While chit-chat my mom a couple of year ago , I found a box of old kinsperson photos . They were yellowed with age and crack around the edges . Even my mother had trouble name many of the people in the photo . Our sense of family account was evaporate .

I put the project of scanning all of these quondam pic to my Mac on my to - do list . Two years later on , it ’s still there . The fact is , I ’ve been overwhelmed by the size of the undertaking . And I ’m not just utter about the scanning , though that is certainly a monumental project on its own .

What I find even more intimidating , though , is adding the personal information that will give these photos a sense of history and put them into context . I do n’t just want to preserve the photos — I want to create something that I can share with others in my fellowship to help assure the chronicle of who we are .

While watching a demonstration ofGroupSmarts ’ MemoryMiner software($60 ) at the Macworld Expo Wednesday , I abruptly feel a intimation of promise .

The concept behind MemoryMiner is a little hard to explicate without seeing it in action ( you may watch a helpful video demonstration on the company’sWeb web site ) . The basic theme is to employ your digital photographs to start build relationships between the people in your photos , the place the photos were taken , and when the photos were hold . The program makes it promiscuous to bring this info by simply drag and cast item onto a photo . It then uses this information to search commonalty .

For example , if you know that your granny was in New York in the recent 1930s , you could also see who else was in town at the metre , and then follow their photographic chronicle . you could also add other type of files , such as PDFs of scanned letters . If you secernate MemoryMiner when someone was born , it will employ the date listed for each photo to aim the ages of the people in the photo . This lets you quickly see photos from when your grandmother was a child . All of this information ( or just a part of it ) can then be exported as an interactive entanglement presentment for others to explore as they ’d like .

As with any program like this , Memory Miner postulate a sure investment of your time . But from what I see , your employment pays off big time . If you ’re interested in family histories or desire to explore your photos in a newfangled direction , I suggest check off it out . you’re able to download a test version of the computer software and taste it free for 15 days . According to the internet site , you may purchase the software for just $ 45 if you buy before January 31 .