Announced in a recent press release . . . and just in time for Christmas, The Generations Network, Inc., operators of Ancestry.com and other genealogy web sites, has teamed its virtual storytelling service, MyCanvas.com, with a photo-sharing site, SmugMug.com, to provide user tools for creating custom photo books, calendars, and posters. MyCanvas.com, launched a year ago as Ancestry Press but recently rebranded. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Mountain View, Califormia, SmugMug.com operates a photo sharing site.

Labels: genealogy products, photographs

Pretty much everyone has a collection of old photos, many with minimal to no identifying information. Such photos typically end up at the bottom of the picture box and stored away -- sometimes even thrown away. Similarly, there may be photos and other memorabilia of casual friend, acquaintances, or distant relatives that really have no place in the family story or the family album. These, too, may get stored away and eventually trashed. Today there are options for sharing these photos. The article, "Sharing Old Photos," discusses some of the options. It's possible to end up being the recipient as well as the contributor to the cause.

Labels: online resources, photographs

According to a recent article on WashingtonPost.com, the Tel Aviv-based family tree site MyHeritage has received a $15 million second-round investment from London's Index Ventures, and is now launching a face-recognition feature said to help users organize photos based on who appears in the photos. It can also be used with photos on sites like Flickr, Facebook and Picasa, the article said.

Labels: online resources, photographs, technology

We've all had the urge, no doubt, at some point, to completely erase a chapter of our lives or make a few tidy changes to the past. We now have that power, it seems, but at what cost? The article, "Photoshop vs. history," on seattlepi.com discusses the practice altering photos using modern image-editing software and thereby altering history. Is it revisionist history or something more? Revisionist history is the revision of history based on new information or the reinterpretation of existing information. Given the types of manipulations, the question becomes, what can you trust? As the article suggests it's "just a tad scary -- to contemplate the possibility that many of the tangible artifacts our civilization leaves behind may prove to be, well, lies."

Labels: documentation, ethics, genealogy issues, photographs