Photo Family Tree

For a long time, I wanted to create a family tree with photos, somehow, somewhere.

I had bought a large, archival, photo album hoping to use that but never did.  It's sitting empty.

I had dreamed of creating a fancy family tree with that vinyl stuff you can buy to decorate with.  I wanted each of the leaves to have a 2" x 2" head shot and the name and dates.  Never did that either.

I live in a 2nd floor one bedroom apartment and the walls of the stairwell are/were bare.  So, I thought I could climb the stairs with matrilineal photos on one side and patrilineal photos on the other.  Beginning with me, I'd climb the stairs to the farthest back ancestor I could find on each side.

Well, again, I wanted to do the leaves, on branches.  Never happened.

Then, one day, I decided to simplify the idea and drew it out on paper, did some measuring and decided to just step up the stairs with the family lines.

I had a few bad starts, lots of things to decide:  how big a photo, what kind of frame, how to place them, etc.?  It took a while.  I bought a few things that I might have saved money not buying, if I'd thought though some things further but, in some cases, you can't be sure until you've tried something, seen it for real and decided it's not the right thing.

Finally, I bought collectible frames roughly 3" x 4", resized and saved new copies of the photos I wanted to use, edited the photos to make sepia copies (I thought they look more antique), struggled to add the names and dates and printed them out.

It's not quite as fancy as I'd wanted but still nice to walk up the stairs with the family lines on either side.

   

    

   

                                    

In the last photo, you'll see a frame with text and no photo.  That's the frame for my paternal great grandmother, Fanny Flower Odell, who died, age 19.  I would love to find a photo of her but I suspect that there is none.

I can't say that it was fun working on the project but I'm happy that I got it done and that the photos are there and show the family trees.

Oh, how to attach them.  In an apartment complex, you're not supposed to damage the walls.  I tried the Command Velcro-type strips; they removed paint.  I had to touch up the paint.  The various Command products don't really work for many things.  They just don't stay.  Some things are too heavy, sometimes the adhesive just seems to stop holding.  Then, I saw something online I had to try.  

You've probably seen it in online ads, in passing.  It's a thick, clear "tape", not permanent, in a long roll.  It's sticky on both sides; about 1" wide.  It's gelatinous.  It works -- so far.  It is not permanent.  You can move things.  It doesn't leave a residue -- so far.  I think it's sold under a variety of names.  I'm not giving it free advertising.  If you want to know more, email me and I'll try to find it and send a link.  I just cut small pieces from the roll, 2 per photo.  It's a little difficult to work with.  It's gelatinous and bunches up sometimes but mostly it's great.

Wow, and what a struggle to get these images lined up the way I want them in this blog post.  HTML has moved past when I learned it and Blogger doesn't allow me to make tables.

So, there it is.