New glasses helped Jerry see the Invisible

A slight change for this week's blog: Jerry McFarland writes about his Christmas 1959.

Two weeks before Christmas in 1959, when I was eight years old, I was told I had poor vision. Surprised. I thought I could see just fine. Then came eye glasses, and my world changed forever.

That day would be like no other, for now all within my sight was alive. Like opening a chest of polished stones, wet after a new spring rain, light sparkled and danced on edges cut fine with detail. Trees had leaves, form and texture! Intricate lines and shading appeared where none were before.

The writing in my school books no longer appeared to be black abstract forms. I could even see the wrinkles in Mrs. Robinson’s face. I never knew she looked so old! Nothing was opaque or non-descript. Atoms and molecules, electric with vibration, mixed with colors of turquoise and blue and jumped off the glossy National Geographic page. A book of images taken by Ansel Adams, given me by grandma, was foreboding and strange; yet the eerie shadows fascinated and intrigued me. The desert rocks, arched canyons and streams were beautiful. It seemed as if I could touch and feel these objects with my new eyes. I had never known such a visual feast!

Then for a moment, I became sad as I reflected on all that had previously escaped my sight. How much was there that I had not seen, and what had I missed?

Joy soon replaced sadness, for now I had my new eyes. I had new purpose. I would never shut my eyes, I thought. And I wondered, how many other things do we believe are non-existent simply because our eyes do not see them? And in that crystalline moment, I felt certain there must be so many things human eyes cannot see that are real.

I pondered God’s miracles; what of angels, Jesus, and the devil? Maybe even Santa Claus and the elves were there, but just beyond my sight! It was no longer what I could see, but that which I could not! I was certain that most of what could not be seen, was good stuff: like Jesus and Santa!

I gave thanks to God for my new glasses. I was certain this was to be the best Christmas ever!

Jerry McFarland is a gifted musician, songwriter and recording artist who also turns his talents to writing. Songs from his latest CD, "Voices from the Attic" can be heard on Jerry's MySpace page and purchased on iTunes. Read more!

"Every child deserves a great future..."

At a time when most small businesses are cutting back and watching their pennies, we have decided to make the biggest gift in our history! We are donating a full-length, custom produced, personal history documentary to be auctioned live at the Thirteenth Annual Gala Teddy Bear Ball to be held on Monday December 7, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Actually, the decision to donate was easy. The Help Group serves children with special needs related to autism, Asperger's disorder, learning disabilities, ADHD, mental retardation, abuse and emotional problems. It is the largest nonprofit organization of its kind in the United States.

The Help Group's motto is: 'Because every child deserves a great future…'

We specialize in producing custom personal and family history films. All the stories we record represent the successful futures that the subjects managed to achieve. For kids with special needs, there may not be any successful futures - without the help of organizations like The Help Group.

Does a donation of this magnitude - in these tough times - sting just a little bit? Not even a little. Despite these dismal economic times, we are finishing our busiest year on record. It seems that people are turning to the important things in life. Like family, and honoring and remembering loved ones. Spending money on something that will be a treasure for generations does not seem to be an issue for our clients.

I wrote a blog article about this return to core values that I am seeing in our business. It is called "It's not about the toys".

Your Story Here has now recorded more than 60 personal history documentaries, including the sprawling story of a successful Italian American family - the Giacchinos. Michael Giacchino, Hollywood composer for movies like the Incredibles, Ratatouille and Cloverfield was pretty happy with the result: "They did a great job on a pretty complicated family history. The finished product was awesome."


The Giacchino documentary (snippet above) starts with Michael's older brother John in the kitchen with their father. They are cooking home-made pasta together and arguing the merits of bottled garlic.

The importance of recording personal and family history was recognized by Robert De Niro in Esquire magazine in December 2002. In an article titled "What I've learned" he noted that when a parent died, it was the end. He said "I always wanted to chronicle the family history with my mother. She was always interested in that. I wanted some researchers I'd worked with to talk to my mother, but my mother was a little antsy about it. I know she would've gotten into it... But I wasn't forceful, and I didn't make it happen. That's one regret I have. I didn't get as much of the family history as I could have for the kids." Read more.

For those attending The Help Group Teddy Bear Gala this coming Monday, they should have no cause for the regret Robert De Niro feels. All they need to do is outbid the guy at the other table and take home a custom produced personal history documentary from Your Story Here!
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Real Life Drama

You don't need to turn on the History Channel to see the impact the dramatic events of the 20th century have had on ordinary people's lives.

Many of our video biography subjects lived through the climactic times: The Depression, Pearl Harbor, WWII and the Holocaust, Mass Immigration, the Cold War - and more recently the social turmoil of the 1960s and Vietnam. I find that the children are almost always curious about those times - often more interested than our subjects expect!

This is, of course, history personally experienced.


Take Marvin Yarin. In 1944, at the age of 18, Marvin joined the invasion forces in Europe. GIs like Marvin were not expected to live long or to survive serious injury. And, being Jewish, capture by the Germans carried special risk. But he survived unhurt and returned home through Bremerhaven - the very same port his grandparents left when coming to America in 1881!

The shocking events of world history are written in the memories of many of our parents, our friends, our neighbors, and also our selves. These stories - as well as ordinary family traditions - can be kept alive through the children, and then their children. Alyce Doney's roots are Armenian, and she keeps alive the story of the terrible genocide - as well as happier memories like her mother's cooking.



The urge to preserve our life stories is as old as civilization. Until recently, the options were limited to personal memoirs and talking on tape. Now, we have video biography. The ability to make affecting, affordable, A&E-style life story videos about ordinary people is a wonderful boon to our subjects and their families and a solemn privilege for Your Story Here.

To go to our YouTube Channel click here. Read more!

Make your own biography or genealogy blog (video optional)

Video biography is just one way to showcase your biography or genealogy work. Another excellent way is through a blog.

Most people know about blogs these days. They look and feel just like a website - only better (you're reading one!). But not everyone knows how easy they are to open and operate. Ask my 12 year old son, he even has his own blog!

So, if you have been "umming and arring" this last little while, let me give you some ideas - and some courage - for getting started. And I'll keep it simple.

First off a plug for video - it is a fine way to showcase your biography, genealogy and ancestry work, as the Italian-American Giacchino story shows.

But blogs are pretty cool too. You can pack them with info, they're free, you can email links to them and they can be accessed anywhere in the world. People can comment on what you write and you can reply, you can update daily or yearly or never, always fix errors or mistakes (even after you've posted), plus add photos or documents or video or links to your favorite websites. And, you can do it all yourself. Really. You don't need a web designer or web master - you're the driver!

Me? I like Blogger and Wordpress. These guys host the blog (i.e. take care of the technical end). Just above is the sign up screen for Blogger, which is owned by Google. (Told you it was free, and quick.) You will need to dream up a name for the blog, enter your email address, come up with a password, choose a "theme" (what the page will look like), and you are off to the races. If you have text already, you simply copy and paste it in (I always save it as plain text first).

I find WordPress a little more wordy (more PC than Mac if you know what I mean). It has more choices in themes (page looks) and it seems to give you more configuration choices. But, it probably isn't as easy for the first timer as Blogger (my 12 year old uses Blogger) and you do have to pay to add video directly to your blogs (unless you embed a link to YouTube or another video hosting site).

Now, you'll want to add widgets (Blogger-speak) or gadgets (WordPress-speak) to your blog. These are just the little doo-dads you see on the side of blogs like this one (links, recent posts, archives, labels, or "quote of the day" - check the bottom of this page - and so on). There are hundreds to choose from. My advice: stick to the classics. And experiment. (The only difference between us and the kids with all this new technology is we think we will break something - and they know you can't. It's all just zeros and ones!)

OK, you're thinking, maybe I'll give Blogger a try. But what if I get stuck? Well, you probably will get stuck at some point. Especially if you want to do the tricky stuff. Both Blogger and WordPress have very helpful search boxes where you can type in your problem or question (WordPress fractionally better here for me). And if all else fails, delete the blog and start again.

Need inspiration? There are thousands of excellent biography and genealogy blogs. A good place to start is GeneaBloggers - everything you ever wanted to know about starting and running a genealogy blog plus countless links to excellent biography and genealogy blogs. Or, click on my friends' faces on the right and follow the "links" to their blog pages, such as Grandma Austin's Diaries, 100 Years in America, Grandma's House, and The Thacker Chronicles.

So, if you have a life or family you want to celebrate, come on in - the water's fine!

By the way, I stumbled across this tidy comparison chart between Blogger and Wordpress this morning. If you've had experience with WordPress or Blogger, leave me a comment! Read more!

Heritage images from the LOC

It was time for some new birthday cards to use in our video biography business. And what better way to celebrate a birthday than with images that form part of our national heritage?

This one is called "Ears that hear not". It was taken around 1914 in the Appalachians. There is a vast visual treasure in our national museums and collections. And with the magic of modern technology, we can view items - from repositories like the Library of Congress - in the comfort and convenience of our homes.

Here is another favorite image of mine. It's a picture of Joseph Schollick, an osteologist at the National Museum in Washington - taken in 1923. (I think we have moved beyond the wholesale exploitation of nature that, sadly, marked previous centuries.) The LOC make images like these available in a number of sizes, including (for some images) uncompressed "tif" files up to 50MB!

And Yosemite, "Overlooking nature's grandest scenery", as the picture title has it. Dating from 1901, the original image was a stereograph, designed to be used with a stereograph viewer for a 3D effect.
It's fairly common for us to use these or other archive images in our personal history projects. Since many of these images are now part of the public domain, they can be used without restriction in video documentary projects.

And my Mom's favorite: "Farm children playing on a homemade merry-go-around, Williams County, North Dakota." It was taken by Russell Lee in 1937 as part of the Farm Security Administration's national photographic project. (Grandparents can show it when the grandkids ask, "What did you do before computer games?".)

If you are interested in viewing more images from the wonderful collection at the Library of Congress, start here: LOC Images Read more!

Orange County's forgotten history Wild times on San Juan Creek

Most of us traveling the Ortega Highway these days drive pell-mell just to get across the Santa Ana Mountains and onto the 15 Freeway.  We barely notice the creek or the valleys along the way.  Or the history. 

Not so for Doc Wylde.

Doc Wylde is an impassioned naturalist.  Not the airy-fairy tree-hugging kind, but someone who has hunted and fished and camped nature all his life.  Now 82 and living in San Clemente, he remembers as a child traveling along Highway 74 in his father’s Model A Ford to get to the family cabin 13 miles from Capistrano on the San Juan Creek. 

As a youngster he hoisted trout out of San Juan’s pools by hand, moving them from smaller to larger pools so they would survive the summer dry spell.  He collected wild honey from the hills, being careful to avoid the mountain lions that lived in the clefts of Sitton Peak.  Later, he would give Elynor his Sigma Chi Fraternity pin during a USC pledge party at the cabin (properly chaperoned of course.) 

Some of Doc Wylde’s best memories come from San Juan Creek.

Like how he and his buddies (and their girl friends) used to sneak into the thermal pools along the 74.  The pools were part of the old San Juan Hot Springs Resort, long ago boarded up, but still making a hot water stream along the 74.

Or the time Doc went shooting quail along the 74 with his shotgun.  Not hitting any birds, he volunteered to use his posterior as a test target.  (“I was wearing jeans,” he protests, to avoid being thought too bone-headed.)  Sure enough, the problem was not the gun, and Doc was pulling shotgun pellets out of his bottom for weeks.

An even less pleasant memory of San Juan Creek comes from the war years (WWII).  Doc let friends talk him into breaking into cabins along the creek.  They got in, got out, and Doc became very popular giving the loot away at school.  Then the sheriff arrived at school.  Doc spent two weeks in the Orange County lock-up.  “It sure taught me a lesson,” he says today.  “I never broke the law ever again.”

As well as a naturalist, Doc is a historian.  Not the pipe-smoking, tweed jacket wearing kind, but someone who all his life has photographed, filmed, processed and preserved his own history and that of his family.  He has created an archive of more than 10,000 images and over 50 hours of film and video footage (including rare 8mm color footage of a fishing trip to Mexico using home made scuba equipment).

Doc the Naturalist and Doc the Historian is an Orange County Original.

Doc is also part of a growing number of Orange County seniors who are preserving their life stories with private, personal history documentaries. Doc created his video biography so that future generations would know his story. "I want them to know something about me and our family history. This video biography is something that I can leave them."

It is increasingly common. There is an enormous interest out there among the baby boomers who see that their parents have lived so much history. According to the Association of Personal Historians, an organization representing personal historians and video biographers from across the United States, membership of the Association has climbed to over 600 from less than 50 only a decade ago.

To see an excerpt of Doc Wylde’s Video Biography, including some of that astonishing home-made scuba footage, follow this link: Wylde Ride
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Our own Ken Burns moments

I am a big Ken Burns fan. Ken Burns makes PBS-aired documentaries on big subjects - baseball, jazz, the civil war, WWII. And starting Sunday September 27, 2009 - there will be "National Parks". While Ken Burns' lens may focus on the larger themes in this country's experience, he leisurely and lovingly builds up his stories from small, personal experiences. Experiences such as those our parents and grandparents might have had.

Interviewed about his new documentary: "The National Parks - America's Best Idea", Ken Burns explained why biography is so important to history:

It has become the fashion that biography is dismissed as hagiography or hero worship and we turn to other forces for explanations – economic, political, social forces that affect events, and they certainly do. But it is so interesting to see, particularly in our history, that individuals do matter, that people can come across something and be a catalyst for change.

Ken Burns is still that curious, quiet kid who discovers an old shoe box of black and white photographs in his grandparents' attic and who holds them, and stares at them, until he has almost willed himself inside the picture. And look! Over there in a box is a bundle of old letters tied with string. Hard to make out the writing ... but what do they say? Wait, are those 8 mm film rolls? I wonder if there's a projector around here...

And so his documentaries unfold using personal history and the artifacts of passed lives to recreate an earlier time and experience. They show that the places and events that our grandparents knew as personal were actually part of a broad current and shared experience.

In the video biographies we make, visits to National Parks often feature as important, formative experiences. In a project we delivered just today, Roger Peck first visited Yellowstone National Park as a child in 1934 (that's him with the bear). In 1949 he returned with his wife-to-be (properly chaperoned of course) and posed in front of that deer antler house (see below). In 1961, he went back again with his own two children. Roger learned to became a naturalist from his parents by visiting wild areas like Yellowstone. And he taught his own children about the wild at that same park years later. And now, at the age of 82, he has preserved his past - including his images and his memories of national parks - in a video biography


Ken Burns inspires us all to preserve our own family history. As accomplished and as polished as his films are, he pulls them together from the simplest of ingredients: photographs, letters, memoirs, interviews, contemporary video of places - all things available to us all. He shows us the ease and simplicity of preserving family history by blending these elements together into a compelling and important story. And he makes us realize that our own unique experiences - aggregated together - constitute the broad flow of history and culture in this great land.

"National Parks" has more contemporary footage than most of his recent documentaries. If the preview material is any guide, it will be a feast for the eye and the emotions. Watch video clips from the documentary. And it should be a prompt for us to go looking through those attics!
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It's not about the toys

I was reading a blog today by Russell Bishop on Huffington Post. He nicely put into words what family history and video biography mean to me:

Distinguish... between material world success (things) and the deeper, more meaningful levels (enriching experiences)... (M)ost of us would prefer inner peace, grace, loving, expansion and caring over material world possessions.

Of course, we all need a basic level of things before we can enjoy those enriching experiences. Most of us remember Mazlow's "hierarchy of needs", his famous 5-level pyramid setting out the foundations for a successful life: physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem then self-actualization. We never get to the higher order needs (like esteem) unless we satisfy the lower order needs (like eating and shelter). Obviously food and shelter are essential things - but some people elevate the drive for things to a competition, i.e. "Who dies with the most toys wins".

I have interviewed hundreds of people in the course of my Your Story Here Video Biography business. Usually, the subjects are over 60 years of age; many are well over 60. The interviews sometimes take 4 or 5 hours. One thing that people almost never mention is the things - the stuff they have acquired along the way.

People remember kindnesses, their parents, fears, challenges attempted and challenges met, friends and siblings, the birth of children. They remember mistakes and they remember successes. They remember falling in love. They remember the name of their first grade teacher more often than you would credit! And though almost everyone wants to talk about their first job and how much they got paid; almost no-one wants to talk about their last job.

No one - so far - has come to the interview with a list of assets or even an outline of their material successes. When the time comes to reflect, I believe the subject knows in their heart what the next generation will truly care about. As Ellen Goodman once wrote:

"What the next generation will value is not what we owned but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved."

Creating a video biography or personal history documentary is a chance to reflect on what one has seen and done and what one has achieved so far. It allows the subject to talk about those who have already passed. It is an opportunity to pass on personal philosophies and hard-won wisdom. It is a gift and a duty to the generations that follow (even if the subject is reluctant) and it is the best chance we have of achieving a kind of immortality.

It's not about the toys. Read more!

10 things (apart from photos) to include in a video memorial

When a loved one passes, many people decide to create a video memorial to honor and remember them. (I have written about my first video memorial in an earlier blog: January 2009.) Time is usually short, and often the best that can be done is to gather the available photos and have them put into an automatically generated slideshow using programs such as iMovie or even Powerpoint.

Special care should be taken in preparing the montage images and I have given hints about that previously: Fixing photographs.

I like to help people create truly memorable tributes to their loved ones which will be treasured for years to come. Today I am going to help you go beyond the simple image sequence.

Your Story Here has created a number of video memorials recently (and sadly). And the basis for each one is normally a series of personal pictures. But what else can you include apart from photographs? Well, the idea is to gather as much and as varied material as possible that helps convey and preserve the uniqueness of the subject.

Stories: A passing is often the occasion for families to reunite - sons and daughters fly in (sometimes from interstate or even overseas) and people's thoughts turn to the happy memories. Some people will be writing and presenting eulogies. We try to take advantage of these impromptu reunions and capture short recollections of the subject from family and friends; often informally before the event. Where we can't record the person directly, we record via webcam or just record audio over the telephone (Skype can help with this) and have it played over an image of the person telling the story.

Captions: You may know the time, place, people and occasion of the photos. If you do, include that as a caption. And always look on the back! There is often a description; and if it's in the person's handwriting, then make sure you scan that and have it included (possibly with a split screen).

Old video footage: In most cases there is video footage of the subject somewhere in the family. You just have to ask! Nothing brings a person back into our memories better than film - ideally with audio also.

Cards and letters: Grandparents - especially - accumulate cards and artwork from their grandchildren. I have never met a grandparent who has thrown away a single picture or letter from a grandchild! These can also be included in the video memorial to show how loved and honored the person was in life.

Poems and sayings: Death, for all its pain, is a prompt to ponder the big issues in life. And a collection of sentiments that the person lived by or that represent their beliefs and philosophies helps us to focus our thoughts. Sometimes a person was known for their sayings or homilies. These can be included as simple text screens or as text "crawls".

Voiceover: One member of the family is often designated to present an overview of the person's life at the service. That same person is often well placed to supply narration or voice over for the visual elements of the video memorial. Sometimes it's enough for the person to review the images and other visual material then say a few words about some of them.

Clippings and memorabilia: Some people have been featured in newspapers or magazines or have kept scrapbooks of high school or college athletic or arts achievements. Some people have trophies and awards, or collections.

Handwriting: I always try to include samples of the subject's handwriting. It may be from a photo description, an old (possibly last) shopping list, or it may be a letter written a long time ago or even recently. It may be a signature from a driver's license or passport.

A DVD box cover: Having put together a stunning video memorial, you should have it packaged so that it is immediately identifiable and records the significant milestones of the person's life. You can also include maps. Family and friends will likely want a copy to keep so it's worth making the project recognizable.

A web posting: Actually, this is the 11th thing. But with the vast choice of free online web hosting available, many people opt to post their video memorial so that it is available at any time and from any computer for any friend or family member.

This is a lot to think about, especially if time is short. But after a while, perhaps with the anniversary of a passing coming up, folks sometimes revisit the subject of the video memorial. With the additional time and thought, a fitting video tribute can be created with photos, and other important artifacts of the life.

Death is life's greatest challenge. But it is only in death that we come to appreciate the true gift and miracle of a life. We encourage people to use the burst of emotion and energy that accompanies these occasions to create a fitting tribute to their loved ones. Make your video memorial truly memorable. Read more!