My gift to everyone this year is this album of family memories. I have grand dreams of posting all the videos and photo albums we have here so we can see them on our computers, phones and TV’s. Family history at our fingertips.

Working with these old films has been such a fascinating and rewarding experience. I have learned so much about our family history and who our ancestors were day-to-day. But this site isn’t just the old stuff. I have a trove of VHS camcorder tapes from the 80’s and 90’s Dad went through and digitized for us. This was a painstaking process and it took a while but he got it done! Now I can get them ready and post them here for all. Family birthday parties, holidays, weddings, newborns…it’s all there and coming soon to this site. Even footage of Dad teaching in Little Rock.

I’ve always been fascinated with family history, old photos and nostalgia, but this whole idea of converting and perusing our old family films actually started when Dad and I went to Ohio in June of 2022 to visit Aunt Myrt. One morning we decided to go and visit the old farm, kind of dropped in unexpected. There we met the current homeowners, Drew and Aston Martindale. The Martindales graciously welcomed us and even showed us around the old farm, which had been restored to amazing beauty and was immaculately kept. Not a stone or blade of grass was out of place. It was truly a beautiful sight, especially compared to our fears of what we might find. Dad reminisced and was able to tell them some of the history of the property, much of which they never knew. He was even able to answer some questions Drew had about the cisterns and old wells on the property.

A very successful trip and new friendships. In addition to the Martindales, we met several other neighborhood residents, including Justin and Erica Tiega, who live in a mansion cabin across the road back toward the old oil well (which is still operating). More blogs to come about the Tiegas and their amazing homestead, which sits majestically on a knoll in the back fields Dad used to work.

I was able to get drone footage of the farm, some of which mimicked scenes from our old family golden 8mm film which Dad shot way back in 1967. I wanted to put this drone footage together with some of that old 8mm footage, which Tracey had professionally transferred to VHS decades ago, to try and make a “then and now” effect.

The 4k footage from the drone was such a stark difference from the fuzzy, faded, poorly-framed VHS video file. It kind of killed the effect I was going for with the video. I knew Tracey had the original film so I wanted to take a look at it and see if maybe we could get a better reproduction of the film to use for my video. Technology has advanced considerably since it was first transferred, and I just knew we could get better results than what we had. I got to put my old Donnelley color and film reproduction knowledge and skills to work.

I received the old 8mm film box with a dozen films from Tracey and set out to digitize our old Ivy Hills and Ohio film. Upon inspecting the film I was pretty excited. I knew for certain I could get a much cleaner result and I couldn’t wait to bring this heirloom film back to life…for my video, but even more importantly, for the family to have.

The journey was several – sometimes very frustrating – months long, but ultimately resulted with me building my own telecine machine out of an old Canon P8 8mm film projector. I use my Canon 90D digital camera to capture each frame one-by-one in 4k resolution. The machine automates the process which runs about 2 frames per second. 16 frames = 1 second of standard 8mm film time. I import the frames into software and process it through several stages. Cleaning, upscaling, color processing. It is a highly involved process to get the solid results I wanted. But even as tedious and time-consuming as it is, in the end it is all worth it. The results have far surpassed my hopes. I was completely blown away by the clarity. It was like seeing this film for the first time. New details are visible that I had never noticed before. For example, I had never noticed mom blowing dad a kiss as she walked by him filming…until now.. (7:41 mark of the Barr Family Gold Film) And best of all, we can now watch our family treasure anywhere, anytime at our leisure…complete with the same sound track Tracey chose for the original VHS dub some 30 years ago.

The convenience of having it at our fingertips and the sweet sound track is all fine and great, but as I worked on the film, it did bring back some awesome memories of a completely different world. I remember the thrill and excitement of Dad setting up the projector and screen in the living room and Mom would make popcorn. The anticipation of finally getting to see our home movie again (I think we watched it maybe 3 or 4 times throughout the years). Then we would all sit and watch ourselves up on the “big screen” being a goofy family and laugh and rib each other.. I think that’s what this is really all about for me. It was a much different world back then.. It was like bringing a piece of that world back to life.

Once I had the new digitized UHD-quality footage I was able to replace the old VCR files in my drone video with this new UHD footage, and you can see the results here Barr Farm Peerless Road Then and Now. I also put together a music video of the Monkees song Pleasant Valley Sunday using footage from the Gold Reel. It makes great advertising for my fledgling digital transfer service.

So then I started digging in to the 11 other reels which were filmed by Grandpa (Charles Barr) back in the 1950’s. From old footage of Gettysburg to Dad topping the Christmas tree as a teen. Wow. These films that when I was a kid didn’t interest me at all, are actually fascinating little time capsule treasures. Seeing dad as a teenager was so awesome. And looking into the world of Grandma and Grandpa Barr in the mid-20th century was so fulfilling. Working with each frame I could see emotions and facial expressions that photos alone cannot possibly convey.

I started building a collection of these films as I processed them. “Acushnet” which has Dad and Aunt Sis on vacation as teens, “Aubrey Falls” in Canada which shows an old log chute used to move logs down past the falls, along with some footage of Grandma and Grandpa fishing. A tourist trip down Skyline Drive along the Appalachian Trail and footage of the aftermath of the great flood of 1950 in West Union, WV Charles filmed shortly after.

The footage is all amazing and so relaxing to watch. I found some music and put it in the background and these old home movies turned into very entertaining little video shorts that any Americana nostalgia lover could enjoy. I figure as much as I like watching these, maybe someone else would find it just as cool.

Then back in June, cousin Ronnie Williams gave me 19 small reels of film from Uncle Bub and Aunt Myrt. So this opens up a whole new batch of films, some of which directly intersect with the films Grandpa shot. For instance, we have two angles of the Christmas goose being passed around the table, one from Bub’s camera and the other from Grandpa’s camera, with Grandma operating it. I cannot wait to get this all processed. It is amazing footage.

As this collection of different reels grew, I realized I needed to create a sort of repository where I could consolidate them and share them with the rest of the family. So instead of DVDs or flash drives that would be cumbersome and difficult to update, I decided to create this website where I could post all the videos for everyone to enjoy. I could add to it as I completed/received more, and we can add family or historical info to give more context to the footage. It would be more than just an album, but a family history resource as well. So BarrFamilyAlbums.com was born. If anyone wishes to help update or add info, I can give you log-in credentials for the site. And if anyone wants to help with server and maintenance costs, feel free to hit the Paypal button. The fees are recurring so any help is appreciated.

I have lots to do, and this is an excruciatingly slow process so the site will grow as I have time to complete the videos. Now if I could just get cousin Mark McHenry to come off that old film he has of us all in Canton that one Christmas…

Merry Christmas, and if there is anything that would make this site better let me know. I want to create a place we can all peruse and enjoy! If you have anything to contribute to the archive I am happy to add it, let me know.

I love you all, Rick