First, I feel a need to explain the influence that my grandparents had on our family. They were both very accomplished, independent and confident in the way things should be done. However, in stark contrast to those attributes, these two people could not be more forgiving. Anytime a family member needed help (for any reason) my grandparents would be right there, waiting to lend a hand. If I tried to detail the instances of this behavior I would be writing a novel.
There was such magnitude to their life story. I realized just HOW MUCH when I had to copy photos for family after they had passed away. While going through their life in pictures I came across several wonderful photos that were ripped and fading. There were some really old negatives piled into boxes of papers. I was saddened to see that this was what was left of their lives. I also realized that a copied photo doesn't provide my children with the scope of their spirit, of their accomplishments and family dedication or the tragedies they survived.
I am a photographer. I capture and preserve "moments". I create wedding albums to eternalize a single day. I began to think ... What can I do to keep their Legacy alive?
After 2 months of research and planning, the concept of The Legacy Book™ was born.My mother and I had several "brainstorming" days where we ultimately decided the content to include, the process of getting it to the design phase as well as what the final book would look like.
We found a publisher that could provide the quality we desired and put our plan into action.
We gathered absolutely everything we could find. Photos, negatives, letters, postcards, news clippings, momentos etc. We were on a treasure hunt! It was exciting when we found an old WWII complete scrapbook that even had a couple of WWI postcards in it. These two postcards held vital clues to the identification of a family member - previously unknown to us.
After we had everything together it was sorted by decade, regardless of which family extension they belonged to. It was fascinating to go through what had been found. The sorting was an integral part of piecing their lives together.
Scanning: Everything we had was scanned at high resolutions with professional grade equipment. As soon as each decade was scanned, the original negatives were archived into the appropriate negative sleeve, slides went into archival slide holders and prints were carefully placed in archival quality albums.
Identification: We all have unnamed photographs. We began to identify people one decade at a time. Throughout our photo timeline (114years) we came across several unidentified people. Fortunately, through letters, postcards and other labeled photographs, we were able to identify them.
Research: Originally research was not part of our goal. While we were gathering information for my grandfather's family, there was not much to be found. He had a younger brother who died in WW1 on Anzio Beach. Any photos of this young man had been lost through the years and we had nothing. I wanted to have him in the book because of the sacrifice that he made, as well as the fact that he had no children to carry on his memory. At this point research became another step in our process. Through letters from the war department (in my grandfather's briefcase) I learned the infantry division that he was a part of. This information led us to searches that resulted with his enlistment records, the timeline and story of his infantry in the war as well as the exact location of his burial in Italy. While we were not able to show his photo in our legacy, we were able to give a complete account of his involvement in WWI along with his stats and ID numbers.
This part of our process also led to the acquiring of historical newspapers to help document the state of the world at different points in our timeline. These headlines can now be used to complete future Legacy Books.
We chose to start our legacy one generation above our focal point. Once we had all of our information together, the individual page design was started. Each page is a new story and each photo commanding a different emotion. This is why "pre-designed" pages just wouldn't work. A pre-designed page or template is essentially a "shell" that would place photos into a predetermined format. We designed each page around the photos/story that would be included on it, making every single page an individual work of art.
We contacted family to ask that they contribute stories to complete our legacy.
Our research convinced us to create a family tree (generated into a geneology report) that we included in the last two pages. The final touch was a series of "reflections" pages where everyone could add a memorial paragraph about the people we focused on, creating a perfect ending to our family's Legacy Book.
