Update: several non-Photoshop users love these so I’ve added blank jpeg templates at the end of the post.
A few weeks ago, Timothy J. Barron shared a template for these awesome signature silhouettes on Twitter. I loved it so much that I actually made a note on my calendar to try my hand at making a few.
When I didn’t do it, I wrote the note again on a later date, and again, and then finally, when I really should have been doing something else, I procrastinated by making up several of these earlier this week.
Are there any other creative procrastinators out there? {insert sheepish grin here}
Procrastinating aside, what a fantastic way to have a meaningful profile photo for one of your photoless ancestors! Those two images up there are for my fourth great-grandparents Anne-Claude Gardey and Joseph Jerrain. They are two of my immigrant ancestors and the parents of my former brick wall 3rd great-grandfather, John Baptiste Jerrain. If there are photos of Joseph and Anne-Claude, I am not aware of their existence.
What I do have, are their signatures as seen on their marriage record. What a cool glimpse into their life, a tiny little bit of themselves that they left behind in that 19th-century parish book in France. And now, those signatures are preserved in a lovely little image that I’ve added to their profile in my Ancestry tree and their profile on FamilySearch. They are the perfect size to be the profile picture for an ancestor in an Ancestry tree. Not quite so perfect for the circle on FamilySearch, but still really, really good.
So far, I have made ten:
Aren’t they cool?!
They are really spicing up my Ancestry tree:
I had to learn a few new photoshop tricks, but it was totally worth it!
Happy Friday, I hope you make a fantastic genealogy discovery this weekend! xoxo
Here are some blank jpegs you can use. They can also be found here.
