Ancestory.com

I have to put in a good word for ancestory.com. My sister-in-law, Nancy, first told me about myfamily.com which is part of ancestory.com. She found out about it from her mom who started a family website, so I started one for my side of the family. It's pretty cool actually because everyone in the family can get on there and put pictures, videos, comments, discussions, annoucements, etc. And it's free!
Then Nancy got me going on something for my 92 year old grandmother, Ilene, through ancestory.com. They have THE coolest template for making family history books. We are working on an Ilene descendency book. We hope to present it to my grandmother by the end of August. It's actually coming together pretty quickly, but we decided to take more time and gather more pictures and more information. Nancy is gathering documented stuff, and she scanned over 500 imgages from pictures to documents from my grandmother's life and other family photos. I'm in charge of the pictures, and I've spent hours in photoshop elements cropping, restoring, repairing, and improving picture after picture. Usually it takes me forever to learn something in PSE but there is a special spirit over this work because I have learned quickly and found time (where there appears to be no time) as well, as Nancy finding time. She's in worse shape (time-wise) than I am with a full-time job, a 10 year old and 4 year old twins that are super-active. Ancestory.com will print the book for us for a charge, which is fairly reasonable, but you can also print it out on your own computer when you are done. Nancy is paying a nominal yearly fee for the website, around $32. It's really one of the coolest software programs I have worked with and I keep finding all these fun things you can do to your pages. They have all kinds of backgrounds to choose from and over 1000 elements, so really, I am just scrapbooking digitally! We're doing all our photos in Sepia on an aged parchment looking paper and it is going to be really awesome. We have spent time interviewing my grandmother (Nancy and I) and asking her all kinds of questions to add to a short history she wrote on herself. Our interviews are pulling up more information than she put in her history. Then we'll add memories of grandma from her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
So, if you've been wondering what I've been up to........

My grandmother.

...and I just HAD to throw this one in....

(aren't I cute?! Age 5)