Legacy Charting Tip - a mug shot for a background

At a seminar this week in Mesa, Arizona, I demonstrated Legacy Charting to a great group of genealogists. I wanted to impress them by adding one of my own pictures as a background to an Ancestor Chart.

This was the first time I had presented using my new netbook computer, and I quickly learned that I had not copied all of my pictures onto the new computer. Stumbling around through my various folders on the hard drive, I couldn't find the normal scenic view of the Canadian Rockies, but I did locate a "mug shot" of one of my cousins. As it was the only immediately-accessible photo I could use, I selected it.

The reaction from the audience, and even my own reaction was quite surprising. It actually looked really good. We had just been discussing how we could get our less-interested family members interested in genealogy. We felt that the chart with this kind of background was an immediate solution.

I've since printed a picture pedigree for each of my kids with their own picture as the background. It's just a small thing, but maybe it will help plant the seeds of love and respect for their ancestors.

Click here for step-by-step instructions for adding a background to a chart.

If you have a good idea for a chart, we'd love to hear about it. Let us know by commenting below.

 

Comments

[M. Diane Rogers]

Great idea. Thanks!

[Sheila C.]

cool idea. I'm copying, if you don't mind.
Thanks, Sheila

[Dianne Gordon]

This is great! I love it. I'm going to do it of my kids and do a page of them like you did, then the other side pictures of them, parents,grandparents and g grandparents and put the child on the pedigree chart and the family pictures on another side and put it in a hinged 2 picture frame. Dianne G

[Sharon Clay]

What a wonderful way to show how we get our DNA. The picture in the background of the pedigree chart makes that Haplotype just come alive.
Sharon C.

[Joan Hollingsworth]

Wow, that's great. Thanks for sharing. Joan

[Kelly Horst]

This is way cool. I'm lovin' it. I'm going to try it with a black and white picture, though I'm not too sure it will have the same impact as color.

[Loran Braught]

Unfortunately for the stores in some regards, this is a great time to purchase a good scanner at wonderful sale prices. For home use those multi-function printers that also scan are handy, but for travel it is important to have a scanner that is entirely compatible with your laptop (and test it out before the trip). Getting your scanned photos inserted to Legacy is not complicated, but needs some practice. Because Photos require considerable disk space, I also purchased an inexpensive external drive with tons of space for storing scanned images apart from my computer. Organizing those is another useful skill to learn.