I am truly amazed to how far technology has come in regards to digitizing photographs and archiving them. An average computer can hold thousands of images, depending on the size of hard drive. Photographs taken and stored at a higher resolution, such as .tiff files, will show the most accurate details and best used for future alterations, as opposed to jpeg or gif images. These technological advances has allowed people access to images they may have never been able to see in person, though the quality is often degraded and never like looking at the original. Images stored at higher resolutions requires more space, time and in some cases money, but for a mom as myself, being able to take an everyday photo of my children, and upload it immediately to a site where other family and friends can view it in seconds, is priceless.

Earlier this year my son’s great-grandmother passed away at the age of 84. While helping to clean out her personal belongings, I found some memoirs and old letters written to her by her parents during the 1930s and 1940s. What intrigued me was discovering and reading a piece where she stated the house she grew up in was built in 1810 and was standing until very recently, when it was sold and taken away piece by piece and rebuilt at another location in Virginia. I am amazed, that her family was allowed to own lots of land, work their own land, and own property during a time when most African Americans were enslaved and considered to be property of their owners. I would like to know, Why were some African American communities in the south allowed to remain free and own property during slavery?