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Mary Allen <mary.allen3770@...> wrote:
Emilie: I am basically self-taught when it comes to computers and things technical or electronic. Just recently I bought a scanner which my brother installed. He gave me a few quick lessons. Don't you just hate it when they say, "It's easy." It's not. But I have had fun scanning photos and documents and e-mailing them to my cousins. We have met with a purpose to meet monthly and work really hard on the oral history. It's amazing how many times someone says "Oh, I didn't know that. Are you sure?" So, we have started an ongoing history under different topics. For example: did anyone every see Grandma Garcia smile? No one. Then while scanning photos I found several where she is smiling. So now the quest is to find out when she stopped smiling and why. I think I know. Then I bought an Adobe photo program. I glared at my brother before he could say "It's easy." It's not,
but I am having fun trying to decipher the handbook. But I know what you mean and I so admire those who can use them. Yep. Sigh.
Oh! Emilie. You're a Garcia? So am I. Small world.
Mary Garana (Garcia) Allen
Corpus Christi, Tx
Emilie Garcia <auntyemfaustus@...> wrote:
Mary, I don't know how much you know about all the new-fangled technical gadgets besides audio recorders and digital cameras that are available to serve our genealogy purposes, but if you could, maybe you could get some and take them with you. You might be able to access some computers in certain towns at internet cafes too if you can?t take a laptop along. The people at the genealogy society here and at the local FHC have some amazing things. One lady showed me a gadget she uses to scan books. Honest, it was no bigger than a ruler and she would start at the top of the page and move it down, then she showed me on the computer what it had scanned. Amazing. Then others have these little tiny things no bigger than a lipstick case that attaches to the back of the computer and they upload or download all sorts of stuff. There are also these microfilm viewers that attach to your laptop so you can download images directly, no need for a
copier, etc. They also have tiny portable copiers for the laptops. It is just amazing what tools are out there. Even if I could afford them, I probably wouldn't know enough about how to use them (sigh). I tried going to one of the genealogy society's computer classes, but it was all above my head.
Joseph's suggestions about interviewing techniques are right on the mark too. I am so grateful to those university students who recorded oral histories on my mother's cousins and neighbors and in-laws. Also kudos to those WPA projects where writers would go out and interview people in various communities during the Depression. I have found many of my relatives' and their neighbors' stories in these records, and some are online, others are on tape at the universities and they will make copies of them for small fees.
Have a wonderful time in Mexico,
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA ---
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 5:46 AM
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Collecting Oral History: Re: Travel to Mexico
Thank you, Joseph. With all the wonderful suggestions I am receiving, it will be possible to put together "Oral History Interview 101" This is really important because one could blow a meeting and even cause annoyance or alienation. It already happened with our last surviving uncle. I asked an innocent question and hit a nerve. A good warnwing for newcomes; we don't need to learn some things genealogical by experience. Mary Joseph Puentes <makas@...> wrote:
Mary just a quick word about collecting Oral history. You probably have been doing it for a long time so please excuse me saying stuff that you might already have been practicing (just pretent that I'm talking to someone else). I've found that if you go into an "interview" loaded with questions you won't get as far a if you just let "them tell their story (their stories)." Many times asking "when did so and so pass?" will make for a difficult question as compared to "Were you married when so and so died? . . .and "were any of your children born yet when so and so had passed?" Later you can calculate from their birth the date. Something about asking them to remember exact dates that throws a wrench in the whole works. I have had good success with questions like:
"Tell me about what things were like when you were in grade school?"
"Tell me what it was like during the
depression?"
"Tell me what things were like when you were 20 years old?"
"Oh, tell me more about that story?"
"Oh, tell me about your parents and did they ever tell you stories about their parents?"
"Tell me about if you heard of relatives living in other parts of Mexico?"
"etc., etc., etc.,"
Once they start rolling on some story let them go even if they stray, but be ready with some related question to gently bring them back on topic if the straying goes to far. Its amazing how much people that say they "don't remember anything" know when you let them just tell stories.
joseph
Mary Allen wrote:
Thank you, Victor. Now I know where San Felipe is located and it is not a surprise visit. And I will purchase a cellular phone. There are two more places I need to visit, but perhaps not on this trip: San Luis Potosi, SLP and Salinas, SLP. Something to look forward to.
It's a strange feeling: I have been working so intensely on this project for the last few weeks. Now that I have a few photographs, their faces are so etched on my mind that I dream about them. I feel as if I know them and I am just going to go "meet" them on their own turf. I have been sharing each step with my family and we all feel as if something great is about to happen, as if one of them walked in the front door, we wouldn't be surprised. It's just that we have been looking for them for so very long and now, suddenly, they start to appear with their stories, some of them quite sad. They are more than names and dates and pictures; they are real. As if they are coming home to us.
Mary
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