• Home
  • About Us
  • Services
  • See Our Work
  • Buy Our Book
  • Free ebooks
  • Contact
  • Blog
Menu

Pictures and Stories

Street Address
Salt Lake City, Utah
801.906.0609
your life. in a book.™

Pictures and Stories

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
  • See Our Work
  • Buy Our Book
  • Free ebooks
  • Contact
  • Blog

How to Email a Full-Resolution Photo

April 14, 2014 Alison Taylor
 Here's the scoop on emailing a photo from your computer, smart phone, or tablet at its original resolution.

 

Here's the scoop on emailing a photo from your computer, smart phone, or tablet at its original resolution.

What is the point of having a camera (or digital device) with ginormous giga-megapixels if you're only going to put it on Facebook, anyway?

Because someday you might actually want to print something, that's why.

Read more
In pictures
16 Comments

3 Design Tricks to Make Your Book More Readable

April 9, 2014 Alison Taylor
 A compelling book design will draw your reader in to the story.

 

A compelling book design will draw your reader in to the story.

I'm feeling generous today, so I'm going to give away three professional book design secrets that anyone can use to improve the readability of any book.

Read more
In pictures
Comment

How to Choose Pictures for a Memoir or Family History Book

March 31, 2014 Alison Taylor

You've written your narrative, and now you're ready to choose what photos you want to go with it. But how do you choose the gems from the stacks and boxes of slides, photos, and documents? Here are a few things to consider:

Read more
In pictures
1 Comment

Family Mementos - Keep or Toss?

March 28, 2014 Alison Taylor
Are your mementos bringing you joy or weighing you down? (Photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert)

Are your mementos bringing you joy or weighing you down? (Photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert)

Making decisions about our "family history assets" can leave even the neatest of the neatnicks among us paralyzed with fear. 

What do we do with the accumulation of photos, objects, and other memorabilia that have been handed down to us or that we have collected ourselves? Keep it and burden yet another generation with boxes of stuff? Toss it and face the possibility of losing something of true sentimental or monetary value?

Read more
In pictures, stories
Comment

A "Story Genealogy" Book - By the Numbers (Part Two)

March 26, 2014 Alison Taylor
In this book we created for a client, we started with a couple about five generations back and included all their descendants to the present time. This chart shows the couple's eight children, each of whom are numbered. We used their birth order as …

In this book we created for a client, we started with a couple about five generations back and included all their descendants to the present time. This chart shows the couple's eight children, each of whom are numbered. We used their birth order as the chapter order for the book. 

In the last post we talked about creating a story book about your ancestors, starting with yourself (or your subject) as number one and going back in time.

You can also create a descendancy book: start with an ancestor a few generations back and movie into the present time, highlighting each of his/her descendants.

Read more
In pictures, stories
Comment

A "Story Genealogy" Book - By the Numbers (Part One)

March 24, 2014 Alison Taylor
Want to create a book about your ancestors, but don't have a clue where to start? Start with a simple pedigree chart.

Want to create a book about your ancestors, but don't have a clue where to start? Start with a simple pedigree chart.

At Rootstech last month, a woman stopped me in the hall after my presentation and told me she wanted to create a book about her ancestors, but she didn't have any idea how to organize it. How many generations to include? What if she had more information about some ancestors and very little about others? What order should she put it in?

Read more
In pictures, stories
2 Comments

A "Thank You" Book for Mothers/Fathers Day

March 20, 2014 Alison Taylor
A tribute book can be a great way to honor your parents, grandparents, or other loved ones. You can put one together in a relatively short time.

A tribute book can be a great way to honor your parents, grandparents, or other loved ones. You can put one together in a relatively short time.

I've been thinking about my grandmother lately, as March is the month of her birth. This amazing woman, born just after the turn of the last century, lived to celebrate her 100th birthday and passed away just a few months later in 2006.

As a birthday present for her milestone, I made a little book for her, which I brought with me when I went back East for her birthday party. 

Read more
In stories, pictures
1 Comment

Reluctant Subject? How to Write a "Tribute" Life Story Book

March 12, 2014 Alison Taylor
You want to write a life story book about a loved one, but he's not so hot on the idea. What to do?

You want to write a life story book about a loved one, but he's not so hot on the idea. What to do?

You want to write a life story book about a loved one, but he's not so hot on the idea. What to do?

Read more
In stories, pictures
2 Comments

Tips for Photographing Sentimental Objects

March 10, 2014 Alison Taylor
Using a clean, uncluttered background and natural light will show off your item to best advantage.

Using a clean, uncluttered background and natural light will show off your item to best advantage.

If you are working on or contemplating a family history or life story project, here's some food for thought: why not include photographs of special memorabilia? It might be your grandmother's favorite tea cup or your father's watch, your favorite childhood doll or even the car you drove on your first date.

Read more
In pictures
2 Comments

The Funnel Method for Scanning Photos - Infographic

March 3, 2014 Alison Taylor

This concept is crucially important in digitizing photos, whether you will use them in a life story project or just to protect and share them. And yet proper scanning seems to be the hardest thing to explain to our clients and students. So here's my attempt at a real-live infographic to explain it. 

Read more
In pictures
6 Comments
← Newer Posts Older Posts →
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
See samples of our book by clicking on the cover photo.

See samples of our book by clicking on the cover photo.

Topics

  • book highlights 24
  • genealogy/family history 5
  • pictures 55
  • printing and publishing 1
  • stories 86

Archive

  • 2025
    • Mar 3, 2025 RootsTech 2025
  • 2024
    • Feb 28, 2024 Speaking at RootsTech 2024
  • 2020
    • Apr 15, 2020 "Novelize" Your Family History Story - Live (sort of) from RootsTech 2020
    • Feb 22, 2020 How to Get the Most Out of the Pictures and Stories Blog
  • 2019
    • Sep 23, 2019 Join Us (and Save) at RootsTech London
    • Sep 23, 2019 Writing About Your Life: Are You Stuck?
    • Mar 25, 2019 How to Tell Your Life Story in 5 Pages or Less - RootsTech 2019
    • Mar 25, 2019 Organizing and Archiving Your Family History Stuff
    • Feb 5, 2019 Book Highlight: The Thing About Remembering
    • Feb 4, 2019 One Surefire Way to Choose Your Best Stories
  • 2018
    • Jul 17, 2018 Google's PhotoScan App is a nightmare for your old photos. Here's why.
    • Jul 11, 2018 Can I Use My Phone to Scan Old Photos?
    • Jul 4, 2018 How to Get the Most Out of the Pictures and Stories Blog
    • Jul 4, 2018 Book Highlight: Truckin' with C.R. England's Eugene England
    • Apr 5, 2018 Seven Deadly Sins of Digitizing Photos - Live (Sort of) from RootsTech
    • Feb 22, 2018 The Power of Listening: an Interview with Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton
  • 2017
    • Apr 26, 2017 Book Highlight: A Children's Book Tells a Family Pioneer Story
    • Apr 19, 2017 Book Highlight: Stories Collected Over a Lifetime
    • Apr 12, 2017 Book Highlight: Spicing Up a Genealogical Narrative Report
    • Apr 6, 2017 Use Dropbox to Collaborate on a Family History Book or Project
    • Apr 5, 2017 Upcoming Classes in Family History and Personal History
    • Apr 5, 2017 Book Highlight: A Frank and Forthright Personal History
    • Mar 31, 2017 Book Highlight: An Oversize Coffee-Table Personal History Art Book
    • Feb 21, 2017 We Are All Connected: A Multicultural Experience at RootsTech 2017
    • Feb 13, 2017 Using Adobe Bridge CC to Enter Photo Metadata
    • Feb 13, 2017 Metadata: Writing on the Back of a Digital Photo
    • Jan 25, 2017 RootsTech 2017: Two Weeks and Counting
    • Jan 4, 2017 Book Highlight - A Military Family History
  • 2016
    • Dec 31, 2016 150 Life Story Questions - Free Download
    • Nov 9, 2016 Should I Use Google Photos to Store My Photos?
    • Oct 31, 2016 3 Steps to Writing a Story About Your Life
    • Oct 31, 2016 5 reasons to attend the RootsTech Conference (even if you're not a genealogist)
    • Oct 31, 2016 Book Highlight: A Tribute Book Close to Home
    • Sep 26, 2016 Save the Date - RootsTech 2017
    • Sep 16, 2016 The Healing Power of Family Stories, Part Two
    • Sep 6, 2016 The Healing Power of Family Stories, Part One
    • Jul 29, 2016 Apricots and Ancestors: 3 Steps to "Prune" Your Family History Stuff
    • Apr 9, 2016 Pictures and Stories to be Featured on KSL's "Speaking on Business"
    • Apr 9, 2016 Choosing Photographs: Advice from William Morris
    • Mar 11, 2016 Why I Am Addicted to Family History
    • Mar 8, 2016 Shotbox - A New Way to Digitize Your Family History Photos?
    • Feb 12, 2016 Short Stories
    • Feb 5, 2016 Book Highlight: Living Joyfully
    • Feb 1, 2016 Two Days to RootsTech 2016
    • Jan 29, 2016 Book Highlight: She Did This One Herself
    • Jan 27, 2016 Parts of a Book: Front and Back Matter
    • Jan 25, 2016 Join Our Daily Writing Challenge
  • 2015
    • Dec 30, 2015 Book Highlight: Adding a Digital Archive to a Life Story Book
    • Dec 7, 2015 When is the Best Time to Write Your Life Stories?
    • Dec 7, 2015 Book Highlight: Turning a Dry Genealogical Report into a Coffee-Table Stunner
    • Dec 7, 2015 Five Things You Need to Know About Digitizing Photos
    • Nov 13, 2015 The Heart vs. the Chart - an Interview with FamilySearch CEO Stephen Rockwood
    • Nov 11, 2015 Honoring Veterans and Their Stories
    • Oct 13, 2015 Ten Ways to Celebrate Family History Month
    • Oct 7, 2015 Writing a One-Hour Life History? There's a Better Way
    • Sep 25, 2015 Using Google Image Search to Find High-Res Public Domain Images for Your Book
    • Jul 18, 2015 Ten Keys for Telling Your Best Stories
    • Jul 16, 2015 Curating Your Family's Historical Documents
    • Jul 15, 2015 Google Photos with Free Unlimited* Storage - What's the Catch?
    • Jul 3, 2015 Book Highlight: Tribute to a Loving Sister
    • Jul 2, 2015 Your Autobiography: Writing a Purpose Statement
    • Jun 26, 2015 Turning Dry Genealogical Facts into Interesting Family History
    • Jun 22, 2015 My Dad's Heroic Struggle to Write a Memoir with Broca's Aphasia
    • Jun 17, 2015 The "Low-Hanging Fruit" Method of Autobiographical Writing
    • Jun 5, 2015 A Dozen Unusual Questions to Ask Your Dad
    • May 29, 2015 5 Ways to Stay Sane While Writing Your Life Stories
    • May 27, 2015 An Easy and Fun Way to Find Your Famous Relatives
    • May 22, 2015 Book Highlight: A Career History
    • May 22, 2015 How to Interview Yourself for a Personal History
    • May 15, 2015 Book highlight: Family Stories of Faith
    • May 14, 2015 The Busy Person's Guide to Writing a Memoir
    • May 1, 2015 A Dozen Unusual Questions to Ask Your Mom
    • Apr 24, 2015 Memoirs of Place
    • Apr 17, 2015 From Here to There: How to Get to Your Best Memoir Writing (Link)
    • Apr 16, 2015 How to Write the Perfect Photo Caption
    • Apr 10, 2015 Book Highlight: Cowboy Stories
    • Apr 10, 2015 Five Tips for Handling Digital Photos
    • Apr 3, 2015 Book Highlight: A Triumphant Family History
    • Apr 1, 2015 The Mental Health Benefits of Writing a Memoir
    • Mar 27, 2015 Book Highlight: Mini-memoir for the Grandkids
    • Mar 25, 2015 Curating and Digitizing Your Family History Assets
    • Mar 23, 2015 Link: 20 Reasons Why You Should Write Your Family History
    • Mar 20, 2015 Book Highlight: Cadet Nurse & Fighter Pilot
    • Mar 18, 2015 Making a Family Story Cookbook
    • Mar 13, 2015 Book Highlight: A Modern Classic
    • Mar 10, 2015 What Adult Children Want to Know About Their Parents
    • Mar 2, 2015 How to Tell the Ten Best Stories of Your Life
    • Feb 13, 2015 A Life Story "Triage" Exercise
    • Feb 2, 2015 Book highlight: His-and-Hers Histories
  • 2014
    • Nov 21, 2014 Book highlight: A Mother's Story
    • Nov 17, 2014 Autobiography, Memoir, Personal History - What's the Diff? And Does It Matter?
    • Nov 10, 2014 Gathering Stories at Family Gatherings
    • Oct 29, 2014 Lost and Found: Do You Know Where Your Relatives Are?
    • Oct 27, 2014 Scan Your Photos for Free in SLC
    • Oct 24, 2014 Quick Writing Tip: Active vs. Passive Voice
    • Oct 22, 2014 Don’t Like to Write? Dictate Your Stories Using Speech-to-text Software
    • Oct 21, 2014 Is Honesty the Best Policy when Writing Your Life Stories?
    • Oct 17, 2014 Life Story Webinar #8: Putting Your Book Together
    • Oct 16, 2014 Minimalism and Family History, Part Two
    • Oct 10, 2014 Life Story Webinar #7: Choosing and Preparing Photos for a Personal or Family History
    • Oct 10, 2014 Minimalism and Family History, Part One
    • Oct 9, 2014 Storytelling in Business - Some Links
    • Oct 3, 2014 Life Story Webinar #6 - Editing Your First Draft
    • Oct 1, 2014 Life Story Webinars #5 - Finding Theme and Order for Your Stories
    • Sep 19, 2014 Life Story Webinars #4 - How to Write Your Stories
    • Sep 15, 2014 Adding Historical Context to Your Autobiography
    • Sep 12, 2014 Life Story Webinars #3: Story Triage-Choosing What Stories to Tell
    • Sep 10, 2014 Tell Me a Story! Three Places to Hear Great True Stories
    • Sep 8, 2014 Choosing a Title for Your Autobiography
    • Aug 29, 2014 Life Story Webinars #2 - Your Life Story Assets
    • Aug 27, 2014 Use Evernote to Write a Memoir
    • Aug 25, 2014 How to Organize Your Digitized Genealogy Photos
    • Aug 22, 2014 Life Story Webinars - #1 Defining Your Purpose and Creating a Timeline
    • Aug 20, 2014 What Tense and Point of View Should I Use in My Memoir?
    • Aug 18, 2014 Our Top Ten Favorite Quotes about Writing a Personal History
    • Aug 6, 2014 Are You a Precrastinator?
    • Jul 30, 2014 The 100 Most Influential People - In Your Life
    • Jul 28, 2014 3 Tips for a Better Book Cover
    • Jul 25, 2014 Link of the Week: How They Made Books in 1947
    • Jul 22, 2014 What You Need to Know about JPEG Compression
    • Jul 16, 2014 What I Learned from My Ancestor about Journal Keeping
    • Jul 14, 2014 Using Public Domain Photos to Enhance Your Personal History
    • Jul 4, 2014 Independence Day — Video from a Veteran
    • Jun 26, 2014 A Little Friday Wisdom: House and Home
    • Jun 25, 2014 How to Fix a Faded Photo
    • Jun 20, 2014 A Little Friday Wisdom: Life Lessons from Our Clients
    • Jun 18, 2014 Creating Suspense in Your Memoir: Foreshadowing and Cliffhangers
    • Jun 16, 2014 Ten Tips to Improve Your Snapshots
    • Jun 4, 2014 Five Life Lessons We've Learned from Our Clients' Stories
    • May 30, 2014 Link of the Week - Writing a Memoir with William Zinsser
    • May 28, 2014 Your Family History Book - Should You DIY or Hire a Designer?
    • May 26, 2014 Memorial Day Traditions
    • May 23, 2014 Should You Live for Your Resume...or Your Eulogy?
    • May 19, 2014 The Pros and Cons of Keeping Your Life in the Cloud
    • May 16, 2014 Do You Wish You Knew Your Mother Better?
    • May 14, 2014 Lessons from American History – What Gets Remembered?
    • May 12, 2014 How to Photograph Pictures Under Glass & Other Shiny Things
    • May 5, 2014 How to Capture Story Ideas on a Life Timeline
    • May 1, 2014 Obituary as Biography: the Saga of Harry Weathersby Stamps
    • May 1, 2014 Is It Narcissistic to Write a Memoir?
    • Apr 30, 2014 The Easy Way to Organize Your Digital Photos - the "Sock Drawer" Method
    • Apr 21, 2014 Making a Book of Personal Memories
    • Apr 21, 2014 Tags and Captions - How to Label Your Digital Photos Using Metadata
    • Apr 16, 2014 Presenting at the UGA South Davis Family History Event
    • Apr 16, 2014 The Business of Family History
    • Apr 14, 2014 How to Email a Full-Resolution Photo
    • Apr 11, 2014 Why Printed Books Will Never Die
    • Apr 9, 2014 3 Design Tricks to Make Your Book More Readable
    • Apr 7, 2014 Cars vs. Dresses - the Random Nature of Memory
    • Apr 4, 2014 Pictures and Stories Client Profile - Fred Ball
    • Apr 2, 2014 Show, Don't Tell: Including Detail in Your Story
    • Mar 31, 2014 How to Choose Pictures for a Memoir or Family History Book
    • Mar 28, 2014 Family Mementos - Keep or Toss?
    • Mar 26, 2014 A "Story Genealogy" Book - By the Numbers (Part Two)
    • Mar 24, 2014 A "Story Genealogy" Book - By the Numbers (Part One)
    • Mar 21, 2014 Save the Date - UGA South Davis Family History Fair
    • Mar 20, 2014 A "Thank You" Book for Mothers/Fathers Day
    • Mar 17, 2014 Using Documents to Illustrate a Personal or Family History
    • Mar 12, 2014 Reluctant Subject? How to Write a "Tribute" Life Story Book
    • Mar 10, 2014 Tips for Photographing Sentimental Objects
    • Mar 7, 2014 Are Your Strongest Memories from Your Childhood?
    • Mar 5, 2014 Walking on eggshells: Writing about Family Members in Your Stories
    • Mar 3, 2014 The Funnel Method for Scanning Photos - Infographic
    • Feb 28, 2014 Draw Much? Autobiography as a Graphic Novel
    • Feb 26, 2014 How I Made a Life Story Book in a Weekend - Tom
    • Feb 24, 2014 The easy way to print a contact sheet of photos in Windows
    • Feb 21, 2014 Have you seen this?! Cool new genealogy charting tool - Puzilla
    • Feb 20, 2014 25 Thought-Provoking Interview Questions
    • Feb 19, 2014 How do you write a story that’s not yours? Telling the stories of your ancestors
    • Jan 30, 2014 Pictures and Stories at RootsTech 2014
    • Jan 29, 2014 The Worst Advice We've Ever Heard About Writing a Memoir
    • Jan 20, 2014 JPEG, TIF, PNG - What you need to know about file formats
  • 2013
    • Jul 19, 2013 Top Ten Reasons to Convert Old Film to Digital
    • May 23, 2013 A Read Down Memory Lane: Lessons from Your Former Self
    • Apr 24, 2013 How to Scan Photos for Print
    • Mar 29, 2013 Connections - A Childhood Home
  • 2011
    • Sep 17, 2011 Pictures and Stories in the News

HERE'S OUR INSTAGRAM FEED

Thanks, London, for making us feel so welcome. We'll see you again someday. #epicfamilyhistorytour #rootstechlondon
Oxford, vertical edition. As much vertical as Instagram will allow, anyway. #theylookbetteronfacebook #epicfamilyhistorytour #rootstechlondon
A beautiful fall day at Oxford, landscape edition. #epicfamilyhistorytour #rootstechlondon
Final day at #rootstechlondon, then rush to the V & A for the last hour before it closes! Then a walk across the Millennium Bridge for a glimpse of the Globe and the city at night, plus a beautiful poetry/video art installation, projected onto St
Long, fun day at #rootstechlondon! 4 presentations down, one to go... Celebrated with dinner at a 500-yr-old pub where Dickens used to hang and which is now owned by Gandalf. #epicfamilyhistorytour
We're here! Tom's up first today, with "Capturing Family Stories in Video Clips" at 14:00. I'm here early to attend the first class, I'm so excited. What a great conclusion to our #epicfamilyhistorytour ! #rootstechlondon #picturesandstorie
Hello, London! So excited for Rootstech. #epicfamilyhistorytour #rootstechlondon #picturesandstories #yourlifeinabook
Our host showed us these amazing travel scrapbooks his mother made in the 1930s and '40s, complete with hand drawn maps and illustrations. We will miss this place! London, here we come...
Featured
RootsTech 2025
Mar 3, 2025
RootsTech 2025
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025
Speaking at RootsTech 2024
Feb 28, 2024
Speaking at RootsTech 2024
Feb 28, 2024

We are so excited to be back at RootsTech live this year! Come by and see the Pictures and Stories booth (#1609) and see some of the many new books we’ve helped our clients create. Alison is giving two in-person classes: The Seven Deadly Sins of Building a Digital Archive, and Making a Genealogy Story Book. Hope to see you there!

Feb 28, 2024

Copyright 2018 Pictures and Stories, Inc.