Bite-Sized Family History: Upgrading to Professional Photobooks

For the past decade, I've been compiling bite-sized family history booklets to share facts, stories, and photos with my relatives. Choosing a specific focus helps me manage each project so it doesn't become overwhelming for me or my readers.

Now I'm in the process of converting my many paper-based family history booklets into professionally-produced photobooks, one at a time. In the past, I had a local copy shop print my bite-sized booklets in color on heavyweight paper, then I put them into a plastic sleeve or a binder for each recipient. But I've noticed the earlier booklets are becoming worn looking, pages getting creased and torn. Some of the thinner booklets have been lost in the shuffle. 

I'm ready to upgrade, little by little. Why pay more for a professional photobook?

• Professional photobooks are much higher quality, more polished looking. The photos are sharper, the layouts more sophisticated. 
• Professional photobooks will far outlast my previous paper-based booklets. 
• Professional photobooks can be customized so photos are larger or smaller, text areas carry more words, headlines are in different colors, etc. The creative possibilities are endless.
• Professional photobooks impress my readers more than the paper-based booklets. I found this out with my small (6 inch by 6 inch) photobook about ancestors in World War II. Readers responded very enthusiastically!
• Remember: Watch for discounts and sales. Some photobook sites announce discounts for major holidays...others offer free "extra pages" or other specials. Shop around and see which site meets your needs.

At top, the cover of my latest bite-sized project in progress, a photobook (8 x 11 inches) about my Mom and her twin sister. I first created this in paper booklet form two years ago. Transformed into a photobook, it will be a more durable keepsake that readers can page through again and again for years to come.

Plus I finally know the names of all the people in all the photos so my captions will be more complete! An older cousin reached back into her memory to identify the two "mystery children" in the above photo as part of the FAN club (friends, associates, neighbors), not relatives. We also dated the photo after carefully studying the apparent ages of the kids. 

Redoing my family history into a professional photobook offers an opportunity to correct, add, subtract, and focus. Everyone is identified by full name AND I inserted info from the 1950 US Census, among other changes. The paper-based booklets looked quite good, but these look really great.

Without question, photobooks are much more costly than paper booklets. For me, after 25 years of researching my family tree, it's a worthwhile investment in memorializing ancestors for the long term--but let me stress again that I wait for a sale to order. Actually, I'll first order a single copy to see how the book looks. Then I can either tinker or reorder for all my readers (on sale of course). 

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Bring Family History Alive in Bite-Sized Projects is one of my genealogy presentations--learn more here.

Remembering the Twins' Centenary

Dorothy and Daisy Schwartz, circa 1921

One hundred years ago today, my mother and her twin sister were born, at home, at 651 Fox Street in the South Bronx, New York. My aunt Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) was older than my Mom, Daisy Schwartz Burk (1919-1981), by four minutes.

Their birth on December 4th was exactly six months after the U.S. Senate passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote--a right my mother and her sister exercised regularly once they were old enough to go to the polls. 

1920 Census for 651 Fox St., Bronx, NY - Schwartz family

When the 1920 Census was taken in their neighborhood, as of January 1st but actually enumerated on January 15th, the twins were listed as 0/12 years old (see above excerpt from Census).

Thinking of these beloved family members and missing them, still, on the 100th anniversary of their birth. I've been collecting photos, documents, and memories for a booklet about the twins--a project I'll complete and give to relatives in 2020. I want to tell their stories so future generations have a sense of who they were and what they did!

Wordless Wednesday: Dotty Wears Dots

About 30 years ago, my auntie Dorothy Schwartz had this photo taken for the annual yearbook of Christopher Columbus High School, the Bronx school where she taught typing, steno, and other business subjects. Her nickname was Dot or Dotty and here she is wearing dots for her official teacher portrait.

This photo was "forever" glued to one of those awful magnetic page albums until, thanks to the magic of dental floss, I carefully worked around its edges and got the photo out. The smudge at left is my attempt to remove the word "proof" from the photo.

Wordless Wednesday: Twins in Two Generations

Above is a photo of my mother Daisy Schwartz and her twin sister Dorothy Schwartz, taken when they were almost 3 years old. No notation of who's who...or where it was taken.

And below is a photo of me and my twin sister, taken when we were a year old. Again, no notation of who's who, but by family tradition, it's assumed that the twin with her mouth open must be me :)

Amanuensis Monday: Mail from Staffordshire to the Bronx

My mother's twin sister, Dorothy Schwartz, was a WAC in WWII, serving in England and receiving the Bronze Star for "meritorious service in direct support of operations against the enemy." She was the historian for the WAC detachment, 9th Air Force, having joined the company in spring, 1943 and leaving it in summer, 1945, when the war was winding down.

At 24 years old, Dorothy was far from her parents' apartment in the Bronx, NY, for the very first time. It was a difficult separation for my mother, Daisy Schwartz, because she was so close to her twin. (Frequent letters to and fro helped ease the separation, I know.)

On August 11, 1943, Dorothy's parents (my grandparents), Theodore and Hermina Schwartz, received an unexpected but very welcome letter from Edna S. Griffiths at Mayfield House, Stone, Staffordshire, England. She wrote, in part:

I have had the very great pleasure of meeting your daughter Dorothy and I thought I would like to write and tell you how we enjoyed seeing her. Ours was the first English home she had been to and that makes me very thrilled.

I was taking my little Scottie dog for a walk and met Dorothy and her two friends. I was so anxious to meet them and we finished the evening at my father's home. I really think they enjoyed themselves and they were most interested in all we had to tell them. Since that evening we have met so many of your country women. How we do admire them! We all "fell" for them...

I am sure you all miss Dorothy but she will be happy with the English people, we're to make them feel at home but of course we are not so easy to know, that's what I think. I think we are all beginning to feel the strain of this terrible war...

I hope if Dorothy is ever short of a house during her leaves I hope she will come to us. My home is always hers while she is in England. She is really  a beautiful girl and I am sure you are both proud of her.

 My best wishes to you both and may we soon see the end of this awful war. Yours very sincerely,

Edna S. Griffiths

Edna and my grandparents exchanged letters a few more times until 1945, when Dorothy returned home. How lovely it must have been for my grandparents to know that their daughter had caring people she could visit and talk to during her time in England! Thank you, Edna Griffiths.

52 Weeks of Genealogy: Clothes--Double Trouble!

My mother, Daisy Schwartz Burk, was a twin (see the toddlers in the older photo below, in which Mom is probably the smiling girl on the right side, next to her older sister, Dorothy Schwartz). She was often dressed exactly like her fraternal twin, not just for photos. Not surprisingly, Mom wasn't a big fan of matching outfits, because they seemed like a gimmick to show off "twin-ness."

That's why Mom rarely dressed me and my fraternal twin alike. The exception was on special occasions such as when we were going to be photographed by a pro (see the pony-tailed youngsters at right, below). The 99% of our wardrobe that we wore to school and for play did NOT consist of matching outfits--which meant we could share clothing and mix and match from a much larger selection. 

As children, my twin and I would (once in a while) dress like the other and try to fool people, just for the fun of it. Usually we got away with it for an hour or two. Growing up, we valued our separate identities and made separate friends. We remember our mother and aunt talking on the phone every night, so it's no wonder that my twin and I call each other just about every day.