Shows
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy’s Corner » Exploring Our Mystery Artifacts: Military » May 2025As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the artifacts, documents, and photographs left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here. If this was shared with you, why not join our free community? Learn more at Projectkin.org/aboutWe were thrilled by another richly informative hour with Kathy. Today’s focu...2025-05-2355 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy’s Corner » Exploring Our Mystery Photos, Part 4: Timelines » April 2025As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the artifacts, documents, and photographs left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Kathy Stone, Projectkin member and long-time contributor, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore recordings of past episodes here, and our calendar for coming events here. Learn more at Projectkin.org/about, and join the conversation and inspiration — free!Our discussion today built on a challenge Kathy introd...2025-04-2558 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy’s Corner » Exploring Our Mystery Photos, Part 3 » March 2025Today’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 tree and a collective timeline. The idea was to capture all information they could find to be readily accessible as questions came up in exam...2025-03-281h 04
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy’s Corner » Exploring Our Mystery Photos, Part 2 » February 2025Today’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 such a good time exploring old photos with our new skills, Emily followed up with anothe...2025-02-2859 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy’s Corner » Exploring Our Mystery Photos, Part 1 » January 2025Kathy’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 community and learn more.In earlier episodes, Kathy took a methodical approach through each of the eight steps in her process featured in this post from late 2...2025-01-241h 00
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » End of Year Wrap-up and Preview for 2025 » Dec. 2024As 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 to print on paper, glass, or metal. When making digital copies, you respect the original artifacts while creating new forms that might capture stories or provide context to others' st...2024-12-061h 01
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Handling Those Photos: Halloween Edition » October 2024Grab 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 surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England* Witches in both Connecticut and Salem in the United States, and the current effort to g...2024-11-0158 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Where in the World: Finding Places in Photos » Sept. 2024Kathy’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 kind of work can easily lead to distractions down “rabbit holes” of research. Some topics we discussed:* How to use Goog...2024-09-2755 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Handling and Preserving the Physical “Stuff” » August 2024As 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 collection, including memorabilia, keepsakes, ephemera, and trinkets. You’ll want to take special note of the lists of resou...2024-08-231h 03
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Best Practices for Using Photos in Projects » July 2024Old 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 of each month. To see upcoming programs, please visit our Events page:Using photos in projectsIn today’s epis...2024-07-2658 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » How to Choose an Organizing Program » June 2024Today’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 offline. That “5-Elements” article defined key criteria for evaluating platforms for your photos.As the discussion revealed, the key lies in an understanding of ...2024-06-281h 07
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Members Ask: “I digitized my photos, now what?” » May 2024Despite 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* Pec Solution* Rubber Cement EraserThis second question led to a little fun debat...2024-05-241h 22
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » What to Do with All the “Stuff” » April 2024Today’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 Kathy put it, We are the guardians of our family stories. Downsizing your collection is not the same as throwing out...2024-04-1956 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Conquering that Photo Mess One Step at a Time » March 2024Member’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 experience as a professional photo organizer. She soon became an avid advocate and dear friend. Today, Kathy’s turned her keen eye for photos and talents for organization to her own collecti...2024-03-2959 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinA word from Kathy Stone at “Kathy’s Corner”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, * what tips you would like to share, and 2024-03-2305 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Conquering that Photo Mess One Step at a Time » Feb 2024This 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 reported. You’ll find transcripts for the 2023 recordings accompanying this article. Thanks for your patience. During today’s session, Kathy started out with a useful tip to consider...2024-02-231h 01
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Conquering that Photo Mess One Step at a Time » Jan 2024Today’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 questions, and share our work. During today’s session, Kathy shared an enhanced version of the Google Sheet she’d shared during earlier sessions. You’ll find...2024-01-2659 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 7 & 8: “Tell the stories with the wisdom of crowds”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 stories bubble out.The wisdom of crowds is less obvious from...2023-11-1629 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 6: “Organize your digital files”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 were not used for growing facial recognition databases.The discussion of archiving quickly led to archival materials and you’ll f...2023-10-2656 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 5: “Archive both the digitized and the originals”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 irreplaceable originals.The discussion of archiving quickly led to archival materials and you’ll find many references in the linked PDF of t...2023-09-2158 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Open Mic: Where are you in the process?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 webinar in which she was a co-presenter prepared for B&H Photo on August 29, 2023, titled “Protecting Your Photos Before an Extr...2023-08-2458 min
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 4: “Step into Digital Magic”This fourth session in the series focuses on the Digitizing step of her 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore blog post. A special thanks to Kathy Stone for taking the time to put together slides that walk through the range of options from "Okay" through good, better, and "Best." You'll see our wonderful community chimed in with tips and resources during the program now captured in chat as a Gdoc.Where appropriate, we include the chat archive from events. This one included several useful suggestions from members. You’ll find it at...2023-07-201h 03
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 3: “Sort the photos at hand”This third session in the series focuses on the Sorting step of her 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore blog post. This important episode steps through this critical step that can save you both time and money later.As Kathy points out in the blog,The key here is to sort what you have into chunks that make sense to you so that you can capture the relevant information as you move them to digital form in the next step. As you bundle photos into folders and envelopes make...2023-06-151h 01
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 2: “Plan the scope of your work”This second session in the series focuses on the Gathering step of her 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore blog post. She walked through the crazy array of places where some of the best family pictures might be hiding (behind other photos in frames, for example, or under magnets on the refrigerator door!)After the first session, Kathy shared a nifty template she uses to track her scanning projects, the Workflow Checklist. To ensure everyone can access it, she's converted it into a Google Sheet you can view, or if you...2023-05-181h 03
Kathy's Corner at ProjectkinKathy's Corner » Digitize that Collection | Step 1: “Gather your photos”As we wound down the Ponga digital storytelling platform, long-time member and photo manager, Kathy Stone, immediately agreed to become a founding member of the community that would become Projectkin.org. In this first recorded program of her 8-part series, Kathy lays out the overall concept of her workflow for digitizing and managing a family history image collection.The program is like a coaching or mastermind-style session as Kathy covers a topic each month following the flow of her 8 Steps to Take You from Tubs of Photos to Tales of Yore member post for Ponga....2023-04-131h 00