Color to Add Pizzazz to Bite-Sized Family History Book

Putting together this most recent bite-sized family history project, Sis and I had an abundance of photos and ideas. The trick was to streamline the project by selecting some of the photos, not all of the photos--and some of the info, not all of it. That's why we focused only on the first decade of family life. Even so, we had to make decisions about what to put in and what to leave out. And we needed a touch of color to catch the eye of our readers.

PRO TIP: If you are doing a project like this, and want to have multiple books printed, please please order ONE to start. Sis and I found 2 typos and some slightly misaligned photos in the first book we ordered, plus we sharpened our captions on a few pages. THEN we reordered to receive more books (on sale of course).

How to choose?

Because the younger generation responds strongly to visuals, Sis and I looked at the content of the photos, the quality, and how these fit with the stories we wanted to highlight: our parents' wedding, our birth, play time, hobbies, family visits, vacations, and education.

Most of our bonanza of photos didn't appear in the photo book, which turned out to be 22 pages long. The vast majority of photos were small and black/white. Often the captions were on facing pages.

It's a 10 inch by 10 inch book, to be sure faces in the snapshots are visible and identifiable. As shown at top, each page had up to 4 photos, positioned quirkily to avoid looking too blocky and regimented. This is not a corporate project, it's a family history project.

We chose Shutterfly but have also used MixBook and Snapfish for family history projects. 

Who's who again?

For this first book, it was wonderful to find and include a photo (left) of Grandma Minnie with four of her grandchildren. Rarely did we four children (us and our 1st cousins) get together in Grandma's Bronx apartment. Sis and I even remembered the dolls we're holding! The identification wasn't over the photo in the final book, only here for privacy reasons.

Sis and I were identified by the initials M and I in the bottom margin of the photo. Too often there was no identification on a photo of us. This photo was a highlight that we're excited to share with the younger generation. I left in the marginal notes of photos we chose, including the dates if printed on the edge of the photo.

Tweaking photos but no significant changes

I cleaned up each image after digitizing so the chosen photos would be as clear as possible. As a MyHeritage subscriber, I used its color restoration tools to bring old color photos back to life in a way that looks natural and vibrant. I didn't want to go that far beyond the original for b/w images, but restoring the color of faded color prints made sense to me.

I used AI to sharpen and straighten a few photos, but not to change anything. Whatever was in the photo remained--including inconvenient objects, stray tree limbs, etc. Still, I had to crop a bit to fit so many photos into the book.

That touch of color

As shown at top, each page has a touch of color, such as a color word or a simple graphic like a yellow sun. The background color of the pages shows a hint of texture. Color borders surround each photo, to brighten the look without overwhelming the content. (I obscured some parts of this page before posting here, for privacy reasons.)

This fun bite-sized project will preserve and perpetuate lots of memories and photos from the past!

Great-Grandpa Was Naturalized 120 Years Ago

In June of 1906, my maternal great-grandfather became a naturalized American citizen in US District Court, Brooklyn, New York.

Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) was born on July 3d in the small country village of Botpalad, Hungary. He arrived at Ellis Island in August of 1899, aged 42, having been financially ruined when a hail storm wiped out his uninsured crops. Moritz became a tailor (and cloak maker) in New York City. 

His wife Lena Kunstler Farkas (1865-1938) came through Ellis Island a year later, followed by their eight oldest children (four at a time, in 1901 and 1903). Counting the 3 children born in New York, Moritz and Lena had a total of 11 children.

My great-grandpa Moritz was eager to become a US citizen and he achieved this important goal only days before his 49th birthday. On the reverse side of his naturalization index card, officials noted that he had formerly been a subject of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary. 

Now, thanks to a hail storm, and Moritz's urgent need to start over in New York City, I can celebrate America 250 and remember this immigrant great-grandpa with affection and gratitude.

A Fresh Old Snapshot of Dad for Father's Day 2026

For Father's Day, I'm remembering Dad (Harold D. Burk, 1909-1978). Sis and I rediscovered this snapshot while assembling content for a photo book of our family's first decade.

Dad has a big smile on his face while sitting at the Pulitzer Fountain, near the famous Plaza Hotel -- and opposite where the luxe Savoy Plaza Hotel once stood. 

Dad owned a travel agency located in the lobby of the Savoy Plaza Hotel. He and his brother (Sidney Burk, 1915-1995) arranged train and plane tickets for the hotel's well-heeled guests. 

The Savoy Plaza was the home of Trader Vic's, a trendy, upscale tiki restaurant that served inauthentic but fun "Polynesian" food. When we kids would visit Dad at his hotel, sometimes we would be treated to a meal at Trader Vic's. 

Alas, the Savoy Plaza was sold and resold not long after this photo was taken. It was then torn down to make way for the General Motors building. Dad's business never recovered and he was forced to retire before he was ready. 

As for Trader Vic's, the restaurant moved across to the Plaza and shone brightly for nearly 30 more years before closing its doors. 

Thinking of Dad with great affection on this Father's Day.

Heirloom Documented on WikiTree Free-Space Profile

Last year, Sis and I put together a custom shadowbox frame featuring a photo of Mom (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) and her twin sister (Dorothy Schwartz, 1919-2001) and a few pieces of their childhood jewelry.

The shadowbox includes an archival envelope on the back, where I've stored paperwork explaining about the twins and their jewelry. Ready to be passed down to future generations!

I just created a FREE WikiTree Free-Space page picturing and describing this heirloom. I included the photo of the twins that is in the center of the shadowbox. The space has plenty of room for photos, other images, and lots of text content. Free Space pages can refer to ancestor profiles on WikiTree, which I've done. I also added the twin jewelry page as a source link on Mom and Auntie Dorothy's Wiki profiles.

Above, a screen capture of part of my page. You can see the entire page here.

I'm so happy to have this heirloom documented beyond my genealogy blog, on a free site where I can share with other relatives.

To learn more about WikiTree Free-Space pages, see the help page here.

Whatever Happened to Henry Canner Harvey?

Researching my husband's family tree, I'd long been looking for the death of Henry Canner Harvey (b. 1875). Henry married my hubby's 1c1r Maud Victoria Slatter (1887-1963) in 1911 in Ontario, Canada. They had two children together, one born in Canada and one born in New York State.

Maud born in Cairo, Henry born in England

Maud interested me because she is the only ancestor in my husband's family to be born in Cairo, Egypt (when her father Albert William Slatter was posted there during his service in the Shropshire Light Infantry). 

Henry had been born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England and made his way to Buffalo, New York before 1911. He married Maud in that year, obtaining a marriage license in Fort Erie, in Canada just across from Buffalo, but marrying in London, Ontario, where her family lived. They settled in Buffalo, New York.

In 1916, Henry and several partners took over a Buffalo automobile body manufacturing business that he had managed, incorporating it as Harvey Top and Body Company. He ran that business for at least a decade, during a boom period for automobiles (and a period of population growth for Buffalo). 

Where's Henry?

By the late 1920s, Henry had disappeared from the records and the news. His wife Maud was mentioned in one child's marriage notice, but no Henry. I didn't want to assume divorce, especially since Henry was noted as her late husband in Maud's obit of 1963. But where was he? There were all kinds of possibilities.

After failing to find any grave or death cert, I focused on newspaper research, especially searching for obits or business items, thinking that surely a man (with the distinctive name of Henry Canner Harvey) who ran a successful auto body and building business would be remembered at his death. I searched multiple newspaper databases plus freebie databases and all over the place. No obit and no death record that I could find, in Buffalo or anywhere. No news coverage of him after the late 1920s. Periodically, I repeated my searches. Nope.

Breakthrough: Full-Text Search

This month, after again fruitlessly searching all newspaper databases for an obit or news snippet, I turned to FamilySearch's full-text search. I searched "Henry Canner Harvey" and the top result was a detailed death cert from, of all places, Los Angeles, California. See image at top. Breakthrough!

This is most definitely the correct Henry, given that the informant is his wife Maud V. Harvey. He had cancer for a couple of years before he died after an operation for a bowel obstruction, sad to say. I was surprised that he was a commercial traveler (salesman) for building material for the past 6 years. Maybe his auto body business suffered after the big stock market crash of 1929 and the start of the Depression? Again, many possibilities, but clearly he was no longer associated with autos and now associated with building, a solid industry in California.

Curiously, the birth year on Henry's cert is incorrect. Also, he and his wife had different residential addresses, according to this cert. And for some reason the names of his parents are "unknown." Even his birth place is "unknown." I again checked every newspaper database and found no obit, no mention, in California or New York, or anywhere.

Still, I now know what happened to Henry Canner Harvey and will plan to add him as "cremated" to Find a Grave, with a bite-sized bio of his entrepreneurial spirit.

"Possibilities" is this week's #52Ancestors genealogy prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Content for Bite-Sized Family History Projects

 

As Sis and I continue our bite-sized project about the first decade of our family life, we're putting "meat on the bones." Thanks for riding along with us as we work on this project.

What will help us tell the story of our first 10 years? 

• Photos! Lots of photos! But not every photo (more in a later blog post). I also included a snippet of a map to show where my fam vacationed when Sis and I were 3 years old. Younger relatives love to look at the pictures, so put in plenty.
• Names. We identified people in the photos by name and by relationship, saying that the boy who bounced the babies on his lap was our first cousin. Even folks who weren't in photos were name-checked, such as the paternal aunt who  bought us fancy dresses for birthdays and photo opps. 
• Birth announcements. Yes, we still have them and they are in the book, listing times, weights, etc. Plus I looked up the weather on the day Sis and I were born and mentioned that as well.
• Education. Oh those school days! We included class photos, a photo of our elementary school, memories. Sis and I walked nearly half a mile each way to school, and sometimes walked home for lunch (and back). In all we walked almost two miles per day and still had energy for playtime!
• Leisure time activities including music lessons, dancing lessons, day camp. We included vivid memories from two vacations, including one at a working farm where we kids petted the barn kitties and milked the cows. For city girls, this was a big deal.
• Copyright-free photos of a few places from our childhood (such as Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, where we saw new movies and the Rockettes).
• Stories from our own memories and from what relatives said. Our grandmother's family tree association kept written minutes and the family was told that Sis said "thank you" and I said "pretty" as our first words. This enriches the project, IMHO :) 
• Black and white is boring. Younger folks expect color so I added color borders to b/w photos and a few little color illustrations like the outline of blue wedding bells on a b/w invitation and a yellow sun drawing above a b/w photo of camp days. It's all about catching the eye of readers long enough to tell the stories.

Each bite-sized project is unique and reflects the subjects as well as the maker(s). Sis and I are enjoying the process of documenting our family's first decade. What works for us might not work for you, but I wanted to share our experience to provide some ideas.

I ended this project with a "cliff-hanger" sentence about the dramatic changes about to happen to our family, as our father experienced health and work problems during the second decade of family life. Sis asked, why the cliff-hanger? I want readers to be eager to read our next photo book! To be continued ... 

OTD: Brice and Floyda Married, 1903

On June 10, 1903, my husband's grandparents were married in a small family ceremony at a relative's home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970) was a master mechanic working on major railroads, and Floyda Mabel Steiner (1878-1948) was a plucky 25-year-old who had divorced her abusive first husband two years earlier.

Looking at Brice, I thought again about a conflict surrounding his date of birth. He himself gave two different dates for his birth. On his World War I draft registration, he told the draft board he was born on December 29, 1878. But for his World War II draft registration, he told the draft board he was born on December 25, 1878. Also, the Social Security death index shows his birth as December 29, 1878.

So I looked at the only original document available for his birth: A ledger from Little Traverse, Michigan, where his birth was recorded in late June of 1879. As shown above in the entry with the star, the date is clearly noted as Dec 25, 1878.

Since that documentation was closest in time to Brice's birth, I'm sticking with it and showing the birth date as Christmas Day, 1878. 

Also, using FamilySearch's full text search, I discovered that Brice L. McClure was the witness on several US naturalizations as well as at least one last will and testament. I already knew that Brice and Floyda were the joint executors of the will of Floyda's sister, Minne E. Steiner Halbedel. And when Floyda died in 1948, her devoted husband Brice, married for 45 years, was executor of her estate. 

Happy 123d anniversary to my husband's maternal grandparents, a couple who were close, happy, and devoted to their only daughter, my hubby's much-loved mother.