About Michael T. Slaughter
Recently, I have discovered that almost everything in which I am interested revolves around preserving memories. Below, I will detail my experience and abilities in each memory preservation field. I ramble a bit, so please be patient.
Music
I am interested in all kinds of music. When I was growing up, most radio stations were not narrowly formatted like they are today. A radio station might play middle-of-the-road popular music part of the day, perhaps play rock and roll or country music part of the day, and then end up the day with easy listening music. There were variety shows on television, such as the Ed Sullivan Show, that would have any kind of music act you could imagine. A single show might have a rock and roll band and immediately following have an opera singer. Now a child can grow up and possibly never hear a single recording other than one type of pop music.
I have been interested in recording and trying to get better sound ever since I got my first cassette tape recorder in 1970. I recorded everything: radio, television, family gatherings, and my relatives playing and singing. I started buying records and tapes in 1971 when I was in college.
In the early 1990s I first recorded tape recorded songs onto my computer. At the time, sound cards usually had only a microphone input, so I had to use an impedance matching cable to hook up my cassette deck to the sound card. The sound quality was low, because the sound card could only record in monaural, and because of the small size of disk drives, the file size had to be kept small. Those first recordings were in SoundBlaster’s proprietary VOC format. I have since converted those first recordings into WAV and then into MP3 format.
In the late 1990s, better sound cards were available. Along with that came some rudimentary sound editing software and the first compression software. The first record I ever digitized, cleaned up, and compressed was “Detour” by Duane Eddy in 1998. The early compression software took almost 30 minutes to compress one song and used the early MP2 format. Not long after this, MP3 files started to become available on the internet. My first professional software for editing and repairing audio files was D.A.R.T. (Digital Audio Reconstruction Tools). The current version is called DC Seven, and is available from www.tracertek.com. They have previous versions available if you have an older computer.
In the past few years, I have recorded and restored records and tapes for numerous clients. I started out doing it for free for friends as practice. I have also recorded and restored many items from my own collection.
Video
My first experience with recording video was with an antique movie camera in the mid-1970s. I made films where I worked. I also made a film of my baby sister dancing, and by stopping and restarting the camera, I made it appear that she had disappeared and then reappeared.
Later, in the mid-1980s, I was able to record TV shows on the VCR. I was also one of the few adult who, in 1987, bought a Fisher-Price PXL2000 (also known as the PixelVision) camera to shoot low-resolution black-and-white video. I have since copied all of those videos to VCR and then to computer. I still have the camera in like-new condition, along with the optional black-and-white TV. I have since moved on to a VHS-C video camera and then to a mini-DVD video camera.
I now have a VCR connected to my computer, so I can record standard videotapes and VHS-C tapes onto the computer. With my video editing software, I can trim and/or rearrange video segments, I can adjust the brightness and color of video, and I can also separate the soundtrack and edit the sound separately. I can create DVDs with menus. I can also make computer files of video segments that can be played separately. I am currently digitizing 20 years’ worth of my personal collection of videotapes.
Photos
I have been taking pictures for 40 years and have many thousands of photographs and negatives. I have been scanning images since the early days, when the only thing available was a hand-held scanner that would only scan a four-inch wide image in simple black and white. It wouldn’t even do gray scale. As soon as better scanners became available, I upgraded. I currently use a scanner that can also scan negatives and slides.
I am able to correct many problems with old photographs. I can adjust brightness and contrast, and I can restore faded colors. I can remove spots and scratches. If part of an old photograph has flaked off, I can, in many cases, restore the missing area through cloning or drawing. I can colorize black and white photos if desired.
When I scan photographs, I always scan the backs if there is anything at all written or printed on the back. That way, the images will not be separated from identifying information. Even if there is nothing but a code number on the back, that can be used to group photos that were originally part of the same roll of film. Sometimes that helps in identifying people or determining when the photos were taken.
Because of my interest in preserving old photos, a number of my relatives have given their collections to me rather than their closest family members.
If photos need to be copied, and the owner cannot bear to part with them long enough for copies to be made, I can take my laptop and portable scanner and scan photos in the owner’s presence.
I can make high quality prints up to 8x10. I can take individuals out of group photos and make separate prints. I can create slide shows and DVD presentations of photos.
Genealogy
I started my genealogy research in 1966. My eighth grade health class was studying heredity. As a weekend assignment, our teacher told us to make a family tree chart and fill in as many of our ancestors as we could. My father knew his ancestors back to his great-grandfather, Jacob Glover Slaughter. My mother knew hers back to her great-grandfather, William Hardy White. I decided on my own to draw a chart of the descendants of those two ancestors and took all of my charts to school on Monday. It turned out that my family tree went back more generations than anyone else's in the class. I showed the teacher my other charts, and she noticed that my great aunt on my mother's side had been married to a cousin of hers. That really got me interested in tracking down my cousins.
In 1970, Norma Longmire wrote a book on the Slaughter family. I had typed a letter for my grandfather to send her. That letter contained my father and his brothers and sisters. I got a chance to see the book and was disappointed that she had not included all the information that had been provided. In 1971, I bought a copy of the book and started penciling in the missing information. Eventually, the book was so marked up that it was hard to read, so in 1979, I wrote (and then typed on an old manual typewriter) my first compilation of family information. I titled it "Jacob Glover Slaughter and His Descendants." Jacob Glover Slaughter was my great-great-grandfather, and I was able to ask relatives for information about this part of the Slaughter family.
In 1988, at the Slaughter family reunion in Roxboro, NC, I was chosen to be the genealogist for the family. In 1989, I completed and self-published the first edition of “The Slaughter Family: The Ancestors and Descendants of Jacob Schlotterer of Bodelshausen, Germany.” This is the edition currently listed on amazon.com, but it is not available for sale.
I completed a new edition and started selling it in 1992. Sales were so slow that I lost money. After a couple of years I decided to quit selling books until I gathered enough information to consider the book complete as far as locating all of the missing branches of the family. I also hoped that demand for a new edition would build up so that the third edition would be a big seller. It has taken 16 years, and many people have failed to send me promised information, but I think I have traced most of the traceable branches of the family. I will soon be able to print and sell the latest (2009) edition. If you are part of the Slaughter/Schlotterer family which originated in Bodelshausen, Germany, please let me know if you want to be on the list of people I will contact when I am ready to distribute my book. I will put an announcement on my home page when the book goes on sale.
Around 1980, I started doing genealogy research for other people. People are amazed at how much information I can uncover in just a few days. I can gather copies of original documents in a few minutes online that would have taken my days or weeks just a few years ago.
I can do as much or as little on your family research as you wish. I can do a little research and send you copies of documents or reports of my results, or I can do a full genealogy, providing you with copies, reports, photographs, GEDCOM files, or Family Tree Maker files. I can do strictly ancestor research, or I can start with an ancestor in your past and trace all of their descendants and produce a book. For any of the projects, I can do them in as much depth as you require. I can get you just the names and dates, or I can get enough information to do life stories for each person. I will give you complete documentation of all my sources, so you can be assured of accuracy.
Computers
I have been interested in computers since the early 1970s. I started reading Byte magazine in 1975 and got my first computer in about 1982. I have kept up to date by continuing to read computer magazines and books. I have a large library of books, magazines, and software to rely on. I got my first modem in the mid-1980s. I immediately started signing up with online services and logging in to BBSs (bulletin board services) around the country. At various times I was on Delphi, GEnie, CompuServe, and AOL. I was on the internet through a dial-up account with Delphi in 1992 before most people had heard of the internet. Delphi was the first online service to offer access to the internet. This was a year before the World Wide Web was invented. In 1995, when the first local internet access became available in my town, I became one of the first 30 subscribers. The online services were text-only at first. I have log files of everything from online services that appeared on my computer screen from 1989 to 1995.
I have used countless software programs through the years, and I still remember how to use most of them. I am an expert with WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. I have been using both for over 20 years. I have written hundreds of complex macros in WordPerfect, created complex templates in Microsoft Word, and have automated many tasks in Word using Visual Basic. I have programmed in a dozen or more versions of BASIC on a great number of different types of computer systems, including Timex Sinclair, Commodore, TRS80, Radio Shack Color Computer, and PCs. I have taken classes in BASIC and RPG-II programming. I have worked on document templates and automation using CapsAuthor and HotDocs. I have programmed complex databases using Paradox, including a case management system and a library database using Library of Congress MARC-compatible fields (MARC 21 format for bibliographic data). I can also create databases using Microsoft Access, dBase, and DataPerfect.
I am currently learning PHP programming and using MySQL databases on websites. I have been designing web pages for a number of years, most of which are hand-coded HTML. I am now using the Typo3 site management software to create and maintain my church’s website.
I can install software and hardware. I can troubleshoot problems. I can train students on most common software and general computer usage. I can give shopping advice so that clients can get a computer system that will do what they need reliably at the best price.
Summary
I am competent in almost everything related to preserving your memories.
Contact me now to discuss how I can help you.
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