I keep seeing in some groups on FB, where people are editing and enhancing their old family photos then colorizing them. I became interested in doing this with some old family photos I have that are in poor condition and you can't really clearly see the person. At first, I was looking at apps for photo editing, I had to get a new computer about a month or so ago and discovered I had an app on my new computer that would do this. It is the Copilot AI powered app. I started playing around with the app to see how it worked. I think I pretty much got it down now. You have to type in command prompt for what you want to do, and it does it. Anyways, I tried out editing and enhancing a few really old photos of family members and WOW! They turned out so awesome. I am attaching a few I did. Here are the before and after photos. Let me know what you think. These are my great grandparents Henry Hamilton Weakley and Mary (Sedden) Wilson Weakley.

It may be a little off topic, but I thought it was a wonderful story which I knew nothing about until my husband mentioned it this morning, and I have no idea how it came up in conversation, but it did 🤣 https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/1210-cher-ami-the-pigeon-that-saved-the-lost-battalion.html

(Just saw this on another group and thought it might be of interest to some people) A historical topic that is currently passionate about genealogists around the world... The US National Archives recently uploaded the NSDAP membership file (part nazi ), a major historical source thus far hardly accessible. The interest was such that the site was even temporarily saturated. These archives allow, in some cases, to find: a date of birth a place of birth a date of joining and even the digitized membership card A valuable document for those who wish to better understand their family history and explore sometimes unknown breads of the past. A particularly useful resource for research related to people born before 1926. Unfortunately it didn't give a link.

Ceri has shared some great templates and help to keep you on track with your research in the ‘Genealogy Library’ but just thought I’d share my experiences of the benefits of being organised with your research. For more than 20 years, I've been tracing my family history, and I can only imagine how much money I've spent—and wasted—because I haven't consistently organized my research notes. Too many times I have found documents (that I have had to pay for) but I still haven’t been convinced that it is for the correct person so I haven’t added to my desktop family tree, only to go back to researching this person years later and paying for the same document again because my research material has not been organised!! Only last week I found my grandfather’s birth certificate (original copy) with some random paperwork in one of my folders and then realising that in 2024 I paid £11.00 for a transcribed copy of it from the Isle of Man Government (they do not provide copies of the original), nightmare!! And this is just one example. On a positive note, I’ve just renewed my subscription with Find My Past as they offered me a 50% discount after my old one had lapsed. I recommend disabling automatic renewal on your subscriptions. Usually, companies will send you special offers once your subscription ends. Although you might have to wait a few days, it’s often worthwhile. I now keep a spreadsheet where I set myself a monthly budget and keep a list of everything I purchase and always try to double check it before I buy anything to make sure that I haven’t already got it. Genealogy can be an expensive hobby, but there are some great ‘free’ websites out there which I would always recommend using first, and always stay on the look out for any offers for the paid sites. Hope my experiences help 🙂

I have never had any interest in listening to podcasts as I would rather watch something on the tv, but that has recently changed thanks to @Ceri Logan. She has shared some details of her favourite genealogy podcasts, so I thought I would give them a go as it's something I am extremely interested in, and what a surprise I am really enjoying them and finding them so informative. I started listening to 'A Family History of...' and loved how they had added so much more details to a persons life - what it was like to live at that time, general employment, living conditions etc. So today, I have picked one of my ancestors and I am trying to put together a more detailed story of their life (on paper, not podcast!), but I am learning so much more and hopefully making it more interesting to share with family and friends. I will share my story on here too in the hope to inspire more people 😉