Family Photographs: Making What Is Old, New Again

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but at the Midwest Genealogy Center, we also know that a photograph can tell a thousand stories.

The first time I saw a photograph of my paternal grandmother, I was in my 20s. For so long, she was just a name and some dates on a family history chart, but when I found a picture of her, her story started to illuminate. Genealogy and family history work helps us to find the forgotten, give them back their names, and tell their stories. And when we discover and tell the stories of their lives, we add new chapters to our own story.

Digitization is one of the many tools that can help you preserve, organize, and share images and documents of your genealogy research. The Midwest Genealogy Center has several pieces of in-house equipment to help you digitize your photographs, slides, and other delicate materials.

Do you have a box or two of slides taken at family vacations of yore in the basement or attic? Our slide digitizer can scan and digitalize 80 slides at a time! 

Do you have photo negatives and wonder what is really on them? The flatbed scanner located in our computer lab can help turn those negatives into positives!

Do you have photographs that are too delicate to remove from well-loved photo albums? We have several scanners that can help digitize photographs without removing them from their pages.

MGC also has several books available for checkout to help you care for your family photographs, including Preserving Your Family Photographs and Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs

Come in and discover what stories your family photographs are waiting to tell you!

Please Note: All digitization equipment is self-service, free to use, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. You will need to bring in your own storage device, such as a flash drive or external hard drive, to save the digital images to. Flash drives are available for purchase at the first-floor information desk.

Katie S.
Midwest Genealogy Center