by Cathy Gilmore | Feb 27, 2018 | Stories from the Archive
Despite all the busyness of preparing for RootsTech, this morning I had a few quiet moments this morning thinking of our Grandma Dorothy Smith Clark. I wondered, what was she doing this week, so many years ago? I searched “Feb 27” on her Kindex archive, and found these diary pages from 1928:
Sunday Feb 26th
Stay home from S S with Virgil who has a bad cold. Go to church with Lucille & to Mutual. In our J class we discuss getting or “J” pin. Discuss contest numbers for M.I.A. Day & began plan for Progressive Supper.
Monday Night Feb 27 Lucille P. and I went down to Galt Hospital to see Anna Nielson who had her appendix out last Friday. She was feeling pretty good. We took her some flowers in behalf of our Junior class.
Wed. Feb 29th – Leap year
We washed & in P.M. I went to bed as I had a little sore throat.
Thurs. Mar 1st Spring weather
March 2nd
Friday. I’m up & better. Sr. Wallburger sends us some cakes & tarts.
Nothing much: some church activities, a sore throat, a visit to a friend, and a comment on the weather. And yet, it is so much, because with every found page the knowledge of who she was becomes more complete. Getting face-to-face with her history is one the greatest gifts I can think of.
What will you discover when you index your family records? Try it out free on Kindex.org.
by Cathy Gilmore | Apr 6, 2017 | Features, Resources, Software
Among the many documents our Grandma Dorothy Clark left behind was a handwritten list of her attempts to be published. She sent articles to church magazines or the Reader’s Digest, but not once were her stories published. As an amateur artist, she never had an exhibit of her art beyond the walls of her own home except the occasional entry at the State Fair. And her letters—including hundreds of handwritten letters to family & friends—sat folded up in boxes for years.
Dorothy Smith in Paul Wildhaber’s art studio in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1932
Her amazing life never made headlines, and was never published. Her records are not found in any special collection, or any other archive devoted to preserving government, academic, or historical records. Her records live on our shelves and closets. But to us she was a leader worth following, and a woman worth remembering. She deserves an archive.
Your Records At Risk
What about your records? Family records represent one of the most at-risk sources of our history. One only has to walk through flea markets and second-hand stores to see the plethora of family records that are discarded. Records that are kept are often scattered among various families, eventually getting lost, damaged, or forgotten.
How will you ensure this doesn’t happen to your records? Do your photos, journals, diaries, letters, and other precious family records deserve an archive? Another way of asking that question is, “Do you deserve to be remembered?”. The answer is, of course “Yes. A thousand times yes.”
Everyone deserves an archive—not just the rich, famous, or important. We all deserve to be remembered.
Searchable Archives for Everyone
When we built Kindex, our goal was to bring amazing archival tools to everyday families. Putting family records on Kindex enables anyone to create a digital archive and access professional tools that make their records more accessible and relevant than ever. Families who manage their own archives on their custom Kindex subdomain can:
- Collaborate with unlimited people to gather records from multiple sources
- Add unlimited records
- Import and add metadata in batch mode (release April 10 2017)
- Utilize crowdsourced indexing tools
- Choose public or private archive access
- Enjoy full text searchability
- Access & download source records and indexed data
Cool. How do I start?
