The blog celebrates its first birthday today.

I started this blog one year ago. I began blogging as a way to preserve old photos. A handful of factors motivated me. First, a recently "found" relative—my "New" Cousin—had published an engaging family history. His account prompted me to reflect on the family narratives that lurked behind our photo collection. Second, I have been ill during the last four years. Before I became ill, I thought about cataloging the thousands of photos my Dad had left behind into a chronological index. After the illness recurred—for a second and then a third time—I wanted a vehicle for quickly saving the photos and making them widely accessible. Third, we have some "lost" relatives. Some are "lost" by their own design; others are "lost" because we lost track of them. I sought a way of preserving the shared history with those relatives. (My Dad would smile were he to think that sometimes it takes a photo, not an olive branch.) Fourth, I started a blog instead of a book because I wanted a device—namely the "link"—that allowed me to interconnect the photos and stories succinctly and with little repetition.

The blog has been satisfying. It's a great diversion—nearly as distracting as knitting. It has prompted reunions, introduced me to Lithuanians preserving scouting histories, and resulted in commenters identifying until-now-anonymous-to-me photo subjects. In one case, research deriving from the blog led us to discover that one person who had been presumed to have perished during World War II instead had survived.

When I started the blog, I hurried to post the "core" family photos. I have added about five photos to the blog daily. I may not post as aggressively in the future, but I won't let this project fade.

Morton Arboretum, October 1964. Collect ideas as if they were colorful leaves.