Awkward Family Photos: The future of genealogy research?
Screenwriters Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, founders of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, are the latest feel-good Internet success story. But they also may have inadvertently changed the character of future family tree research.
Right now, if you try to dig up information on three or four generations back, you'll be lucky to get a birth certificate, military record or a passenger list of a steamship. If you are super-lucky, you might be able to unearth an old sepia-toned studio picture in which no one in the family is smiling.
Was life miserable back then -- or was there just horrible customer service at the first photography studios?
Fast forward to 2109. The descendants of Australian science fiction novelist Sean Williams will be able to see him pretend to choke his mother.
THE CHOKER
Williams' legacy is already well affirmed as the author of best-selling novel, "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed."
He also is the world's only science fiction novelist to create a character who speaks only in the lyrics of British pop star Gary Numan (remember the MTV video "Cars" when MTV played videos?)
He now can add Awkward Family Photo fame to his legacy. Williams is the well-dressed teenage strangler.
"Obviously, it's a joke, something I did to pass the time while waiting for the photographer to get the lenses or lighting right and mum played up to it nicely," he says. "Somewhere in my photo album is the staged snap he took thirty seconds later, but I've always preferred this one. It colorfully captures the dynamic of my family in a single glance."
"There's so much in the shot that I love," adds Williams. "My dad's shorts, the mock-choking, my sister's glare (and her clothes), my digital watch. People have responded to all of that, and that did surprise me. I thought the photo, if it appeared on the site at all, would barely be noticed."
Sean's father was an Anglican priest who cherished a relaxed dress code outside of church.
"He did play Australian Rules football, but that's as close as he got to being a gym teacher," Williams recalls. "He died in the 90s, but I like to think he would have found this all rather hilarious. His fashion sense was just awful!"
BUT BACK TO THOSE SEPIA-TONED SNAPSHOTS that document many of our family history stories.
Does anyone out there have ancestors who liked to smile?
What will future generations think about your family photos? Any gag pictures in your wedding album that would make a hilarious part of your family history? What pictures of your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents make you laugh?
Send us your favorite pictures and the backstory!