8MM Film - Cleaning, Lubricating and Watching

8MM Brownie Projector and Film / Carrie Norwood / CC

Over the summer, my blogs tend to get quiet.  Summer is my time for vacations and relaxing and not working on projects.  But, this summer, I was presented with a really kind of neat genealogy related project.  My aunt sent me about 50 rolls of 8MM film that belonged to my uncle.  It's all from the early to mid 50s and chronicles the lives of my mom, her brothers and my grandparents during that time.  Having never met my grandfather, I'm pretty excited about the prospect of seeing him in motion.

At first, I thought this would be easy peasy.  Just snag a projector and watch it, with an ultimate goal of digitizing it.  But the more the process has unfolded, the more it is like a treasure hunt with this end goal of having a good quality representation of this era of life in my family.

8MM film, while all the rage in the 50s and 60s, is not used any more.  It hasn't been used since about then.  So the equipment and supplies are tough to come by and the knowledge of how to use and maintain them properly is sparse.  The particular films I'm working with don't appear to have been kept very well... although, to be fair, it doesn't seem like proper film storage supplies are plentiful and at the time, I doubt anyone thought someone would be struggling to watch them 60 years later.  So the films themselves need some maintenance before they can really be watched - including cleaning, lubricating (who knew film needed lubrication!?) and potentially repair.

Getting your DNA into gedmatch

There are many companies that you can get your DNA processed with for genetic genealogy purposes. The big three are 23andme, ftdna and ancestry.  Once you have your DNA done on one of those sites (or others), you can use the tools on that site to 'match' with other users of that same site.  

However, the potential genealogy discoveries you can make are limited to the tools (and quality) that site offers as well as the people who have chosen to get their DNA processed by that site.  For a fee, FTDNA and ancestry both give you the option to import DNA from other sites, so many people choose to download their DNA data from the original site and import it into other sites.  This gives you a broader toolset to use as well as more potential matches. 

If only there were a site that were free, had a huge toolset and a huge user base!  Enter gedmatch.  Gedmatch does have paid tiers to support the site but there is a whole lot you can do without paying anything, and users from all of the big three, plus other sites have uploaded their DNA there, giving you a much larger and more diverse user base to test against.  

If you hate that it happened, then you hate that you are.

Today, on the way to work, I caught the latest This American Life episode - The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar.  Whewf.  All genealogists and genetic genealogists who have ever encountered a family secret will find it fascinating.

In short, (you really should go listen), a woman is handed an album of papers and news articles about her grandfather that sets her onto the trail of a family mystery.  In uncovering the truth, she is faced with two families who have very different accounts of how the event unfolded.  At the crux of the matter is who her grandfather is, and in turn, who she and his other descendants are.

Unwelcome Discoveries

About a year ago, my aunt called me and told me that she'd decided to randomly dial people in the town where our family is from, who have our last name.  In doing so, she ran across a gentleman who is over 90 years old, who is related to us, and who remembers her parents and grandparents.  She asked me to call him and talk to him about our family.  Then health stuff happened.  And so, finally, a year later, a few weeks ago, I did.  He was a delightful guy and very willing to tell me his story and the story of his family, who consequently, at a certain point, was also my family.

He brought to life the stories and personalities of people who, until that point, had been merely names on pages.  I recorded our conversation.  About an hour in, I forgot to push record on the tape after I flipped it over and so I'm missing about an hour of the conversation.  Doh!  But I have these great stories, a tape of a lot of them and lots of written notes.

(The photo is L to R my grandmother, my little sister, me and my grandfather)

Anyways, about halfway through the conversation, he pauses and says "Well, I can tell you this if you'll keep it to yourself."  And I agree, because of course I want to know.  And he tells me.  And it puts to rest one of my brick walls.  I know now.  I breathed a sign of relief after that.  

When Genetic Genealogy Creates Brick Walls

I was talking to a cousin not long ago.  We are genetically related and we are pretty certain our MRCA is one of two people.  She's done exquisite work mapping out the family trees of all of her close genetic cousins and she has a problem... the people who are related genetically should not be related according to their family trees and the ones that should be genetically related to each other, if the trees are correct, are not.  She's encountered a genetic genealogy generated brick wall; a place where all of the evidence that all of these people have gathered doesn't match the genetic truth of who actually parented who.

Talking to her about this situation really made me think a lot over the past couple of weeks about my own research.  Frankly, it's terrifying for me to consider, given how much of my soul I put into my research, that really, it could just be - wrong.  I mean, I kind of flippantly know that it could all be wrong and for naught... but it's hard to consider in actuality.  And from that perspective, in contrast, it seems like the times before genetic genealogy was accessible almost seems heavenly.  A for sure, well sourced and researched conclusion on a lineage back as far as possible, without question.  Of course, the tree would still be wrong, if you're wanting to understand who your genetic ancestors were... but ignorance being bliss and all.  Maybe, in that case, what matters is a sense of knowing.  It satisfies the itch to have a story and a sense of belonging, even if in error.