Pictures of family members are are greatly needed. They make this site come alive.  So get out you're old and new photos, pick out the best ones, and get them digitized. All you need is a computer and a scanner, or just go to any major drug store that has photo developing and have them do it for you. We especially need the oldest photos you have.

     This site is linked to a Family Tree Photo Gallery which is on the web server used to host this website. There is a main photo album there for all the people on this site to use. Wherever you see the words "Family Album" on this website, when you click there you'll be taken to the Family Tree Album. (click here if you need any help with the album)

     There are main albums with sub albums inside. Find the album that has your name on it and upload photos into it. You can also create more sub albums. If you have photos of the people in the other albums, you can upload them into those too. That way we can keep it all organized so we don't all make duplicate albums.  You can write captions under each picture too. Don't print them from there though, use Kodak instead. (See below)

     Everyone can see the photos, but you will need a username and password if you want to add photos. To get them, you must send me an e-mail asking for a username and password. If you have any trouble using the photo album, click here for instructions.

     Once you have some photos in your album, pick out the ones you want me to add to your family page. Pick out a wedding picture for the top of the page and up to 3 photos for each child. Underneath the photos, type in "for use on The Family Tree Website. Page xx."  (Replace the two x's with the page number of your family). If there are already photos on your family page, I'll replace them with the ones you have. Send me an e-mail after you put them there to let me know you did it.

    There is a limit to how many photos we can host directly on the server so if you know how to do it, resize the photos to a lower quality and try to keep them to 100kb or less. I use Adobe Photo Shop to do it. Most computers have software for photos if you don't have Adobe.

     Right now our space on the server is limited to 3 gigabytes. I'm paying for that, but if we need more storage space sometime in the future, I'll have to increase the amount of storage which will increase the cost. If that happens, I may have to charge a small membership fee to pay for the added cost. I'll let everyone know if it comes to that. I don't think it would be very much, maybe $10 a year or so, depending on how many of us become members.

           Kodak          

     I also signed up with Kodak's affiliate program. Click on any of the Kodak banner adds, or any links on this website that have the word Kodak in it, to go there. They let you create your own family album there for free. I don't think there's any limit either. You can upload all of your digital images new and old, at the maximum file size for free. Then, you can pick out the ones you want to print and for $.25 each they'll print them for you.

     When you do, 10% of whatever you spend will be sent to this website's account and that money will be used help pay for the cost of hosting and maintaining it. Be sure to click through one of the links here first. Don't go there directly, or there won't be any commissions given to the Family Tree Site. After you sign up and make an album on the Kodak site, you can post the Kodak URL of your slideshow on our Family Message Board so everyone here can see it.

     If you do a biography on a family member or on yourself, you can put photos of that person either in the Family Tree Album, or you can make an album for them with Kodak, or both. It's good to do both so other family members can make copies for themselves if they want too. Especially the old photos you have. That's where Kodak is really good.

     I can also put links to other websites for you if you have an online photo album, etc. Just let me know. Also, get you're old home movies and videos digitized.  Those will be the icing on the cake for this website. I'll send everyone an e-mail when I'm ready to do that. I have to find out what it will cost and how to do it..

Videos

     This site would become the best family tree site online if we could put family videos online too. The only limitation against doing that is storage space on the server. We would probably only be able to put short clips of a video online. Then if someone wanted a copy, they could request it. Any movies used will have to be transferred onto DVD so that it is in digital format. I may have to charge a small monthly or yearly membership fee for that to pay for the extra storage we'd need. But it'd be well worth it. I'm also going to put links on the links page to popular sites like Amazon. Most have affiliate programs like Kodak's where you get a percentage of whatever someone spends. All you have to do is come here first and click on the link instead of going there directly. Otherwise there won't be any commission earned. That would help defray the cost.

     We'll save the video part for later. First lets get our photos online and update the information listed here. In the meantime, get your old home movies and videos converted to DVD. I'll put some links here to places that do that if I find them. Any movie that you want to preserve must be converted to digital DVD anyway, so you might as well get started even if we end up not using them here. I'll let everyone know when I'm ready to add video to the site.

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