# What do you think of this? Would you have wanted one of your parents, or one of yourself?



## Jo Stickel (Dec 3, 2020)




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## Gaer (Dec 3, 2020)

I think it's very nice.  Sometimes they forget stories told.


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## Murrmurr (Dec 3, 2020)

I am and always have been a live-in-the-moment person and that rubbed off on my kids, so it surprised me when my grandkids got giddy over some old photo albums they found in my closet one day and sat quiet and open-mouthed while I answered all their who, what, and where questions about the pictures. I won't be spending $1000 on this biography thing, though.


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## Aunt Marg (Dec 3, 2020)

Gosh, I knew I remembered this being posted somewhere, and I was sure it here on the forum, and sure enough, after a good long dig, I found it.

https://www.seniorforums.com/thread...-bombed-here-is-her-story.51086/#post-1439449

Felt it be a shame to not include the above link in with this latest conversation.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Dec 3, 2020)

I think this idea is very nice for some people but If my parents had left me something like this I doubt I could get through the video without breaking down completely. I have enough trouble looking at the old photo albums.
I doubt my kids would want this type of video. 
I have marked all the old photos I have with names and places so after I'm gone that will have to be enough..


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 3, 2020)

Murrmurr said:


> I am and always have been a live-in-the-moment person and that rubbed off on my kids, so it surprised me when my grandkids got giddy over some old photo albums they found in my closet one day and sat quiet and open-mouthed while I answered all their who, what, and where questions about the pictures. I won't be spending $1000 on this biography thing, though.


I understand that. My kids wouldn't appreciate something like this until I am long gone. Though my grandkids never seem to get sick of my stories (maybe they're just being polite!) What if your grandkids pitched in to make it for you? Then they could pass it along to their children and grandchildren and so forth...


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 3, 2020)

Ruth n Jersey said:


> I think this idea is very nice for some people but If my parents had left me something like this I doubt I could get through the video without breaking down completely. I have enough trouble looking at the old photo albums.
> I doubt my kids would want this type of video.
> I have marked all the old photos I have with names and places so after I'm gone that will have to be enough..


Ruth n Jersey, do you think your grandkids would want one of you? Then they could show their kids and grandkids their wonderful grandma


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## bowmore (Dec 3, 2020)

We are in the process of making a photo album on Shutterfly. It is kind of fun, with captions


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## Sassycakes (Dec 3, 2020)

*I treasure any memories I have from the past. Pictures ,Cards and VHS's of the family. Just yesterday I came across letters from when I was 15yrs old and had just started dating my Husband I went on a family vacation and we wrote each other every day. There were also letters we wrote when he was in Boot Camp a few months before our wedding. Even though reading them again made me tear up, I loved that I still had them After I read them I made my Husband read them. He looked at me after he read them and smiled.*


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## Murrmurr (Dec 3, 2020)

Jo Stickel said:


> I understand that. My kids wouldn't appreciate something like this until I am long gone. Though my grandkids never seem to get sick of my stories (maybe they're just being polite!) What if your grandkids pitched in to make it for you? Then they could pass it along to their children and grandchildren and so forth...


I cherish everything my grandkids give me. My foster son proudly gave me a small rock he found during one of our daily walks a few months ago. I glued it onto the lid of my favorite teapot like a finial, which it needed anyway, and that delighted him to no end.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Dec 3, 2020)

Jo Stickel said:


> Ruth n Jersey, do you think your grandkids would want one of you? Then they could show their kids and grandkids their wonderful grandma


I'm not sure if they would or not. They are both young boys who at this point are only interested in their computer games. I'm around them enough so that they both will remember me well and my daughter has tons of photos.


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## Sunny (Dec 4, 2020)

Seems like a nice idea, except for the price.


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 4, 2020)

Sunny said:


> Seems like a nice idea, except for the price.


$1000.00 for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and ggg, etc... to have my entire life story seems reasonable. I ask them about it and they say they are happy to pitch $100 each (my one Christmas request  )


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## Gaer (Dec 4, 2020)

My question is:  Won't your great-grandaughter be holding this like an 8-track tape, looking for  a player?
The advance of technology in the future is beyond imagination.


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## hollydolly (Dec 5, 2020)

Gaer said:


> My question is:  Won't your great-grandaughter be holding this like an 8-track tape, looking for  a player?
> The advance of technology in the future is beyond imagination.


that's a very good point Gaer


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## Gary O' (Dec 5, 2020)

Murrmurr said:


> I won't be spending $1000 on this biography thing, though.


Yeah, $1000 is just plain nuts.
Anybody can do a YouTube...for nothing.

It is good to put something like that together, though.
My brother and I got out the big box of photos
About half of them, we didn't know who they were....


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## Murrmurr (Dec 5, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Yeah, $1000 is just plain nuts.
> Anybody can do a YouTube...for nothing.
> 
> It is good to put something like that together, though.
> ...


When I was a kid cameras and film were so affordable it seemed like everybody had one, and you could process a roll of 24 frames for just a few bucks and some change. My almost excessively organized mother had several 100 photos divvied up in boxes with labels - vacation, holidays, family, and then a box with each of us kids' names on it that had photos of our birth (those pics they used to take in the hospital nursery the day you were born), birthdays, school photos, scouting and sports photos, etc. - and she wrote a paragraph or two on the back of every photo with the who, what, and where.

When me and my sisters got married (to our fiances), one of our wedding gifts was a photo album she put together from our box plus an equal share of the photos from all the other boxes. Me and both my sisters did the same, so this became a tradition. Except none of us have any photos after around 2003 or 4, when cameras were put on phones. Laziness on our part, I guess...I still have 2 old cell phones sitting around with about 300 pictures on them waiting to get processed.

(edit: which could cost a few 100 bucks right there!)


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## Gary O' (Dec 5, 2020)

Murrmurr said:


> Laziness on our part


Yeah, ease of doing things make it an *'I can do this anytime, maybe later'* thing

I've got a ton of old format family videos that I need to upgrade someday

....someday


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## Sliverfox (Dec 5, 2020)

Gary'O,, you know someday never  comes.
Just like tomorrow,,,one step ahead of you,, till no longer there.


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## Kathleen’s Place (Dec 7, 2020)

Jo Stickel said:


>


My oldest granddaughter gave me a journal about 5 years ago and asked me to write my life story...memories of when I was young, when she was growing up etc.  i have started it a million times and just can’t do it for some reason.  Part of my childhood was wonderous and some not.  Do I be truthful and include the bad parts?  I don’t know. I feel bad. It’s the only thing she has ever asked of me andI’m failing her miserably. I tried doing one of those memory recording things...sure wasn’t anywhere near $1000, but that was worse .  I have written down all sorts of things to include in my journal...ideas to get me started etc and it’s not working.  Have any of you ever done something like this?


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 7, 2020)

Kathleen’s Place said:


> My oldest granddaughter gave me a journal about 5 years ago and asked me to write my life story...memories of when I was young, when she was growing up etc.  i have started it a million times and just can’t do it for some reason.  Part of my childhood was wonderous and some not.  Do I be truthful and include the bad parts?  I don’t know. I feel bad. It’s the only thing she has ever asked of me andI’m failing her miserably. I tried doing one of those memory recording things...sure wasn’t anywhere near $1000, but that was worse .  I have written down all sorts of things to include in my journal...ideas to get me started etc and it’s not working.  Have any of you ever done something like this?


Hi Kathleen if I were in your shoes, I would sit down and fill out that book immediately for her. Or, maybe do one section a night. Be truthful! She's going to become an adult one day and can certainly handle it. She may even learn from it! I can't tell you how many times I wish I had a better memory of my parents or grandparents' stories so that I could share them with my grandkids. (This is why I like this video memoir format, though, because all I have to do is sit and talk. I can do that for hours!)   $1,000 isn't much, especially if your kids split up the cost or when you consider the amount of work that you could be spending writing a whole memoir.


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 7, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Yeah, ease of doing things make it an *'I can do this anytime, maybe later'* thing
> 
> I've got a ton of old format family videos that I need to upgrade someday
> 
> ....someday


Gary, take your videos to Costco. They do all old formats there. Then you have them forever.


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 7, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Yeah, $1000 is just plain nuts.
> Anybody can do a YouTube...for nothing.
> 
> It is good to put something like that together, though.
> ...


You should film yourself then for your kids or grandkids to have when you're gone. You will never know how much they will miss you. Put the photos into the video too, to give context!


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## Jo Stickel (Dec 7, 2020)

Gaer said:


> My question is:  Won't your great-grandaughter be holding this like an 8-track tape, looking for  a player?
> The advance of technology in the future is beyond imagination.


Maybe, but then again we still have home videos in our family that we've converted from the 60s. We just keep updating the format, and now they're on the internet, everyone in our family can have a copy of my parents' video, not just me with the old tapes.


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## Glowworm (Feb 16, 2021)

bowmore said:


> We are in the process of making a photo album on Shutterfly. It is kind of fun, with captions


Every year I make a photobook using one of the online services for each of my grandchildren of things they have done during the year. These books are eagerly awaited and they spend hours going through them.


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## Lewkat (Feb 16, 2021)

The idea is great, but the price is just stupid.  With a bit of ingenuity we could all do this for a pittance.


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## Glowworm (Feb 16, 2021)

Like Lew I think the whole idea is great but I certainly wouldn't pay 1000 US Dollars for that service. You can do the same thing in a program like Adobe Premiere or iMovie without too much difficulty or make your own interactive e-books online for much less. Or you can make a photobook. The last photobooks I made for my grandchildren came in at around 50 US Dollars each and that was for a book of around 70 pages.


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