Kathy's Corner at Projectkin

Today’s episode opened with an exploration of Kathy’s process, reflecting on a massive project she embarked on over years for an aging client in Calgary with tens of thousands of images capturing personal events and business interactions. Our discussion today built on parts 1 and 2, which she covered in January and February:

With the focus of a campaign director, she and her client taped the room with paper organized into a family...

Today’s program was one of those epic episodes that will become a reference to you in the weeks and months to come—as the perfect complement, Kathy Stone added a long list of resources to include here in the notes.

After Kathy’s core presentation, she opened up the discussion. Emily Hanson stepped up to share a delightful example of a family mystery photo and was gracious enough to allow us to share it here.

Since we were having su...

Kathy’s Corner is Projectkin’s longest-running series. It features Kathy Stone, a professional archivist and photo organizer with a unique perspective to family history storytelling. From the start, she’s focused on photo organizing with an eye toward the foundational family history stories they hide.

You are always welcome to share these recordings and detailed notes. If you enjoy them, we hope you will return to join the communit...

As a professional archivist and photo organizer, Kathy Stone always brings a unique perspective to family history storytelling. She came to Projectkin as a committed scrapbooker with a visual eye for storytelling — an essential skill when uncovering the narratives hidden within photos.

As you can see in the transcript, we started by discussing the photo as an artifact in its many potential formats, from celluloid negative or slide ...

Grab a cup of tea (or perhaps a witch’s brew) and enjoy the cauldron fun times in today’s Kathy’s Corner event. Participants joined from Scotland, Canada, and the United States, and we indulged in stories of our childhood and children’s Halloween adventures in days gone by.

Along the way, we compared notes on the historical roots of the holiday and traditions:

* So-called Pendle Witches and the 1612 witch trials the area surroundin...

Kathy’s Corner gives us a special opportunity each month to focus on our family history in the context of the physical photographs, documents, and artifacts that so many of us have inherited.

Stories lie hidden in these photos.

This month, Kathy Stone shared how to recognize clues and use them to weave stories with the other genealogical facts we’ve collected. As we learned today, beware of rabbits bearing pocket watches. 😉 This ki...

As many of us did during the pandemic, Kathy Stone joined a book club. Digging into What We Keep by Bill Shapiro with Naomi Wax led to not only insights about the “stuff” in her personal collection but also a long-term friendship with Martie McNabb of Show & Tales and Things That Matter videos.

Today’s talk was a conversation with Martie and built on a detailed post that Kathy shared with specific tips for handling artifacts in your...

Old photos, documents, and other digital files and artifacts are often at the emotional center of our family history archives. Many of us consider our role as guardians of these materials even as we set about using them to share family stories.

Unfortunately, if we “use” these photos without a system, we risk modifying our originals or creating a printing press of duplicates.

This program is free and scheduled for the 4th Thursday o...

Today’s lively discussion started with a reference to Projectkin member Jane Hutcheon’s post, The Ghost Keeper, and Jane's question about how to clean a carte de visite. Listen for her thoughtful answer.

Kathy then focused on the criteria for deciding which software or app to use for organizing photos. In the leadup to this discussion, she referenced an article written in May 2023, just as the Ponga software platform was taken offli...

Despite Kathy Stone’s careful preparation and focus, we were a rowdy bunch today. Perhaps a consequence of too much birthday partying. 😉

Today’s session focused on answers to questions submitted to Kathy’s prompt earlier in the week. We started with two key topics:

How to clean photos and slides:

* Dust Removal

* Microfibre cloth

* Air Blower

* Antistatic Brush

* Electric Duster

* Glue, Sticky Substances

* UnDu

* Pec Pads

* ...

Today’s session was a bit of a celebration as it marks the one-year anniversary of the first of Kathy Stone’s Kathy’s Corner. Over the twelve months, the series has methodically covered Kathy’s structured approach to digitizing a collection while dishing practical advice and encouragement. You can read more about that in Kathy’s post:

Today’s session focused on the challenges of curating a collection and letting go of pieces. As Ka...

Member’s often tell us that their interest in family history storytelling started when handling the photos, documents, and artifacts handed down by parents, grandparents, and ancestors.

Here at the Projectkin Community Forum, we have access to remarkable resources among our members including our “Cornerstone” Kathy Stone. Kathy distinguished herself as a Ponga member with her generous support of other members based on her experienc...

At Kathy's Corner, I want to help you get your photos, memorabilia and ephemera (aka stuff) organized, preserved and shareable so you can enjoy your stories. In 2023, I presented structured lessons on the 8 Steps to take you from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore:

This year, I want to help you work on your organizing journey as I work on mine.

To help me do this, let me know

* what your challenges are,

* what questions you have,

* ...

This series, featuring Kathy Stone of Calgary Photo Solutions, builds on the 8-part series of programs Projectkin members can explore here and posts you’ll find here on Projectkin, “8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore.”

We’re currently sorting through a Substack issue affecting the searchable transcript of this recording ☝️ above. This issue is affecting some but not all recording transcripts and has been repor...

Today’s program restarted this treasured series featuring Kathy Stone of Calgary Photo Solutions. It builds on the 8-part series of programs Projectkin members can explore here and the blog post she shared with Ponga, an “ancestor” of our Projectkin community.

Since the eight steps from gathering materials to scanning and archiving originals is covered in that series and the blog post, we’re using these sessions to drill in, ask que...

In this final Kathy Stone program of the year building on her blog 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore, she combined steps 7 “Tell the Stories” with 8 “Add the Wisdom of Crowds,” in a program she called “The Good Part.”

As she wrote in her blog post, telling the stories makes a lot more sense when the context of a photo is clear:

Now as you open each photo, faces are named, and the context is clear, let the stori...

With the sixth session in Kathy Stone’s 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore blog post, we turn to organizing your digital files.

Once you have digital files, software intelligence can vastly simplify your workload. The AI-driven intelligence of software can sort your photos for you by the people in each photo. In selecting an application for facial organization, you want to be sure that the faces in your photos ...

This fifth session in Kathy Stone’s series focuses on the Digitizing step of her 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore blog post. In this step, you carefully review the files that were scanned and make sure that your originals are properly archived. Many scanning pros include archival treatment of originals after scanning as part of their workflow. This is a great option and offers the least risk to your irreplac...

Before we focus on the Archiving step, Kathy Stone paused her progression through 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore to consider where we were. It’s a fun and relaxed session that answers questions and reminds us how important this work is.

Given the casual nature of the gathering, there were all sorts of conversations started in the chat. This transcript includes the referenced links.

Kathy also referenced a we...