CamScanner App for Android

image courtesy of Google Play

My old standby printer, an HP Deskjet, has finally decided it doesn't want to work anymore.  I still held onto it a few years ago, even though I bought a new wireless printer, because the copying and scanning functions were working fabulously still, and it was one of those printers you could refill the ink cartridges without it going haywire.  It won't copy anymore.  Frankly, this is ok.  I have to move in a few months, and I need to pare down what I take with me.

Enter a neat little app that I downloaded a few weeks ago, but hadn't played with yet.  I found CamScanner in the Google Play store on my Android phone and decided to give it a try.  My cousin is anxiously awaiting a copy of my grandparent's marriage license, and I hadn't gotten it into the mail to him yet, so thought I would use this as my test piece.

You take a picture of the item to be scanned using the camera on your phone, from within the CamScanner program.  It will then crop it to be just the document, and then enhances it. I first saved it as a simple jpg (you can click on it to see it larger). 

You also have the option of converting it to a pdf, before you send it to where you want it to go.  I really like this option.  I prefer pdf's over jpg's, but that is a personal preference.

The app gives you a lot of options for sending your document to another location.  You can email it to  yourself or someone else, you can upload it to Dropbox, Facebook, pretty much anywhere.  

This is definitely going to be a useful tool for my genealogy research, and also my homeschooling with my children.  Super simple, easy to print out what you scanned.  Win-win.

Mistaken Idenity

I have had this photo for over twenty years:

 When my grandmother passed away, all of her items (photos, etc) were divided up between the kids. I don't know if any real system was used, just sorted into boxes.  This photo was in the box my dad got.  My grandmother's cousin had identified it as my great grandfather, Joseph D. Ede, from England.  For twenty years, that is who I believed it was.

Over the last couple of years I have been able to connect with some cousins on Facebook, who are sharing photos from our family history as well.  This photo turned up from my cousin Donald:

 I firmly believe this is the only photo of Joseph D. Ede, and his wife Olive, based on the clothing they are wearing.  Olive died sometime between the 1920 and 1930 census, and both were in their 60's by the 1910 census.

Now look at the photos, side by side:

 Sure looks like a family resemblance to me.  I am fairly certain now, that the first photo is not of Joseph D. Ede, but rather his father, Edgar Ede, also of England.  He and his wife Esther did come to America, after Joseph and another son, and settled in the Strafford, CT area, where they are buried.

Being able to use a photo, estimating the year(s) it might have been taken, to see a visual of the people you come from is so exciting!

Don't Ignore the "Maybe"

While sitting around not feeling good yesterday, I spent the better part of the day on the computer, working on Ancestry.  I have been very lucky lately to find a lot of information on many of my family lines.

I was in sort of a haze, uploading some old family photos to my great aunt, Marie Ede Wykowski, when I decided to another "search" on her.  And there it was.

This obituary jumped out at me.  It was for a Charles M. Plank of Danbury, CT.  It took me a minute to remember that the Plank family lived on Meadow St in Stamford, CT with both my grandparent's families.  I had seen them in the census records, and I have a photo of my grandfather Gordon Nichols with a Charlie Plank (apparently they were good friends).  But it didn't register at first why my great aunt would be listed in this obituary.

 Gordon Nichols Sr. with Charles C. Plank

Then I read it....I had forgotten that she married Charles C. Plank, and this man's obituary that I was looking at, was their son.  I had always heard her name as Wykowski, so it took me a few minutes to absorb what I was reading.  Once I added her first husband, the children (listed in the obituary), a ton of information opened up, including the death record for Charles C. Plank, her first husband.  I also now have the names of long lost cousins to add to my tree, and possibly get in contact with.

That is a huge thing for me, finding living family, since I don't know most of them.  We moved to NH when I was seven years old, and didn't stay in touch with most of them, especially after my grandparents passed away in the late 1970's.

So always go read those random hints and sources that pop up, even if you don't think they might be connected.  You just might discover another line in your family.