MyHeritage's AI Time Machine App

Over the last couple years, MyHeritage has released apps to colorize, enhance, and animate photos. You may have seen my previous posts about the Deep Nostalgia and Live Story apps which allow your photos to tell their own story. If you have been on social media lately you will probably have noticed that MyHeritage has released a new photo app. This new app is MyHeritage's AI Time Machine app. This app places you in 8 scenes from each of 62 historic periods including Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, WWI, Ancient Egypt, and many more. The AI uses photos that you upload and then adds them to these scenes. it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to create the images. I uploaded 15 photos with a variety of poses including full body, profile, and head shots to get my first set of images. Once I had those, I uploaded another 17 photos to get some different views. So, now I have 16 photos from each of 62 periods to go through. Some of these photos are impressive while others have some problems. I will provide some examples below.

16th Century

18th Century

American Pioneer

Cowboy

As you can see, those images are pretty impressive (even if they are of me) but some of the images just don't work. Some cut off the head. Others have multiple arms or extra fingers. And some just look odd.

Head cut off

Extra arms

    

Extra fingers

This app is a fun app to play with. I will probably use some of the images as profile pictures for social media. If you have some time to upload your photos you may discover some fun versions of yourself.

RootsTech Follow-Up - Veterans Day

Vernon Westerheide and family - WW II

Today, Friday, November 11 is Veterans Day in the United States. This day was established in 1938 to honor the military veterans of the United States Armed Forces. Many of us have long lines of military veterans who served in wartime as well as peacetime.

I am including a few pictures from my family and my wife's family highlighting their military service. The first picture is my grandfather, Vernon Westerheide, who served in the Navy durign World War II. My father also served in the Navy in the 1960s and was stationed at  Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

My wife's father, Estill Herbert Walker, joined the Navy in 1942 when he was only 15 years old He was thrown out when he was getting ready to ship out to England and they discovered his age. He also joined the Army Air Corps where he learned to pilot aircraft and the Marines durign WW II.

My wife's grandfather, Estill Bowen Walker, served in the Army during WW II and achieved the rank of Lieutenant.

In honor of Veterans Day, several large genealogy databases are offering free acces to their records. FindMyPast is offering access from November 10-14. Fold3 is offering free access to their records from November 10-13. Take advantage of these offers while you can.

Estill Herbert Walker - WW II

There have been several talks presented at RootsTech during the 2021 and 2022 virtual conferences. These talks are still available. I will highlight just a few that may help you research your US military ancestors during this weekend and beyond.

1. Michael L. Strauss - Record Analysis: Military Service Records - Official Military Personnel Files (2021)
2. Lisa Ratzlaff - Basic Training: US Military Records (2021)
3. Margaret M. McMahon - Researching Ancestors in the US Military: Online and in Military Archives (2022)
4. Doug LeCheminant - RootsTech Goes to War: Preserving the Military Histories of Our Family (2022)
5. Margaret M. McMahon and Michael T. Mentley - Learning From US Military Records That Did Not Burn (2021)

6. 

   Lt. Estill Bowen Walker - WW II

   Rebecca Whitman Koford - What Does That Really Say? Records Analysis: 1812 Military Pension (2021)
7. Rebecca Murray - Servicewomen in WWII: Military Service Files & Photographs (2022)
8. Melanie McComb, Ann G. Lawthers and David Allen Lambert - A Call to Arms: Researching Revolutionary War Ancestors (2022)
9. Laura K. Anderson - Digging in the National Archives for War Department Documents (2021)
10. The Family History Guide Association - Exploring United States World War I Records (2022)
11. Elizabeth Swaney O'Neal - Resources for Researching Your War of 1812 Ancestors Online: Part 1 and Part 2 (2022)
12. Bernice Alexander Bennett and Toni Carrier - USCT Pension Files: A Rich Resource for African American Genealogy: Part 1 and Part 2 (2022)
13. Don Milne - Telling the Stories of 421,000 US World War II Fallen (2022)
14. Melanie McComb and David Lambert - Report for Duty: Find Stories of Veteran Ancestors (2020)

There are so many great resources in the RootsTech archive. Most of the talks are less than 20 minutes so they can easily fit into a break. 

Take this opportunity to remember your veteran ancestors, add their information on FamilySearch, and upload photos and tell their stories so future generations will remember the service of their ancestors.