Scan& & Archive original documents

[cyril jones]

I have a massive collection of hard copy documents related to family history. I intend scanning these documents and archiving them. Google Drive has been recommended for this project. I'm looking for advice on how to set up such a searchable database and any other tips before I start. It would also be good if they could somehow be linked to Reunion.

[Susan Park]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

I have already done what you want to do, but not with Google Docs/Drive. I scanned everything as pdf and gave each file a name that is not much more than just a number. To make the documents searchable I added keywords to each one. The keywords I chose were the name and user id# as they are displayed in Reunion. I also added keywords for state and either the year or decade the document was created.

I've done the same thing for about 7,000 old photos. Tedious work, but now I can find anything. It's kind of like playing the card game Fish. Instead of saying, "Give me all your Kings," I say, "Give me all your #1758s," or, "Give me all your Californias AND Year=1932."

I also dragged every PDF into the person's multi media area. I do not attach them to sources or events but simply put everything in the person's space. If it's a marriage record I have it in both the husband and wife's multi media area. I like it this way because it's easy to see how many documents I have for each person. Another example is funeral programs. If I have one for an ancestors of course it goes in the multimedia section for the deceased. But if one of the pall bearers mentioned is also a relative I include a copy of that funeral program in his multimedia area too.

Nothing is perfect and this may not work for everyone but it does for me. I can give more details offline if anyone wants them.

[Kim]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

I have most of my documents scanned and attached to a source in Reunion.
I also use Evernote to create a note for each source and include the source number from Reunion. I drag the document to the note so that it is accessible on my iPad when I am out and about. I also tag each note with major surnames, type of documement (marriage, birth, military, etc), and sometimes location (if I remember). I also tag with 'todo', 'later' 'source', etc. This makes it easy to find my documents by searching a combination of tags, no matter where I am.

[Paul Reitz]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

Nothing is perfect and this may not work for everyone but it does for me. I can give more details offline if anyone wants them.

Susan, I'm interested in evaluating alternatives to my practice, so I wonder...

How many individuals are in the largest of your family files?
What search engine do you use to locate a document of interest?
Do you use Smart folders, or organize the files by 'hard' Finder folders?

Thanks for your info...

[Susan Park]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

Susan, I'm interested in evaluating alternatives to my practice, so I wonder...

How many individuals are in the largest of your family files?
What search engine do you use to locate a document of interest?
Do you use Smart folders, or organize the files by 'hard' Finder folders?

Thanks for your info...

Paul, I have 5560 people in my one and only family file. I currently have only 848 sources and in the process of adding lots more. I have 1631 pdf files (bmd certificates, military records, census, etc). I also have 2426 individual letters which have been digitized.

Every PDF gets keywords added to it, and I also use the Note field in Preview to add a copy of the citation to the document. It's the same citation that shows up in Reunion as a source citation. If I ever share a single document with someone they have the citation included with the document.

I use Finder for everything. I can search on any keyword(s) and find everything related to that person or thing. I've also keyworded my 7000+ photographs so they're a snap to search also. Mostly I just use the plain search function but I have gone deeper and used the search functions of Smart Folders but I've never saved or maintained any Smart Folders. I like to keep things simple. All of the documents and letters, reports, etc are all in one big folder. I keep the photos in a separate folder but don't really need to.

Because of the keywords the filename doesn't really matter. Nor do I try to keep all of the records for one person contiguous. I just give them the next number available. With photos I copied the backs if there was writing on them so I have FOTO 00575 and FOTO 00575 Back, for example.

I hope this helps. It works for me.

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

How to find a file? The files we are talking about looking for, of course, are occasionally text files of some sort, but much more frequently, they are images, because every hard copy document or photo is scanned.

There are two ways of finding such a file in your computer, whether for genealogy or for anything else. One is a search device such as Finder, the other is just to know where you put it (as in a wardrobe, socks are kept in the socks drawer). If you’re going to rely on Finder, you may need a more elaborate system of file-naming; or if you prefer the second method, you need a more elaborate set of folders. I think it’s best to do a bit of each.

Say, for example, that you have an image of a page of the 1851 Census of Hackney (in London UK). If you are me, you will give it a simple name that starts with Hackney51 (e.g. Hackney51b.jpg) and put it in its proper place before you ‘attach’ it in Reunion—but even if you attach it first and put it in its proper place afterwards, your Mac (and Reunion) will keep track of that.

What I mean by ‘proper place’ is a folder within a set of nested folders, like this: Genealogy> Documents> Census> 1851.

Once the image is appropriately ‘attached’ within Reunion, I only very rarely have to look for it by either method—by far my most usual route is just to click the little red number. But if I ever do have to find it outside of Reunion, either method will very quickly narrow the search to 2 or 3, or quite likely just one image.

[Bob White]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

Many years ago, I started a naming system which works well with finding documents either manually or using a Spotlight search. My system predates the ability to tag and continues to serve me well. I did lots of scanning years ago but in recent years I rarely print anything. I just print to PDF and file away.

The format is LastNameFirstName_Year_ShortDescription. Then everything is filed in folders named for family last names.

Examples:
BrightJuanita_1942_Engagement.pdf signifies a wedding engagement notice or news clipping for said person in the year 1942.

HolmanJoseph_1930_PasadenaCA.pfd is a 1930 census sheet from Pasadena on which he appears.

I do leave off the year for some documents where it is not needed. An example would be BarnesGeorge_WWIDraftReg.pdf. One can easily guess what document this is.

Since access to 99+% of these documents is needed occasionally or less, I do not link any of them with Reunion. My multimedia only contains people photos.

[donworth]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

Bob and I are on the same page. Having had to switch operating systems twice (Mac to Windows and Windows to Mac) and switched genealogy software 5 or 6 times, I've learned not to rely on linkages to media. When you switch software they will be lost. Also, I want my digital files to be accessible by future genealogists - I send my genealogy to cousins on M-DISK DVDs in the hopes that they will be discovered someday by a budding genealogist in the family. I don't want my filing system to require that someone run a program which may not be available to them any more.

I have folders for each of my great grandparents. In each I have a SOURCES folder. In that I have my images and text files and PDFs named very similarly to Bob's method:

SURNAMEgivennamesYYYYtypeofrecordLocation

So...

WORTHWalterDyson1916BirthRecordPeterboroOntarioCan ada.jpg
WORTHWalterDyson1930CensusSanMarinoCA.jpg
WORTHWalterDyson1940CensusSanMarinoCA.jpg
WORTHWalterDysonWOODSBarbara1946MarriageRecordSout hPasadenaCA.jpg
etc.

I can find anything either by using the whole machine search (Spotlight search) or by sorting the SOURCES folder alphabetically.

I name my old photograph scans in the same way.

Don

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

The naming systems described by Bob and Don work for them, and I’m sure they are not going to change that now. So I will express my misgivings about their methods not to argue with them, but for those who may be reading this exchange of views early enough in the process that they are still choosing how to proceed.

Bob and Don seem to rely primarily on a system of naming files that one might call ‘surname-plus-extras’. The problem for me is that this misdescribes a large proportion of the files. It’s OK for a photo of one individual and maybe a birth record (ignoring the mother) but a group photo, a page of census, a marriage record, a trade directory, geographical locations and many others relate to multiple surnames or none, and it must often be a rather arbitrary choice which one to go with.

As I said in my previous post, I really think one must also have a system of folders, and my approach centres on that. I start by asking myself, what sort of thing is this? A newspaper clipping, a census page and a marriage certificate do not all belong in the same folder. It would be like mixing socks and shirts in the same drawer. Within each folder I then choose the locally most appropriate system of filenames. My people photos, and a few other things, are named and sub-foldered by surname, and there have been tricky choices to make in there, so I would not want to extend that problem any more widely.

I am astonished that Bob, whose advice on other matters I have often found so valuable, does not link his documents with Reunion. Why throw away such a valuable tool? I can read through what I have on person X, and the little red numbers keep saying “and this is how we know that bit.” Wonderful! And of course those multi-surname items, however you may have named and pigeon-holed them, can be linked to each and every relevant person.

[James Milne]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

My people photos, and a few other things, are named and sub-foldered by surname, and there have been tricky choices to make in there, so I would not want to extend that problem any more widely.

Michael, I am in the process of scanning my deceased parents photographs and would be very interested to learn how you organise your filing system for group photographs.
Thanks

[Kim]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

The naming systems described by Bob and Don work for them, and I’m sure they are not going to change that now. So I will express my misgivings about their methods not to argue with them, but for those who may be reading this exchange of views early enough in the process that they are still choosing how to proceed.

Bob and Don seem to rely primarily on a system of naming files that one might call ‘surname-plus-extras’. The problem for me is that this misdescribes a large proportion of the files. It’s OK for a photo of one individual and maybe a birth record (ignoring the mother) but a group photo, a page of census, a marriage record, a trade directory, geographical locations and many others relate to multiple surnames or none, and it must often be a rather arbitrary choice which one to go with.

As I said in my previous post, I really think one must also have a system of folders, and my approach centres on that. I start by asking myself, what sort of thing is this? A newspaper clipping, a census page and a marriage certificate do not all belong in the same folder. It would be like mixing socks and shirts in the same drawer. Within each folder I then choose the locally most appropriate system of filenames. My people photos, and a few other things, are named and sub-foldered by surname, and there have been tricky choices to make in there, so I would not want to extend that problem any more widely.

I am astonished that Bob, whose advice on other matters I have often found so valuable, does not link his documents with Reunion. Why throw away such a valuable tool? I can read through what I have on person X, and the little red numbers keep saying “and this is how we know that bit.” Wonderful! And of course those multi-surname items, however you may have named and pigeon-holed them, can be linked to each and every relevant person.

My system is very much like yours....with a bit of Bob's. I name my files by surname.
SURNAME_givenname_obit.jpg or SURNAME1-SURNAME2_marriage.pdf. But like you, to me it makes sense to keep all marriage records in one folder, all obits in another. I do have 8 main folders though, for each of my major surnames, and each have a set of subfolders by type.

I have a separate folder for Census images, with subfolder by year. Those get named with year_surname1_givenname-surname2_givenname.jpg for each head of household.

And then I link them all in Reunion, because I like the convenience of clicking on a source and being able to open the image. Yes, it might get detached at some point, but it's worked for me for over a decade. And if ever it doesn't, the images are organized in folders on my hard drive.

I think it's interesting that what works best for one, doesn't work at all for another.....and that's ok!

[Kate McCain]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

If I'm understanding the issue, I think I'm the odd person out (if most of the folks use a surname-based naming system for digital records). I've got too many documents that refer to multiple folks, for one thing. I've taken what I suspect is the information-oriented route (being a retired information scientist). I name/file my hard copy and scans/downloads by the type and year or content of document (with a personal name attached for things like WWI registration cards, wills, etc). Census records and group photos are the major challenge because they can contain many different families/persons.

The digital versions and one hard copy (on acid-free paper, in an archival page holder) are stored by type (e.g.US census by state, English marriage records, directory entries, passenger lists, obituaries, genealogical correspondence) and given an appropriate alpha-numeric sequence number (e.g. 1920 US census OR-0052). I try to avoid the type/token problem--like 3 families on the same census page --by giving the scanned page/photo the ID number and each family's household/line number specification in the details. Similarly a group photo of the "5 Barker Brothers" or the "10 members of the Morris Family" would have an ID number for that photo/scan and a pointer to the photo in each person's Reunion record).

If I want to see a full list of everything I have on a person in Reunion, I pull up the family group sheet and look at the source references. If I want to see the physical collection, I pull the hanging file for that family (separate folders for census records, vital records, etc). These family focused hard copies are repeated for each distinct family-level occurrence (copies of the same census record for each family/census year, for instance). I've been doing this for about 15 years now and the alpha-numeric item-numbering and filing systems are holding up well (except for storage space 8-) ).

I have never tried to link scans/digital images to my Reunion records--I rely on pointers. One of these days I may try to get some stuff online in a more public forum and then supply some photos, census scans, etc but I'm still drowning in data after 15 years of doing this.

[vsalupo]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

As I said in my previous post, I really think one must also have a system of folders, and my approach centres on that. I start by asking myself, what sort of thing is this? A newspaper clipping, a census page and a marriage certificate do not all belong in the same folder. It would be like mixing socks and shirts in the same drawer. Within each folder I then choose the locally most appropriate system of filenames. My people photos, and a few other things, are named and sub-foldered by surname, and there have been tricky choices to make in there, so I would not want to extend that problem any more widely.

I too think much like Michael. Before I started doing research I decided to think through what I wanted to accomplish with sources. I determined my main goals were 1) not create duplicates 2) have a system that was easy to maintain as documents were added 3) pointed me to the primary family group the document involved. The text below is from a document I keep with all my paper documents. It is quite verbose. The simple description is that every source is named with the type of document followed by the next serial number available followed by the family name most represented in the source (sometimes I put two). For example "VBI0001 Brown" is a vital record-birth certificate for a person with the Brown surname. This would be the electronic file name and would appear somewhere on the paper copy or it's holder.

I let reunion do the duplicating. It was not a priority that I could look at my paper documents and assemble a person/family's documents quickly. It does mean that if I lose reunion, I have lost all the connections. I foresee printing my research to paper family and person sheets for donation to the local historical society. The source list will serve as a cross-reference to the paper binders.

For those that are analytical about their filing, this may be the most optimized for storage.

**************************

All documents belong to one of five binder categories. These are Government, Miscellaneous, Newspaper, Photograph, and Vital Records. Within each of these are subfolders that consist of a 3 character name. The first letter is the first letter of the Folder that the section is in. The remaining 2 characters are taken from the document type in the section.

Government sections
GCE Census Records
GCO Court case records
GIM Immigration/Passport
GLI License-Permit
GMI Military
GNA Naturalization
GOT Other Documents
GPR Probate Records
GSS Social Security Records
GTA Tax Records

Miscellaneous sections
MBI Birth & Baptism
MBU Funeral-Burial info
MGR Gravestone Markers
MIN Interviews
MLE Letters-Correspondence
MMA Maps-Locations
MMI Miscellaneous Documents
MSC School Records
MWE Wedding

Newspaper sections
NAR Articles
NBI Birth Notice
NDI Divorce Announcement
NOB Obituaries
NPN Public Notice
NWE Wedding Announcement

Photograph sections
POB Photograph Object
PPF Photograph Family/Group
PPI Photograph Individual
PPP Photograph Places

Vital Records section
VAD Adoption Records
VBI Birth Certificates
VDE Death Certificates
VDI Divorce Decree
VMA Marriage License

Document ID Numbers:
All documents will be numbered uniquely with a format “FSS####-##”. A label will contain an optional Surname following the ID to give a quick reference to the main family referenced in the document. Electronic files will use the following naming convention “FSS####-## Surname.Type”

FSS The three letter Section abbreviation which the document will be filed in

#### Numbered consecutively within a section. All leading zeros are used (i.e. 0001 for the first document in a section)

-## Any variant of the main document. This could be a magnified photocopy section of the document or a manipulated electronic file, such as applying a filter with a Photo editing program.

Surname The Surname of the most significant family within a document. This can be very confusing for group photos, place documents (maps), and legal transactions. This is only a guide and is not to be used to infer the total contents of a document. The surname can also be free format text up to the 31 character limit of the MacOS as long as all other format areas are included in the document name.

.Type All files should have a cross platform format (jpg or tiff for photos, pdf or txt for text documents, etc). All files should include a “.type” extension so the files can be properly opened on a computer.

Filing Practices:
A physical label will be attached to a paper copy of the document and filed in the appropriate binder. There should be both a paper and electronic copy of all documents.

Leister Reunion assigns a source #. The source text will contain a note as to whether a copy of the source is owned by Vincent Salupo and the document ID number, FSS####-## (not the electronic name).

Physical Files
A physical binder will hold all documents, original and duplicated. The binders will be spine labeled with the 3 digit FSS code or range of codes within. Any oversized documents will be stored in appropriate protective binder/portfolio/storage container. A photo or size appropriate replica will be stored in regular binders with a note to the location of the oversize version.

[dm87]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

I have a massive collection of hard copy documents related to family history. I intend scanning these documents and archiving them. Google Drive has been recommended for this project. I'm looking for advice on how to set up such a searchable database and any other tips before I start. It would also be good if they could somehow be linked to Reunion.

I save every reference as a jpg or pdf file, usually using the file name assigned by the Mac during the saving process, sometimes adding a name, or a keyword. The file names are not organized in any fashion, they just list alphabetically in one folder, all 3700 of them, which is backed up and available to me. I often check details in the original files to explore discrepancies in information, ensuring that the discrepancy is not due to my human error in data entry. The file names can be searched by keyword.

I find my reference files quickly because each file name is recorded in the source, using the field "File Name". Every photograph is accompanied by a source in Reunion. I omitted the field "File Name" from the printed source, so that it does not show in printed materials. The "File Name" would be useless to anyone who has no access to my specific saved reference files.

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Scan& & Archive original documents

Michael, I am in the process of scanning my deceased parents photographs and would be very interested to learn how you organise your filing system for group photographs.
Thanks

Maybe better to invent a system that suits you, but since you ask, I attach an image that will give you the general idea of what I do, plus a larger version of the middle of that, for clarity. If you want it explained, that might be rather long to post here, so email me on
michael[at sign]talibard[dot]com
Group photos are always the difficulty, and in a few cases, reluctantly, I duplicate them.