MyHeritage introduces Family Infographics: Turn a Loved One’s Life Story into a Beautiful Work of Art

https://blog.myheritage.com/2026/05/introducing-family-infographics-turn-a-loved-ones-life-story-into-a-beautiful-work-of-art/

As a long time genealogist, I have spent hundreds of hours collecting names, documenting milestones, and linking generation to generation, only to find that my relatives lose interest when presented with a traditional pedigree chart or a lengthy text report.

To address this disconnect, MyHeritage.com has introduced a new feature called Family Infographics. This tool is designed to bridge the gap between rigorous genealogical data and engaging visual storytelling, transforming individual family tree profiles and historical facts into high-resolution, poster-style works of art.

Beyond the Traditional Family Tree

For many years, the standard way to present family history was through pedigree charts or family group sheets. While these forms are essential tools for researchers, they rarely convey the human story behind the dates and places.

Family Infographics aims to change that by turning raw data into a visual narrative. The tool builds directly upon the technology of the "AI Biographer™" feature, which MyHeritage launched in late 2023 to generate Wikipedia-style biographical articles of ancestors. Instead of relying solely on written text, however, Family Infographics organizes a person's life milestones, immediate family relationships, and personal background into an structured, illustrated layout.

The feature uses artificial intelligence to synthesize data points—such as birth and death dates, occupations, education, and immigration paths—and represent them with corresponding visual motifs. For example, if your tree indicates that an ancestor immigrated by ship or worked in a specific trade, the generated infographic will automatically incorporate contextual illustrations, such as an era-appropriate vessel or a representation of their workplace.

How the Technology Translates Data to Art

The process of generating an infographic combines several distinct design elements:

• Stylized Portraits: The tool converts standard profile photos into artistic renderings that match the aesthetic of the chosen template.

• Contextual Visual Cues: Historical details are represented visually. If an ancestor served in the military or lived in a specific city, corresponding icons and background scenes are integrated into the final design.

• Structured Timelines: Key events, such as marriage dates, major moves, and the births of children, are arranged chronologically around the central figure.

Users can choose from fifteen distinct design styles, ranging from classic aesthetics like "Golden Age" and "Sketch" to more modern, painterly options like "Brushwork."

The Core Lesson: Quality Data Yields Quality Results

As with any tool that relies on database information, the output of a Family Infographic is entirely dependent on the quality of the input. A tree that contains only a name and a birth year will produce a sparse and uninspiring graphic.

To achieve a detailed and visually rich infographic, family historians should ensure that the following information is complete and accurate before generating the artwork:

1. Detailed Life Events: Incorporate specific details regarding occupations, educational achievements, military service, and immigration.

2. Immediate Family Information: Ensure dates and locations of births, marriages, and deaths are recorded for the primary subject, their parents, and their spouses.

3. High-Resolution Photography: Upload clear, individual profile pictures. The AI relies heavily on these images to generate stylized portraits; low-resolution images or photos featuring multiple people may lead to distorted results.

One highly practical aspect of the creation process is the review stage. Before the infographic is generated, the system prompts you to review and edit the details of the individual and their immediate family members. Any corrections or additions you make during this step are automatically saved back to your master family tree, serving as an excellent opportunity to clean up data anomalies.

Practical Steps to Create an Infographic

Generating an infographic is straightforward and can be initiated directly from the desktop or mobile browser versions of MyHeritage (with mobile app integration planned for the near future):

1. Initiate: Navigate to the "Family Infographics" landing page via the "Family Tree" menu on the main navigation bar.

2. Select Subject: Enter the name of the relative whose life story you wish to highlight.

3. Choose Style: Select one of the fifteen available design templates.

4. Review and Edit: Verify the automated profile photos and key facts for the individual, their parents, and their spouse.

5. Generate: Click "Create Infographic." Because the generation process takes a few minutes, you do not need to wait on the page; MyHeritage will send an email notification with a high-resolution download link once the file is ready.

Sharing and Printing Your Research

Because the infographics are generated as high-resolution images with a standard 4:3 landscape aspect ratio, they are optimized for printing. They can be printed on a home printer or sent to professional printing services to be turned into posters, canvases, or framed prints. Standard sizes like 24×18 inches or 40×30 centimeters are recommended for a seamless fit.

The resulting files are saved to your MyHeritage account within a dedicated "Family Infographics" photo album, where they can be downloaded, shared via a direct link, or posted to social media platforms.

Availability and Privacy Considerations

The feature is accessible to anyone with a family tree on MyHeritage. Every user is permitted to generate their first Family Infographic for free. To produce additional infographics, a MyHeritage Complete or Omni subscription plan is required.

From a privacy perspective, MyHeritage states that the data and photos used to generate the infographics remain protected within your private account. The information is used solely to generate the specific artwork requested and is not shared with third parties or used to train external public AI models.

Final Thoughts

At its core, genealogy is about preservation and communication. Having files full of historical evidence is wonderful, but those records lose their utility if they remain locked away in digital folders, unseen by the rest of the family. Tools like Family Infographics offer a highly visual, accessible entry point for the younger generation and non-genealogists to appreciate the struggles and triumphs of their ancestors.

By turning hard-earned historical research into a visual heirloom, we can make our ancestors' stories a daily part of our family's living space.

Here is an example of a Family Inforgraphic from my own ancestors. 

Overcoming the Fear of AI (FOAI) Part Two: The Present: Erosion of Truth and Economic Utility

This post continues our series, following Part One: Overcoming the Fear of AI. Here, I examine the pressing issues surrounding artificial intelligence—concerns that have sparked intense and often dramatic debate across social media and YouTube. This compilation serves to address those anxieties by exploring the real-world implications of AI technology today. The more you learn about AI what it can and cannot do, the more you will have the tools to confront any fear about using AI. 

The "Post-Truth" Reality: With deepfakes becoming cheap, routine, and scalable, there is a profound fear that the legal system, journalism, and personal reputations are becoming indefensible. The emergence of synthetic identities in courtrooms and media has triggered a "reality threshold" crisis where seeing is no longer believing. See 11 things AI experts are watching for in 2026 From my own perspective, one of the major developments of AI images occurred when Adobe converted Photoshop into an "all AI" workspace. However, Content Credentials (the "nutrition label" for images) are now becoming a standard requirement for legal and journalistic integrity. Despite the historical fact that altered photographs have been created since the beginning of photography (see List of photograph manipulation incidents), modern AI makes these changes seamless and makes changing and generating photos accessible to everyone See List of photograph manipulation incidents The Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy (CRAIGEN.org) has addressed this issue with an official statement on its website. I realize that I have published these guidelines before but this present topic merits a repetition:

Three guidelines are recommended for everyone to follow:

1. Always Label. Provide a visible, human-readable label stating that the image was modified or generated.
2. Always Cite. A minimal citation is recommended, noting the original source and that the image was modified or generated. For greater clarity, a more detailed, layered citation is encouraged, recording the process and specific edits.
3. Use as Illustration, Not Evidence. Treat modified or generated images as illustrative only. Do not use them to prove identity, time, or place.

These guidelines are a practical antidote to the "Post-Truth" reality.

The Professional Obsolescence Crisis: We are seeing a shift from "AI taking jobs" to "AI making humans obsolete." The psychological fallout—now being processed in therapy sessions—revolves around the identity crisis of workers whose roles have shifted from creation to validation (or "workslop" e.g., low-quality, AI-generated content that requires human filtering and management). Granted, AI is creating a turnover in the job market, See Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push But from a historic perspective, people have been losing jobs to technology since the Luddite movement began in 1811. See Why did the Luddites protest? As the AI technology continues to gain momentum it is undeniable that it will dramatically affect a significant number of jobs. See National Survey: 95% of College Faculty Fear Student Overreliance on AI and Diminished Critical Thinking Among Learners Who Use Generative AI Tools As individuals caught up in this technological revolution, it is important to begin to adapt to the new challenges. The open pathway is that AI has basically freed information for anyone willing to learn. See 22 Thoughts on Using AI to Learn Better

I am already using AI to teach me about how to use AI to do genealogical research and I am impressed with the speed I can begin to understand new AI concepts that match and extend my own research abilities.

Weaponized and "Self-Aware" Malware: In the security sector, there is significant alarm regarding agentic AI used by threat actors. This includes malware that can "play dead" when it detects a sandbox environment or autonomously pivot its tactics in real-time to evade human defenders. This has been an ongoing battle since the development of the internet and it is fortunate that the human defenders can use AI tools to overcome the attacks. This reality doesn't just create threats; it defines a new era for cybersecurity professionals who must now pivot from static defense to managing dynamic, AI-driven security ecosystems.

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence often feels like a loss of control, but history shows that fear is best managed through active adaptation and understanding. While the "Post-Truth" reality and shifting job markets present genuine challenges, they also offer an unprecedented "open pathway" for those willing to learn. By adopting clear standards like the CRAIGEN.org guidelines and leveraging AI to enhance our own research abilities, we move from being passive victims of change to active participants in a new, AI-driven era.

As we have seen from the Luddite movement to the modern rise of agentic AI, technology does not just replace old systems; it creates new landscapes for those ready to navigate them. The key to overcoming the Fear of AI is not to wait for the world to return to "normal," but to use these very tools to build a more secure and informed future.

Protecting Trust in Historical Images from the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy

 https://craigen.org/protecting-trust-in-historical-images/

Let's say you are now on FamilySearch.org looking at your part of the FamilyTree and discover that someone has posted a Memory of a "photo" of your great-great-great grandmother who died in 1834. You begin to wonder where this image came from. Obviously, with the now not-so-new availability almost anyone can ask for generated images from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of online apps including such well-known apps such as Photoshop, ChatGPT, and many others. 

Here is a sample image generated from Adobe Firefly.

I should hope my ancestors were rich enough to look like this. Anyway, it might help to note that photography, especially color photography, did not exist in the 1700s. However, anyone can totally disreagard historical accuracy and generate almost anything you can imagine. Because of what is happening in the AI world of image and video generation, the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy (CRAIGEN.org) has been working on establishing some basic principles for using generated images and for using AI in general. If you are a genealogist and have any idea of the historical problems arising from the improper use of AI not only to generate images but also to alter historical images, documents and artifacts, you should click on the link to the website and review the Guiding Principles and Statements. You might also want to read some of the Education articles. We will be posting more information and articles as well as writing blog posts and doing videos on thes subjects raised on the website. 

How do we know what is real in Genealogy?

 

Genealogy is history and history is genealogy. Another way of putting that statement is following statement by Thomas Carlyle:

Before Philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded. Now, overlooking the former consideration, and with regard only to the latter, let anyone who has examined the current of human affairs, and how intricate, perplexed, unfathomable, even when seen into with our own eyes, are their thousand-fold blending movements, say whether the true representing of it is easy or impossible. Social Life is the aggregate of all the individual men's Lives who constitute society; History is the essence of innumerable Biographies. But if one Biography, nay, our own Biography, study and recapitulate it as we may, remains in so many points unintelligible to us, how much more must these million, the very facts of which, to say nothing of the purport of them, we know not, and cannot know! 

Carlyle, Thomas, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. With Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Philadelphia : A. Hart, 1852. http://archive.org/details/criticalmiscella00incarl. 

Our perception of history can never be entirely true because it is an interpretation of incomplete past evidence, influenced by our biases, perspectives, and the agendas of the people who recorded it, often leading to the proverb "history is written by the victors". In addition, we struggle with historical accuracy as we work backward in time. 

One example of our varying view of history that I have written about several times in the past, is readily apparent from the entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree about the approximately 53 passengers of the Mayflower who survived the first winter. See The Mayflower Passengers. 

You can see from this screenshot and if you go to view Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7, that his "history" changes almost daily despite the existence of extensive documentation from The General Society of Mayflowere Descendants. See also Mayflower Lineage Match. 

We are now living in an age where a "New Reality" can be generated in moment of time. I only have a few photographs of my great-grand father Henry Martin Tanner born in 1852 and died in 1935. Here is one of the photos of him on his 80th birthday in 1932 shortly before he died. 

Today, I can now see that same image in color! 

Of course, we might want to know that Color photography was invented in 1861 by James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Sutton, but it didn't become widely available to the public until the late 1930s with the introduction of films like Kodachrome and Agfacolor. It is almost certain that this photo was not originally in color but using a readily available photo editing software you can add color. 

In addition, I can ask Google Gemini to generate an image of Henry when he was 80 years old. 

If I did not have the original photo, how could I tell if the newly generated photo was real or not? I could also keep generating additional photos of Henry until I got one I liked. 

This photo shows him standing in his "Tanner Homestad" in Gilbert, AZ, with cactus and all. Which of these images is real? Just in case you are wondering here is the same Gilbert, AZ photo in color. 

If you look in the lower right hand corner of the photos, you will see the Google Gemini mark that signals that these extra photos were AI generated. 

Think about this issue of reality. Aren't the hundreds or thousands of changes to Francis Cooke and the other Mayflower passengers just as unreal as the generated photos of Henry Tanner? Do we really need to get into deep philosophical discussions about reality or can we live with citing historical sources and being content with actual history?

By the way, here is photo of Gilbert, Arizona in the early 1930s from the Gilbert Historical Museum. 

https://www.azcentral.com/picture-gallery/news/local/gilbert/2014/07/25/historic-gilbert-photos/10169323/

Let's start thinking more about what is real and supported by contemporary historical documents and records and less about trying to get our perceptions of the past to be established as "reality." 

Guiding Principles for Responsible AI in Genealogy: Disclosure

This image was obtained from Pixabay.com and is in the public domain

 

Disclosure

Acknowledging the use of AI enhances trust. Therefore, members of the genealogical community disclose, as context requires, when AI materially influences the creation or modification of content. Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy. 

Artificial Intellgence has rapidly advanced from the date of the release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. The changes made by generated AI have been overwhelming in the scope and influence. Pre-AI, you could easily tell if an image or text had been "created by a computer" or scavenged from the Internet. Now the boundary between reality (created by a human being) and fantasy (created by a Chatbot) is indistinguishable from an original photograph or a text written by a human. 

It appears that the siren call of AI is invading the online genealogy websites. Despite the fact that photography was invented in the mid-1800s, We are seeing images of people who were born long before the invention of photography in the mid-1800s. There are multiple uses of AI as a tool; transcribing records, analyzing images, full-text searching, transcription of both handwriting and texts, and translation. See Tanner, Abby. “AI and Genealogy: Advancements You Can Use • FamilySearch.” FamilySearch, August 15, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/ai-developments-genealogy. 

The issue of disclosure arises when AI is used as a substitute for validated and accurate research and where there is a representation that the work has been produced by the researcher or author. Here are a number of websites with information about generative disclosures. 

Cornett, Wesley. “LibGuides: AI-Generated Content: Student AI Disclosures.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://newmanu.libguides.com/ai-disclosure/student-guide.

“Data Collection & Management, Professional Perspective - How Companies Should Be Thinking About Disclosing AI Usage to Consumers.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://www.bloomberglaw.com/external/document/XDEBUU4K000000/data-collection-management-professional-perspective-how-companie.

“Demystifying Generative AI Disclosures.” EPIC - Electronic Privacy Information Center, n.d. Accessed September 16, 2025. https://epic.org/demystifying-generative-ai-disclosures/.

“Disclosure on the Use of AI in Research Manuscripts: How Are Researchers Doing It? | Singapore Management University (SMU).” November 25, 2024. https://library.smu.edu.sg/topics-insights/disclosure-use-ai-research-manuscripts-how-are-researchers-doing-it.

Janco, Andy. “Research Guides: Generative AI: Disclosing the Use of AI.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://libguides.princeton.edu/generativeAI/disclosure.

Koul, Parvaiz A. “Disclosing Use of Artificial Intelligence: Promoting Transparency in Publishing.” Lung India : Official Organ of Indian Chest Society 40, no. 5 (2023): 401–3. https://doi.org/10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_370_23.

Martin, Brian Heidelberger, Ryan. “Disclosures Required When Using AI-Generated Actors/Voices (via Passle).” Passle, May 9, 2024. https://quicktakes.loeb.com//post/102j748/disclosures-required-when-using-ai-generated-actors-voices.

Mills, Elizabeth M. Renieris, David Kiron, and Steven. “Artificial Intelligence Disclosures Are Key to Customer Trust.” MIT Sloan Management Review, September 24, 2024. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/artificial-intelligence-disclosures-are-key-to-customer-trust/.

Resnik, David B., and Mohammad Hosseini. “Disclosing Artificial Intelligence Use in Scientific Research and Publication: When Should Disclosure Be Mandatory, Optional, or Unnecessary?” Accountability in Research 0, no. 0 (n.d.): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2025.2481949.

Tanner, Abby. “AI and Genealogy: Advancements You Can Use • FamilySearch.” FamilySearch, August 15, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/ai-developments-genealogy.

It will take some time before the various opinions expressed in these articles are developed into an overall methodology for the use of AI.  

B

World-renowned photographer Nancy Borowick -- RootsTech Keynote Speaker

 https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

Quoting from an email announcement:

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—RootsTech by FamilySearch, the world’s largest family discovery and genealogy conference, and Pictureline, a gold sponsor at RootsTech 2024, are excited to announce Nancy Borowick as a main-stage keynote on Friday, March 1, 2024, and part of the globally broadcasted event. Pictureline is sponsoring Nancy Borowick, a world-renowned Sony Artisan photographer, speaker, and teacher, with a unique gift and talent for capturing the moments to not be forgotten—a great fit for RootsTech’s global audience and this year’s theme of “Remember.” Learn more at RootsTech.org. 

RootsTech invites a wide range of talented celebrities to its annual event’s main stage. Each one has offered different perspectives and inspiration regarding the importance, diversity, and yet uniqueness, of each family, and the importance of uniting with your family and remembering who you are. Nancy Borowick will continue that strong tradition as she takes to the main stage at RootsTech 2024 on Friday, March 1, 2024. 

You can read more about Nancy Borowick on her website.  

Here is a further quote from the email announcement:

Borowick’s family has left an indelible imprint upon her life. They taught her that life is precious, to live it on her own terms, and to face uncertainties courageously. She saw both her parents struggle with stage 4 cancer together, passing away just a year apart. She honored them with a special photography tribute and book that celebrates their strength and grace while illustrating the simultaneity of life (see The Family Imprint: A Daughter’s Portrait of Love and Loss).

"I'm so excited to speak at RootsTech 2024! Family, memory, and storytelling through photography is an integral part of my life and work, and I can't wait to share my personal family journey and story in Salt Lake City at RootsTech 2024." Nancy Borowick, RootsTech 2024 Keynote 

Nancy Borowick graduated from the International Center of Photography and has made a career as a photojournalist, author, teacher, and speaker. Borowick’s work has been exhibited in more than 100 cities worldwide, as well as in many notable publications such as National Geographic, Time Magazine, O the Oprah Magazine, Glamour magazine, Le Monde, Stern magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and outlets such as CNN and Bloomberg. A few of her many renowned accolades and awards include World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, and the 2018 Humanitarian Award from the organization Women That Sour. 

While teaching photography classes to children in rural Ghana, Borowick learned of the villagers’ need for a fresh water well and spearheaded a project to raise the monies needed to provide one. She also sponsors an initiative to honor and help mothers heal from the trauma and grief of losing a stillborn child and to reduce public bias regarding pregnancy care and infant mortality.

"Pictureline is pleased to be a part of RootsTech 2024 and to sponsor renowned Sony Artisan Nancy Borowick as the Friday morning keynote speaker. Photography has a way to foster memories, bring together communities, and strengthen relationships. Our camera store has been part of RootsTech for over 10 years, and we love seeing how passionate RootsTech attendees are about helping bring life to their genealogy through photos and videos. We are excited to see how RootsTech will inspire all of us again this year.” —Jens Nielsen, founder, Pictureline

Meet Nancy Borowick in Person

Join Nancy Borowick on the RootsTech main stage as she shares her enthralling family story of what family and memories mean to her, and her personal perspective on the RootsTech theme “Remember.” Following her keynote address in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nancy will hold a meet and greet and book signing. 

Attend RootsTech 2024 in person at the Salt Palace Convention Center, or online for free. Learn more or register at RootsTech.org. 

PhotoDater™ from MyHeritage: Another Amazing Technological Advance

 

You can read about all the details of this amazing addition to the MyHeritage.com arsenal of photographic innovations in this blog post: "Introducing PhotoDater™, an Exclusive, Free New Feature to Estimate When Old Photos Were Taken."

Here is a quote from the blog post:

If you are like most genealogists, you probably have cherished old family photos whose details, such as when they were taken, remain a mystery. Perhaps you flipped them over hoping to find more details, only to discover that your ancestors who treasured these photos didn’t leave any information behind. Until now, missing details about your photos could have remained a mystery forever, but here at MyHeritage, we set out to find a solution. Today we’re excited to announce the release of PhotoDater™, a groundbreaking, free new feature that estimates the year a photo was taken, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

PhotoDater™ is one-of-a-kind: MyHeritage is the only genealogy service that offers date estimation for historical photos. Using powerful technology developed by our AI team, PhotoDater™ gives its best guess when a photo was taken. This can help you unlock further clues about who appears in the photo and the event at which it was taken, to solve mysteries in your genealogy research. PhotoDater™ is completely free!

I tried it out on several different photos and having spent most of my life involved in photography, I was still impressed with the estimates. I currently have more than 13,000 media items on MyHeritage.com, so it is unlikely that I can date all of them, but having this tool will be a help in identifying unknown individuals and giving dates to a series of photos of one individual or family. This feature was mentioned at RootsTech 2023 earlier this year and it is really great to finally see it in action.  

Famed Portrait Photographer Me Ra Koh to Keynote RootsTech 2023

Here is another announcement from FamilySearch of a Keynote Speaker at the RootsTech 2023 Live conference. The keynotes will also be broadcast to those who sign up for online access. 

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, 16 February 2023—Celebrated photographer Me Ra (pronounced Mee-Rah ) Koh, is a living portrait of resilience. She will share her inspiring story as a keynote speaker at RootsTech 2023, Friday, March 3 at the Salt Palace Convention Center and online at RootsTech.org.   

Koh rose from humble beginnings, including physical and emotional challenges, to become a famed photographer featured on Oprah, Live with Kelly & Ryan, and other popular television shows, sought after photography expert, best-selling author, Disney Channel host, and one of the first two women photographers to be Sony-sponsored. Her family portraiture work has been featured in galleries in London, New York, and Los Angeles, and published in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Martha Stewart, Parenting, and Women’s World.

She is also a sought-after motivational speaker whose inspiring story weaves in and out of personal tragedy, homelessness, and a period in a psychiatric hospital to a successful life as a wife of 25 years, a mother of two young adults, and the co-owner with her husband Brian Tausend of the renowned FIORIA portrait studio in Frisco, Texas, whose sole purpose, she says, is to celebrate people’s resilience.

“Through her work on television, online, and in person, Me Ra has inspired millions of viewers around the world,” said Jonathan Wing, RootsTech creative manager. “We cannot wait for her to inspire our RootsTech audience!”

Me Ra’s message is sure to bring laughter, empowerment, and courage to those who hear her speak. To learn more about this amazing woman, visit Fioria.us.

 You can still register to attend in person, although the price may go up soon. The online registration is free. 

https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/event/rt2023

Comments on Scanning Photos

 

Film-based photos are one of most common genealogically valuable documents that genealogists acquire. In some instances, the number of photos acquired can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true, some genealogists are fortunate to have any images of their ancestors. The earliest photographs date from the 1850s but photography only became common from about 1870. Film photography is no a specialist interest among photographers. Almost all photography is now done digitally. 

The first digital camera was made in 1975 by Kodak engineer Steve Sasson. The original digital camera was about the size of a breadbox, and it took 23 seconds to capture a single image. See "Timeline: The evolution of digital cameras, from Kodak’s 1975 digital camera prototype to the iPhone." The Apple QuickTake camera in 1994 is considered to be the first digital camera under a $1000 that was generally available. The QuickTake camera has a sensor that was slightly more than 1 Megapixel. In 2007, Apple introduced the first iPhone with a built-in camera with a 2MP (megapixel) sensor and 2GBs of memory. 

Much of the advancement of present-day smartphones has focused on the built-in camera. Some smartphones are being advertised with up to 200MP sensors. But close examination of the claims show that the high number is actually equivalent to a 12.5MP camera, the ones current installed in Apple iPhones. 

For genealogists, the smartphone camera revolutionizes research. A researcher, with permission from a library or archive, can collect images of individual records making obsolete the need to use paper and pencil to make handwritten copies. Meanwhile, digitization efforts by a multitude of online websites are adding billions of digital copies every year. 

What about the existing collections of photos and documents in the possession an individual genealogist? New digitization equipment is measurably speeding up the process. My daughter and her family recently spent a couple of days removing over 9,000 photos from a pile of photograph albums. They then took the photographs to the Brigham Young University Family History Library and digitized the entire 9,000+ images in a few hours. The whole process could have been accomplished in two days. They used the library's high speed Epson FastFoto Wireless Photo & Document Duplex Scanner that can scan as fast as 1 photo per second at 300 dpi (a resolution of 300 dots-per-inch) Higher resolution scanning is available but takes measurably longer to produce and image. In this case, there is no intention of discarding the original photos, but as many of us have noticed, the quality of paper-based photos deteriorates over time. 

If you own a smartphone, you already have a way to digitize your documents. Several tools have been developed to enhance the use of smartphones in digitization process from stabilization devices such as tripods and boom arms to light boxes. 

One of the most sophisticated and reasonably priced solution is the Shotbox.me. This device expands you ability to take good photos using you smartphone or even a dedicated digital camera. 

Shotbox.me

At RootTech 2022, Ancestry® announced a system of apps for uploading photos. See "Ancestry® Integrates Photomyne's Best-in-Class Technology to Help Mobile Customers Upload, Scan, Enhance and Share Family Photos" Quoting from the article:

Unlike other scanning tools, Photomyne’s AI technology uses the phone’s processor and their proprietary algorithms to:

• Auto-detect image boundaries and auto-crop photos
• Scan multiple images from one page and split into individual images
• Enhance and restore the quality of images

In addition, MyHeritage.com announced the addition of a remarkable extension to his suite of photo enhancement and colorization apps that animates the story of an ancestor's life called LiveStory.  See https://www.myheritage.com/livestory

One of the great challenges of acquiring so many digital images is the process of indexing and identifying them. Both Ancestry® and FamilySearch.org have implemented sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) based handwriting recognition programs that will reduce the time now taken to index records from years to days. See Ancestry® to Apply Handwriting Recognition Artificial Intelligence to Create a Searchable Index of the 1950 U.S. Census.

However, when it comes down to processing a huge collection of paper-based records, the time-consuming part is still identifying and filing them in a retrievable fashion. I keep searching for the ultimate way to work through my tens of thousands of documents, but I always end up looking at each, one-at-a-time. 

Live on Facebook to the whole world

 

We are just two days away from this awesome opportunity to hear from this MyHeritage.com panel of experienced genealogists. I have known Thomas MacEntee and Lisa Louise Cooke for many years and they are some of the most consistently, outstanding and dedicated promoters and educators in the world genealogical community. Daniel Horowitz is a wonder. He is easily the most traveled and knowledgeable genealogist in the long history of genealogical research. I think Daniel has probably spoken in more different places to more genealogy societies and in more countries than anyone has ever done. I have met Maureen Taylor on a few occasions over the years and have admired her unbelievable knowledge of genealogy, history, and photography. Her website MaureenTaylor.com is a great asset to all those who have an interest in genealogy. Roberta Estes and Diahan Suthard are worldwide experts in DNA testing and the use of the results from the tests. Both of these DNA experts have had an enormous impact on the greater genealogy community and are well-known outside the field of genealogy.

This panel discussion will be a marvelous opportunity for the entire genealogical community to review some of the issues of this particularly difficult year and hear what may develop in the world of genealogy in the upcoming, more promising year. 

This presentation will be LIVE on Facebook on the MyHeritage Facebook page, 

https://www.facebook.com/myheritage/videos/?ref=page_internal

on December 30th at 2:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. By the way, if you were not aware of the MyHeritage Facebook page, you might want to check out the Videos section. There are a huge number. of inspiring and informational videos waiting for you. You can also see videos on the MyHeritage.com YouTube Channel. Don't forget that MyHeritage.com also has a rapidly growing educational website the MyHeritage Education Knowledge Base, Education.MyHeritage.com with more videos and other resources. 

Comments on social networking posts

Between comments from Protestant Church members worrying about my salvation and lack of a belief in Christ because I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and my conservative friends passing along the latest conspiracy theory or chain-letter sob story, even looking at social networking programs has become somewhat of a chore. The only thing that keeps me looking is to see which of my friends and acquaintances have died recently and to keep up with those of my children who still post. I almost never post anything about me or my personal life on social networking. The only exceptions are photos that I post to Instagram to a very small audience. 

I have a substantial social networking presence despite my antipathy to social networking because of my blogs. I hardly ever get substantial comments on any of my blogs no matter what I write. Genealogy is hardly a controversial subject and neither is my photography. Some of the people I know get long comments that are really tirades on one subject or another. Sometimes when I pass along a post by one of my friends or family members, I get comments calling me a Marxist and claiming that the post is FAKE NEWS always in capital letters. 

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah once said, "We fail to say the right words because we choose to say the wrong words! We choose to say the wrong words because we fail to think about the right words!” Presently, I am caught between the urge to speak my mind and a concern that I would alienate a substantial portion of my friends from the past. I am becoming more and more circumspect in my comments and if I make any at all although I get disgusted with the drivel that gets posted online. 

Here is one example. I live in a smaller town in Utah. I am older and have a medical history that would make catching the COVID-19 virus life-threatening. The people who surround me are either convinced that the whole "virus thing" is a hoax or that wearing a mask is a violation of their "fundamental constitutional rights." Here is a chart showing the progress of the virus here in Utah.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/utah/

We are basically isolated in our home because the people of Utah do not believe there is a problem with over 200,000 people dying in the United States from the COVID-19 virus (as of the date of this post, the number was 203,880). Unbelievably, the government of Utah, six months into a pandemic is still debating back and forth about an appropriate response. In my opinion, this indecision is caused by the huge percentage of the population, including the government people, who do not yet view the pandemic as a public health issue and still think it is a political issue.

I was a trial attorney in Arizona for almost forty years. I have spent most of my life listening to clients and evaluating evidence for lawsuits. I am very familiar with outrageous claims, emotional rants, diatribes, claims that rights have been violated, and all of the other impedimenta of the law. I have handled cases involving hurt feelings and cases involving matters of life and death. In all those years, I cannot say I have ever run across a claim so lacking in any logical or legal support than that someone has a legal right to put my life in danger by failing to wear a cloth facemask. I have extensively read the arguments on both sides of the face mask issue. I do not believe, after years of teaching and arguing cases involving constitutional law that there is anything about the public health practices of isolating actively contagious people or requiring them to wear a face-covering that violates any basic right and certainly nothing in the Constitutional Law of the United States of America. Wearing or not wearing a mask is not a political issue or a political statement. It is a dangerous intrusion on my basic human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Objections to the wearing a mask usually involve using words such as those quoted in an article entitled, "The Constitution doesn’t have a problem with mask mandates." Here is a quote that expresses what those who claim wearing masks violate their rights usually say:

Mandatory masks violate the First Amendment right to speech, assembly, and especially association and mandatory masks violate a person’s constitutional right to liberty and to make decisions about their own health and bodily integrity.

There is an old legal saying that your right ends where mine begins. Wearing a mask does not limit my freedom of expression. Wearing a mask does not restrict my liberty in any way. The evidence that face masks limit the spread of contagious diseases is overwhelming. Your decision to spread a communicable disease does not rise to the level of a right to liberty. Online, I was able to find 516 Federal Court cases involving the term "face mask." Many of these cases involved facts that did not have anything to do with rights, they were cases where a plaintiff was alleging damage due to an employer refusing to allow the plaintiff to wear a protective facemask in dangerous situations such as welding, and other activities involving potential harm. Another large number of cases had to do with inmates in prison who were ill and required to wear protective masks even when they were not contagious. 

However, the issue of face masks during COVID-19 pandemic has come up in the Federal Court system. The case of United States of America v. Vincent J. Trimarco, Jr. Defendant. 17-CR-583 (JMA) (E.D.N.Y. Sep. 1, 2020). Has some particularly interesting language. The issue of the jury and the defendant wearing face masks was raised as an issue concerning the postponement of the trial. A number of specific constitutional rights were raised concerning the wearing of facemasks and the Court denied all of the defendant's arguments. Here is a summarizing quote from the opinion:

The Court recognizes that proceeding with a trial during an unprecedented global pandemic presents numerous costs, inconveniences, and logistical challenges for all parties involved. Nonetheless, in recent months, the state of New York and the Long Island region, in particular, have experienced significant and sustained improvements in the number of COVID-19 transmissions, hospitalizations, and deaths. Life has slowly begun to approach a return to normalcy in many ways. Just as many businesses have restored their operations while adopting various safety measures, so too must the Court. This encouraging trend has created "a window of opportunity for holding a public trial . . . and it is not clear how long those conditions will maintain." Id. at *2. Public health experts have warned about the possibility of a "second wave" of potential infections in areas where virus conditions have improved. Before that fear materializes, the Court should not squander the opportunity to conduct a trial while utilizing all of the health and safety precautions at its disposal. 

The health and safety precautions mentioned in the case include wearing a face mask. Politicizing a public health issue and endangering my life overcomes my reticence in writing online and posting to social media. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of my own health and safety. Within a few short days, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus will rise dramatically in Utah. I do not want to be one of those who die. 

If you think that your rights are being violated by a public health measure, why don't you stop taking baths during our extreme drought in Utah? Why not stop washing your hands or cleaning your house? Why not stop preparing and cooking your food properly? Stop going to the doctor for your illnesses and abandon every other healthy practice? I realize that because I am old you do not care if I die but I can assure you I do and I can still write. So if you decided to post a comment to this post, be aware that I will respond. Also, if you decided to rant about FAKE NEWS and cite bogus studies about how face masks are harmful, I will respond with research. This is not a political statement, it is a matter of my life and my death.

Now over 2,000,000 words

I began using Grammarly.com consistently back on October 8, 2017. That is about 30 months ago. Since that date, the Grammarly program has logged all of the words I have written using the program (primarily as a spell checker). Accordingly, as of the date of this blog post, I have written 2,004,441 words. Of course, I have written many more than that because the program did not and does not work with a lot of the other programs I use such as Microsoft Word (this week Grammarly.com announced support for Microsoft Word). By the way, Microsoft is coming out with an app that will work with the Microsoft Office 365 program (soon to be Microsoft 365) that will have similar features called Microsoft Editor which will be available on April 21, 2020. See "Introducing Microsoft 365."

As I may have written previously, I seem to have traded off talking for writing. When I was younger, I talked a lot but as I grew older, I started to write more and talk less, although now I sometimes talk to myself.

Obviously, you can take classes on learning how to write. Perhaps my writing would have been better over the years if I had actually taken classes in writing. But somehow, I think that writing over 2 million words is probably a good way to learn how to write. Depending on the complexity of the subject matter, I can spend quite a bit of time re-reading and revising what I write, but usually, I do the revisions as I write so I can write more. It does take time and a lot of thought to write but once I have a subject, I can usually just explain what I have in my head. However, I often need to do a lot of research both before I start and while I am writing.

I think that my first "serious" writing began when I was in my late teens and early twenties. My first attempts were writing poetry and I ended up studying the History of the English Language as a second major to my degree in Linguistics so I did take a few English classes. I was also employed on a National Science Foundation project to develop a sequenced instructional program for teaching poetry to Middle School students. I wrote a lot of poetry but then just stopped. Subsequently, I began to dream of writing novels, mostly science fiction. I did write a few but never pursued trying to get any of them published. Meanwhile, I started writing and technically publishing a huge amount of legal stuff while in law school and afterward while working as an attorney. The blogs came about as a development of my legal writing. Here is a link to the first "Genealogy's Star" blog post I wrote back on November 21, 2008. Check out the FamilySearch Wiki. You can see that I have come a long way from those early attempts.

Now, I am at blog post number 5,718 just from those blog posts for Genealogy's Star. My other passion is photography. I have gotten to the point of publishing books, I think I am author and co-author on about 25 or so books and I do publish my photos on Adobe Stock and sell a few from time to time. I think a lot of authors and photographers assume that "selling" their work is a validation of its worth. Since there are probably billions of photographers now and maybe just about as many authors, I am not deluded enough to think that I could ever make any serious money from writing or photography although that might have been the case if I had decided to focus on writing or photography much earlier in my life.

I guess I will end this blog with a photo I took recently.

This seems appropriate for the time being. See https://walkingarizona.blogspot.com/

Amazing New Technology: MyHeritage In Color™

https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/02/colorize-your-black-and-white-photos-automatically-with-myheritage-in-color/

This fabulous new technology has been online only one day as of the date of this post. The concept of MyHeritage In Color™ is fairly simple: it adds outstanding color to existing black and white photographs. Let me start with an example from my own archive. This is an original photo of my Grandmother, Eva Margaret Overson Tanner.

I went to the Colorize your heritage website and uploaded this photo and in about 10 seconds (I have a very fast internet connection) I was able to download the following:

I can now see where the "red" hair in our family came from. This photo now appears to be overexposed which was not so evident in the original black and white (monochrome) version. I pulled the photo into Adobe Lightroom and made so additional edits.

It wouldn't take me much more time to enhance the photo even more. However, I can't imagine how long it would take me to colorized the black and white version, assuming I could figure out how to do that.

Here is another photo that shows a group of people from the Overson family. This photo is from a glass plate negative that I digitized. My Grandmother, Eva Margaret Overson Tanner is standing in the middle of the right side group. She is a lot younger than she is in the photo above.

Now, let's look at the photo after sending through the MyHeritage In Color™process.

Starting back in the mid-1800s, shortly after the invention of photography, colorizing was an extremely slow and tedious process. Here is an example of a hand-coloured daguerreotype by J. Garnier, c. 1850.

By J. Garnier (active ca. 1840s - 1860s)

Interestingly, the skin tones and colors are almost identical to the ones generated by the MyHeritage In Color™process.

What I see in the colorized versions of my own photographs is a lot more detail. Not that the detail is not there in the black and white versions, but the color adds depth and definement to the photos. Here is another example from my own archive of photos. First with the black and white.

Now the colorized version:

I can imagine that there are thousands of people trying to colorize hundreds of people today. I have noticed that some of the links do not work immediately. I suggest waiting until the initial rush wears off. However, as you can see, I was able to colorize these photos.

How to take better photos for genealogy: Part Five: Cameras

There have been some major shifts in photographic technology during the past few years. Of course, the major transition was from film-based cameras to digital cameras. The first digital camera was invented by Steven Sasson in 1975 while he was working at Eastman Kodak. Unfortunately, the first digital image was not saved. See "The Worlds First Digital Camera, Introduced by the Man Who Invented It." The first digital camera weighed about 8 pounds and created a .01 MP (Megapixel) image. The images were stored on a cassette tape.

Trying to even review the number of models of digital cameras available today can be overwhelming. However, cameras do fall into a number of general categories. Here are some of the most commonly used categories based on the skill or sophistication of the user:

• Smartphone cameras
• Point-and-shoot cameras
• Prosumer cameras
• Professional cameras

Another way to classify cameras is by the technology. Here is a list of some of the different general types of cameras by the technology used:

• Smartphone cameras
• Point-and-shoot cameras
• DSLR or Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras
• Mirrorless Cameras

Another distinction is between cameras with an integral or fixed lens and cameras that have interchangeable lens systems. You will immediately note that there is an overlap between the different types of classifications. 

It is important to know, as is commonly repeated, that the best camera is the one you have when you need to take a photograph. 

What is happening today is that the quality of the images being produced by all types of cameras is increasing dramatically and the difference in the quality of the photographs being produced is collapsing in that almost any newer camera will take a very adequate looking photograph. Essentially, all newer cameras are computers as well as cameras. 

Now I need to start with some fundamental concepts. First of all, all photographic images on all of the types of cameras depend on the quality of the camera's lens. But the latest camera technology is using software to "correct and enhance" the images from the camera so that it is becoming more and more difficult to tell the difference between an image made with a high-end and expensive camera using a very expensive lens and the image made from some smartphone cameras. Subsequently, the market for high-end DSLR camera systems is crashing and very high-quality cameras are becoming less expensive. Of course, the die-hard professional photographer will still insist that really good photography requires a really good (read expensive) lens system and camera, but for those who do not aspire to become professionals, high quality can be obtained at a reasonable price. 

To give you an idea of the difference, you can buy any number of very high-resolution cameras for well under $1000.00. For example, a new Canon - EOS M50 Mirrorless Camera with EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Zoom Lens with a 24.1 APS-C CMOS sensor is currently selling for $599.99. 

If you are the type of person who reads reviews before purchasing anything, then you will be overwhelmed with reviews about the different camera types available. To add even more complexity to the subject, there are thousands of lens options for all of these different cameras and every lens has its own set of reviews. There are thousands of reviews that compare different models of cameras and lens combinations to each other and other reviews that insist that a certain level of camera and absolutely essential to being a "good" photographer.

But the camera does not make the photographer. One of the newest photographic controversies is raging over the quality of images from Apple's new iPhone 11 Pro and any number of high-end DSLR or Mirrorless cameras. Here is one recent example: "Photo battle between an iPhone 11 Pro and a $7,500 DSLR might surprise you." The difference today is being called "computational photography." I might mention that I opted for a new iPhone 11 Pro rather than purchasing a newer DSLR or equivalent camera and if you take a look at the photos on WalkingArizona.blogspot.com you might have to try and guess which ones are taken with smartphone and opposed to my currently two other cameras; a Sony and Canon.

So what is the answer for a genealogist? If you have a newer camera, say no more than 2 or 3 years old, you probably have all that you really need to take acceptable photos. If you are trying to "make do" with an old, inexpensive camera, you might want to think about upgrading. If you are going retro and insist on using a film camera, there is not much I can do to help you. If you have a huge pile of photographs and need to digitize them, I suggest investing in a good flatbed scanner rather than a camera. If you don't want to upgrade your smartphone, you might consider any one of the below $500 range Canon, Nikon, Sony, Samsung, or Panasonic cameras available.

Stay tuned for more on cameras.

See the previous posts here:

Part One: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/11/how-to-take-better-photos-for-genealogy.html
Part Two: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/11/how-to-take-better-photos-for-genealogy_15.html
Part Three: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/11/how-to-take-better-photos-for-genealogy_20.html
Part Four: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/11/how-to-take-better-photos-for-genealogy_21.html

To see some of my images go to Walking Arizona or https://walkingarizona.blogspot.com/