Chris Pattillo is collecting "Quarantine Quests," stories of
genealogical projects and discoveries made by our members while
sheltering at home due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This story was shared by CGS Board
Member Arlene Miles.
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Jamaica is one of the places in Long Island, New York that
Arlene Miles lived |
I telephoned Arlene Miles, chair of the CGS Library Committee, a few days ago with a question
about the library. While chatting I learned about Arlene’s Quarantine
Quest project. After thinking about it for three or four years Arlene has now
begun to scan her collection of postcards, partly because she now has extra
time to do so.
The collection was started by her husband Ted – a regular
visitor to the CGS Library. In his youth Ted had a vision problem that made it
difficult for him to take photographs so his mother agreed to let Ted buy
postcards of the places he visited and things he saw. Before he and Arlene
married in 1984 Ted had already compiled a sizeable collection of postcards
that reflect his life and his personal interests in trains, historic homes, streetcars,
sailing ships, lighthouses and more.
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Ted Miles's collection includes many historic buildings such as
the Wading River Congregational Church on Long Island, New York,
where he and Arlene were married |
After Arlene and Ted were married the two of them continued
the tradition and the collection has continued to grow. Now their two collections
tell the story of their lives in postcards. Arlene has postcards from the
schools she attended, from St. Francis de Sales Church where she was confirmed, and
from St. John’s Church in Riverhead, New York, where she and Ted were married. They have post cards from their
vacations and cards from every place they have ever lived. Arlene is
considering starting a blog where she could use her postcards to illustrate her
family history – “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Arlene considered
several scanner models before deciding on the Brother DS-720D, a small, compact unit that sells
for $129 (she found one on sale for $109 at Office Max). “It is
easy to use, will scan one or both sides, does full-color scanning and is
self-feeding,” she says. She estimates that she can scan about 400 postcards in two
hours. Images can be saved as either a PDF or JPG file.
The scanner comes with software that helps you organize,
label and add information for each card. Arlene and Ted are maintaining the
same organizational system that they created for the original cards – so they
are grouped by subject matter. After the cards have been scanned Arlene uses Picasa
software to crop, straighten, adjust the brightness, and make whatever
adjustments are needed.
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| St John's Church in Riverhead, Long Island, New York |
I asked Arlene, “How many have you finished scanning?” and
was impressed when she said she had scanned about 1,600 postcards. But then I
asked “How many cards do you have in your collection?” and I was truly
speechless when I heard her answer. Arlene estimates they have 60,000 to 80,000
postcards in their combined collection! Hopefully the quarantine will
not
last long enough for the project to be finished. It seems Arlene is making good use of her at-home time
while staying healthy.
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The Miles collection includes postcards from 42 towns in
Long Island, New York |
Copyright © 2020 by California Genealogical Society
