This continues a series of guest columns on how technology is reshaping hobbies and passions – basket weaving, rugby – whatever.
This time it is all-around nice guy and even nicer family guy Frank Scavo pictured with his wife Dorothy and their three-year old granddaughter, Camdyn. He is President of Computer Economics, a 29-year old IT research firm based in Irvine, CA and Managing Partner of Strativa. a management consulting firm. He blogs on enterprise software at the Enterprise System Spectator
"When Vinnie first told me about the hobby series, I proposed a piece on golf, but that subject had already been covered by Jim Rafferty.. How about wine? Already taken by John Dean. I protested that I had no hobbies left, unless you count grandchildren. Vinnie responded, “And the problem with that topic is?”
Initially I was incredulous, but the more I thought of how my wife and I interacted with our own grandparents and the technology advances in the four generations since, the more sense it made as a topic.
By way of background, my wife and I have three children, the oldest of whom lives with her husband and two children in Santa Cruz, CA, about six hours north of our home in Southern California. When they first moved there two years ago we were concerned that we would suffer the loss of regular contact with our grandchildren. But technology has helped bridge the gap nicely.
§ Staying in touch When I was growing up, an unexpected phone call from my grandparents would prompt my Mom to ask, “What’s wrong?” Long distance rates were so expensive that a three minute call was a guilt-trip and saved for special days like birthdays. Today, we speak with our daughter and our grandchildren almost every day. Skype has dropped the cost to near zero and added video capabilities. Our extended families have a series of blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts that keep us in touch: with our other daughter in Spain and cousins on the East Coast, one of whom will soon be on an assignment with the U.S. State Department in Saudi Arabia. A far cry from the occasional family postcard of the past.
§ Digital cameras and online photo sharing. No event these days is too insignificant to capture in photos: trips to the park, play dates, a new pair of shoes, grandpa opening a grandchild’s present. We upload pictures often—Kodak Gallery is our preferred service—and share them with one another as well as with aunts, uncles, and cousins around the world. Compare that to yellowed and infrequent black and white photos we shared growing up courtesy of the US Postal Service .
§ Gifts and Toys. Growing up I remember getting mostly clothes and even a shoe-shine kit as gifts from my grandparents. The closest we got to technology was a chemistry set. Don’t get me wrong – that was delightful back then. Camdyn, in contrast, is already a proud owner of a toy “laptop” computer. It allows her to emulate her mother who works from home. Talking about technology and bonding families, my daughter in Santa Cruz, and the one in Spain both work for a closed captioning firm, which puts them online a lot during the day, allowing us all to to spend plenty of “virtual” time together even though separated by 6,000 miles.
As technology works to bring us closer to the next generation, it also helps us learn about preceding generations. My uncle, several years before his death, took it upon himself to write an autobiography, for the benefit of his grandchildren. He began to research our family tree and was able to connect, online, with an amateur genealogist in Las Vegas, Sam Tomaino.
Sam has collected and cataloged legal and church records extensively from several towns in southern Italy, including Decollatura, (with its well preserved church in photo) the town from where my great-grandparents emigrated to the U.S. As a result, Sam was able to reconstruct our family tree, on my mother’s side, back to the late 1600s.
It’s hard to imagine such an outcome without the Internet, genealogy sites like Ancestry.com, and software like Family Tree Maker which allow curators like Sam to assemble a larger database of historical records for these towns than are actually available in one place in Italy.
What does the future hold? DNA testing already allows individuals to confirm relationships, such as between adopted children and their biological relatives. Now the National Geographic Genographic Project allows users to submit their DNA and trace their ancestry “along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago.” The project is a good example of the “network effect.” The greater the number of individuals that participate, the more detailed and refined the results become, as new understanding is gained on the migration of the human race around the globe. Incredible how affordable (about $ 125) and easy they have made this process.
I want to leave you with a photo with Camdyn on the annual family Pumpkin day. Growing up, my Dad used to fry pumpkin with potatoes in the fall. So, each year on October 31, in memory of my Dad, I celebrate by frying a pumpkin. I call the day, Upstate NY Italian-American Heritage Day.
Some traditions need little technology – just a heaping spoonful of family."
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