed until I guess it was probably a year ago. And I went and scanned them and I'm sitting there looking at them and going, "I don't remember any of this stuff."

Fisher: Right. Are you in them?

Tom: Oh yeah! And I'm sitting there, "I don't remember that. I don't remember this." But then some of them would trigger a memory and they would all come flooding back what they were. And it’s just so exciting. So one of the neat things about having all this stuff on a hard drive is, once it’s on a hard drive, you can put it on your computer. And you're not just limited to adding audio and the film. You can also go back to some of your old slides you've scanned, your photos you've scanned and mix those right in with the content as well and just put together a masterpiece that’s just like, incredible!

Fisher: So it’s a multimedia kind of presentation.

Tom: Exactly.

Fisher: And you know, the thing is, I know for a lot of us adults, you know, when the holidays come around, boy you get your siblings together and say, "Let's do this together and give this as our gifts to one another." Share the costs and share this heritage with the children. And each one of them can have their own copy.

Tom: Oh exactly. You know, we have families that come in here that are blessed. In fact, I'm jealous of them. They come in with, you know, tens of thousands of feet of home movies!

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: And it’s just like, you know, we've got a thousand feet and I feel blessed, and these people come with tons of it, but yet they've got, you know eight, nine, ten kids. And so, they give that to all their kids and their grandkids and it ends up actually costing them less than what a normal Christmas would, plus they've given something that will be handed down from generation to generation.

Fisher: Forever.

Tom: Oh yeah! And they're fun. Like at your Christmas party when you're mulling around, you can have this playing off in the corner on a TV. And you know, people can go over and mole it and watch it and stuff like that. And it’s just, it just livens up the atmosphere. It is so fun to go back and look at those old movies.

Fisher: He's Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. Thanks Tom.

Tom: Thank you.

Fisher: That's it! I mean that's, another hour has passed, it’s gone, it’s done! Of course, you know, that's the downside of Extreme Genes, Family History Radio it’s only here one hour a week. But ExtremeGenes.com is on the job 24/7, so you can check it out for the latest family history news. It’s your Drudge Report for family history news and videos and all kinds of fun stuff that you can share with members of your family, so make sure you check that out. My thanks to Janet Hovorka from FamilyChartMasters.com for coming in and talking about the unique gifts! Boy we heard about some! Including the guy with the toilet seat on his chart, because that was the family business back on the day. Hey and don't forget our Extreme Genes find line, its 1-234-56-GENES. Yes, toll free, 1-234-56-GENES. Share with us any experiences you had, something exciting that happed in your research, some story in the background. Maybe you have a question that you want an expert to answer we can help with that as well. Give it a jingle, we'll call you back or we'll just take whatever you record and share it on the show. Just let us know what's on your mind. That number again, 1-234-56-GENES. And this segment was brought to you by Heritage Consulting Genealogy Services, your family history resource, call 877 537 2000. We'll see you again next week on Extreme Genes, Family History Radio and ExtremeGenes.com. This has been a Fisher Voice Works Production.