Ponga Members, Guests, and Staff Provide Ways to Enhance Your Ponga Experience!
The stories in your Ponga pictures should be shared, so we designed Ponga so that our members can invite as many free guests as they like. Plus, since you always own your own pictures, you are also always in control. This best practices tip walks you through a few considerations for sharing that may help you get the most out of Ponga and your family photos.
Many people in the #familyhistory and #genealogy world use social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and now even Mastodon to connect with people they might not otherwise know as a way to learn more about their ancestors, a period of time, or specialized techniques. This tip will show you how to include links to your social media sources for such discoveries right in your Ponga pictures. Spoiler: It's as easy as Copy and Paste. 😉
Depending on whether you were there or how old the photos are, it can be hard to know what was going on or even name the characters. Without characters and stories, family photos are just stock photos.If you know anything about Ponga, you probably know we're very good at putting names to faces and we do it so you can place the characters get to the stories. Ponga uses fancy tech to do this but really, it's not unlike what a really skilled person does if they have perfect recall and never forget a face.
It turns out that some of the most powerful tips & tricks for using Ponga in your storytelling journey come from little-known shortcuts for working with your browser. This article is chock full of useful shortcuts you can use not only in Ponga but also in your everyday work in your browser.
Sometimes, the loved ones whose stories you cherish the most are themselves too elderly or fragile to organize a narrative. Their voices, telling stories about a watch, a suitcase, or an old photograph can carry the legacy of a family. Capturing their stories, just as they tell them, preserves the full richness of the moment.
Adding media like video, documents, and voice recordings is a great way to add engaging detail to your pictures. This 12-point article walks you through the steps to add 12 different kinds of linked media into a Ponga picture. The examples set you up to do this for yourself either as a Ponga member or even as a guest. Explore and have fun!
Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, everyone remembers things a little differently. We were all there, but we focused on very different details. Now when faced with a photograph that captured one instant from one vantage point, it can trigger memories from the larger circle. How we experienced it may become part of our individual memories.
One of the biggest challenges to downsizing is letting stuff go. Precious memorabilia, gifts, and treasures seem to hold the essence of life. Letting go of them feels like letting go of a little piece of your life. Here’s the thing, that doesn't have to be true.
By looking at an object, we intuitively consider it from different points of view. When you hold objects cherished by a loved one, it becomes easy to slip into their shoes, imagine them using it, and how they felt about it. In this article, we’ll focus on objects and artifacts, and how these ordinary things can be used to tell stories about our family and the people around us. You’ll learn about how photographing these objects not only helps document why they were important, it also preserves the stories so they can shed light on the people who owned, loved, or used them.