Monday, June 22, 2015

FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY–After you return home….then what?

curved-arrow-clip-art3_no words San diego skyline at night
You finally made that long awaited trip to the Family History Library.  You spent several days there.  You found so many books and microfilm records that you could barely record them all.
 
I use my camera to record all images from books and microfilm.  It’s faster than a portable scanner (this is my observation) and the images come out very clear.  Here is a sample.  And, please note that these images have been cropped, but they have not yet been enhanced in any way.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

You’re home.  Now what?

Once I arrive home I remove my camera card from the camera and transfer all images to my desktop computer.  I also transfer them to two portable hard drives and to Dropbox.  You cannot have too many backups.

NOTE:  During my various trips to conduct genealogy research I have developed the habit of copying all images from my camera card to my laptop each day.  That way should your camera card fail, you have a backup.  This time I even brought along one of my portable hard drives and copied them to it each evening, as well as the laptop.  I copy the images in the original order they appear on the camera card.  Then, I create folders of each day and copy the images from that day into the folder.  Sometimes I will even create folders of different locations such as states or countries.  But, the one thing I always want is the original pictures in order, uncropped and unenhanced.

I have a special digital folder on my desktop for my trips to various libraries, whether local or out of state or country.

Library folders

What I worked on today was going into each of the individual day folders and cropping the images.  I won’t be using every image I have recorded so, I don’t worry about changing the color tone or enhancing them in any way.  Right now all I want to do is crop off all that excess area.  If I decide to use the image I will make enhancements at that time.

BEFORE CROPPING
Before cropping books before cropping microfilm

AFTER CROPPING
AFTER CROPPING BOOKS AFTER CROPPING FILMS

You can clearly see that the images look much better after they are cropped.

The next step I take will be to begin going through each of these images to glean information from them and do any follow up research necessary.  This is the hard, but fun, work that must be done after a research trip.  I will record the information as proper sources and enter the images into my Legacy database.
 
NOTE:  It is very important to take a photo of the cover and/or title page of each book, BEFORE you photograph any pages.  The same thing is true of each microfilm you use.  It does us no good to have page 465 from a particular book and not know the name of that book.

How many pictures did I take during my 4 days at the FHL?  250
How does that compare to my trip back in 2011 when I was there for 5 days?    Amazingly, I took 880 photos on that first trip.  I might have gotten a little bit carried away, don’t you think?
 
DID I PROPERLY PROCESS AND USE ALL OF THOSE IMAGES FROM THE FIRST TRIP?  NO!
  
I really don’t want to make the same mistake this time.  Once we get sidetracked it’s very difficult to go back.  At least for me it is.  How about you?

I would love to hear about your research trips. 
  • How do you process the information you’ve gathered once you’ve returned home?
  • Have you ever taken a trip and then not completely utilized all the information you gathered?
  • Do you have an organized method for storing your gathered information, either digitally or physically?

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
MY FIRST GENEALOGY ROAD TRIP
MY TRIP TO SCOTLAND - WHAT I DID RIGHT, WHAT I DID WRONG
ARE YOU GETTING OFF TRACK...LOSING YOUR FOCUS?

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

9 comments:

  1. Wonderful read on the eve of my day trip to the Rhineland Archives (Landeshauptarchivs) in Koblenz, Germany. We won't be allowed to use cameras however any documents found may be scanned and saved to a USB flash drive. On other trips where cameras were allowed I photographed the front matter first. I haven't been to a place where they scan and save for you so I will be careful to get the source information scanned or at least included in the name of the file. ~ Cathy

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    1. Hi Cathy,
      Have fun and I hope you find lots of records. I had never before looked at any German records. However, on day two of this trip I hit the jackpot in German church records, taking my family back 2 more generations. Woohoo! I've been to one courthouse, in West VA, that didn't allow cameras. It certainly slows me down. However, I always carry flash drives.
      Happy hunting and thanks for stopping by.

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  2. The age old question isn't it? I confess I need to move into the present because I really still like paper copies of things, so I use the scanners there at the FHL. I know...I know....I've got to change. What camera do you have and was it difficult to take the pictures and not have a shadow? Your photos look great!

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    1. Hi Michelle,
      I use a Canon Powershot SX260HS. It's a couple of years old so I'm sure they upgraded the model numbers etc. it's the second Canon Powershot I've owned. And, I've used both for this same purpose on numerous occasions. When I photograph the books I stand up. I use clothes pins or other books to hold the pages open. In photographing the microfilm you just have to get the right angle. Good thing about digital is that you can immediately look at the image to see if it came out correctly. Of the 250 pictures I took I only found one blurred image. Operator error I'm sure. I probably shot the picture before the camera had time to focus. The time it would take me to photograph 15 pages in a book compared to the time you would spend placing them on the scanner and producing copies would be significant. Even a young lady sitting next to me, using a FlipPal scanner was spending a lot more time. And, the speed isn't so much the point, but it certainly makes a difference when we want to make use of every minute we have at a particular repository.
      Practice at home or at your local library. That way you will be comfortable when you travel. Later on you can still always print out paper copies of any of the images.
      Thanks for your comment and thanks for stopping by.

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  3. Diane,

    I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2015/06/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-june-26-2015.html

    Have a great weekend!

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    1. Thanks Jana. I've posted your blog link on my Facebook page. Always appreciate the mention.

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  4. Took my first trip the FHL in June. Used my phone because it was faster and the images turn out fine (although I usually took a couple pictures of each item just to be sure). I have downloaded all the pictures from my phone to the computer but one important thing---keep the pictures in order so you know the sources. Once we start sorting into families, we can lose track of where the information came from.
    Enjoy your blog

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    1. So glad that worked for you. As far as keeping the photos in order. I absolutely do that. I set my camera to create a new folder for each day. When I upload them to my computer I create a folder called "All Pictures in Original Order." Then I create any separate folders I want to based on names & places.
      But, probably the most important thing I do is take a picture of the Title Page of each book prior to photographing any pages. Same thing for microfilm. I take a picture of the microfilm number and what it contains, which is always located at the very beginning of the reel.
      I learned all this the hard way of course.
      Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you enjoy reading my posts.

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  5. I have an app called TurboScan for my phone. It does a super job of taking/editing photos of books and documents - even has a simple step to get rid of 'skew' if I'm not exactly above the document.

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I look forward to reading your comments. If you have any connection to the people mentioned in this blog, please let me know. I write about mine and my husband's ancestors and would welcome new information or meeting a new cousin or two. Thanks for visiting and come back soon.