by Cathy Gilmore | Jul 11, 2017 | Features
Every family has at least one. No, not the crazy uncle. We’re talking about the record-keepers. You know, the ones that ended up with all the stuff: the family bible, the old photos, the diaries and letters. Some people spend a lifetime gathering records, hoarding photos, and hunting down lost items. Others come upon records by accident or inheritance. If you’re a record keeper, chances are you’ve thought a lot about what to do with your family records. You may not know it, but you’re an archivist.
What’s in Your Closet?
Like professional archivists, your goal is to collect, preserve, and share things—in your case, family records. Among the challenges professional archivists face when building a digital repository is making their collections discoverable, accessible, and searchable to their patrons. Family archives share these same challenges. For record-keepers of family photos, journals, letters, and other precious memorabilia, we should think like an archivist and ask ourselves the following three questions about our family records.
1. Are they discoverable?
Do your relatives and researchers know your family records exist? If not, how would they discover them? If your records are not “born digital” and are still in their original state as paper letters, journals, and other documents, it’s nearly impossible for others to discover your records. If your records are digitized, where are they stored? For example, the storage options below have varying levels of discoverability.
- Cloud storage, like Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox
- Physical storage, like computers, external hard drives, USB, CDs, etc.
- Online family tree databases, like FamilySearch, MyHeritage, and Ancestry
- Historical or genealogical archives
While some may think “I don’t want my records to be discovered,” remember that discoverability does not preclude archive owners from establishing rules of access and usage. For example, record owners may wish to be selective with record sharing, charge for record access, or enable rules and limitations on the use of the record. No matter what rules we have in place, discoverability remains the fundamental first step in creating a family archive. Without it, our records are lost to the world.
2. Are they accessible?
Once records are discovered, can relatives and researchers access them? There are many instances where records may be discoverable, but not accessible. For example:
- You discover records online, but they are in a private family tree you can’t gain access to
- You discover that a record in an archive, but it can only be accessed by visiting the archive
- You discover a record in an archive, but learn that access is limited to certain people
- Everyone knows Aunt Sue has the family Bible, but she won’t show it to anyone
- Your relative has the family photo collection on his external hard drive, but you can’t get a copy
As a record-keeper and family archivist, an important role is to enable accessibility to family records. If you don’t do it, who will?
3. Are they searchable?
Are your family records currently searchable? How easily are they sorted, searched, and read? What elements of your records are searchable (file names, titles, descriptions, etc.)? How does your software, cloud storage, or family tree database facilitate searchability? As a companion question, can your records (and all of their associated data) connect with other databases, family trees, and archives? Furthermore, can your record data be downloaded, manipulated, and applied in other ways, like timelines, maps, and books? When choosing where to place your family records, remember that full searchability is key to an archive that is engaging, connectable, and readable.
A Kindex Solution
These are the kinds of questions we think about every day. We help family archivists rescue their records, bring them out of obscurity, and create archives that can be discovered, accessed and shared. With Kindex you can:
- Enable your archive to be discovered by potential collaborators and contributors
- Access your archive from any computer, anywhere.
- Unite scattered family records, make hard-to-find collections accessible to your members, and create public or private networks to collaborate on your archive
- Create searchable record data in three ways (metadata, full text transcription, and tags)
- Download your archive data (as CSV) any time.
In addition, we have some amazing features presently in development that will help your archive to connect and be shared with other people in various formats.
SAY NO MORE. LET’S DO THIS!
Still undecided? Here are some bonus questions:
|
Where is your Archive?
|
|
Undigitized |
On your computer |
In cloud |
In a digital family tree |
On Kindex |
| Do I control my archive access, scope, and content? |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Varies (private vs. wiki-based) |
Yes |
| Is my archive discoverable online? |
No |
Limited |
Limited |
Varies (private vs. wiki-based) |
Yes |
| Is my archive accessible from any computer? |
No |
Very limited |
Varies |
Varies |
Yes |
| Can others collaborate on my archive |
No |
No or very limited |
Yes; limited |
Varies |
Yes |
| Can my archive be private? |
Yes |
Yes |
Varies |
Varies |
Yes; Choose your privacy level |
| Is my archive fully searchable? |
No |
Limited |
Limited |
Limited |
Yes* |
| Can I add metadata? |
Yes |
Varies |
Varies |
Limited |
Yes |
| Can I add metadata in batch form? |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Does my archive have integrated transcription & record tagging tools? |
No |
Varies; often separate from primary source |
Rare; Varies by platform |
Rare; Varies by platform |
Yes |
| Can I download all my archive data? |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Is my archive compatible with other databases? |
No |
Varies |
Varies |
Varies |
FamilySearch (others forthcoming) |
*some metadata searchability in development
Archive Your Life on Kindex
Don’t you think it’s time you started thinking like an archivist? Kindex is free to try, so head over to Kindex.org and get started. Click “Try it Out” to start your free archive up to 50 records. Upgrade to unlimited records (and unlimited collaborators!) for about $12/month.
TRY IT OUT!
by Cathy Gilmore | Jun 13, 2017 | Features, Stories from the Archive
If a photo is a window into a family’s life, then a letter is the door. This 1904 portrait of the Emma Woolley and Charles Rich Clark family is beautiful, but offers few clues about the challenges, personalities and relationships between these family members.
Today, we transcribed a letter written by Emma Woolley to her husband Charles Rich Clark while he was away serving a church mission in 1892. In this letter we learn that Emma had a migraine, and that the oldest child, Marion, was the serious one who concerned himself with his mother’s help and offered a little prayer on her behalf. We learn that Vernon, the next oldest, was the silly one and said funny things that made his mother and neighbors laugh. We learned how devoted Emma is as a wife, managing the family accounts, nurturing sick children, doing laundry, and settling debts. She closes the letter saying,
“I guess this is not what would be called a love letter but it is written in love all the same, and I am proud of the man I love, and hope to keep ever fresh and alive that affection that exists between us”
To read the full transcription, go to the Ezra T. Clark Family Archive.
Make insights like this possible with your own family records and start your own family archive.
by Cathy Gilmore | Apr 17, 2017 | Features
Have you planned your family reunion yet? If you’ve ever attended a reunion, you know how much work goes into publicity, venues, games, t-shirts, and of course, food. In all this planning, it’s easy to lose sight of one key event you should implement at your next reunion: a “Record Rescue”. A Kindex Record Rescue is an all-inclusive way for families to gather, preserve, and share their family records.
It begins with inviting Kindex to your next family gathering to scan your records, and ultimately ends with family records united on a searchable, shareable family archive. The end product is a Kindex family archive where family members can gather, index, and search every word of records once hidden in closets and on shelves.
Learn more: A Sampson Family Record Rescue
Whether your small, grandparent family organization (GFO) or a large ancestral family organization (AFO), ask yourself the following questions :
- Do you know where all your family records are?
- Are all your family records scanned?
- Do you have a long-term plan for protecting and preserving your family’s physical records?
- Does your family have a way for all its members to access to their records?
- Are your family records indexed and searchable?
- Do you know exactly what will happen to your family records when you pass away?
If you answered “no” to any of those questions, it’s time for a Record Rescue. Family reunions provide a rare opportunity for families to gather and scan family records, as well as discuss how they can ensure their records will be preserved and accessible. Families can:
- Unite far-flung records by inviting family members to bring their photos, letters, and journals
- Discover and view precious family records for the first time
- Inventory family records including ownership, record types, and provenance.
- Learn how to handle, organize, scan, and index their records
Kindex is passionate about family records, and we want to help you rescue the most at-risk, precious source of your family’s history: your own family records. Contact us to learn more and reserve your family reunion date.
Learn how Kindex helped the Sampson Family Organization rescue their family reunions.
START MY RECORD RESCUE
by Cathy Gilmore | Apr 17, 2017 | Featured Archive, Stories from the Archive
One family organization—the Sampsons of Delta, Utah—embraced the idea of record gathering and digitization. When reunion organizer Tonna Bounds first approached friend and Kindex owner Kimball Clark, she had a great vision of uniting her family records, but was concerned about the following obstacles:
- How to encourage family members throughout the country to attend the reunion and bring their records
- How to scan records correctly within a limited timeframe
- How to discern which family members had what records
- Convincing aging or skeptical family members to preserve and share their records
- Involve children and youth in family record archiving
With her family’s biannual reunion several months away, we suggested she use Kindex Gather Services to hold an on-site digitization event—a “family scanning party”.
Preparation
Several weeks before the reunion, we sent the family a “Call for Records” publicity image to promote the digitization event. The family posted this image on social media and emailed this image to family, and provided guidelines on record gathering including:
- A list of family members in attendance, and who of those brought records
- How record scanning would be prioritized. For example, the Sampson family focused on letters, journals, and papers more than photos. They also gave higher priority to records coming in from out-of-town attendees, and those records belonging to first-generation family members.)
- Acceptable record sizes, and what types of scanners would be available to accommodate those sizes
- Suggestions on preparing items for scanning, including the removal of loose papers, staples, paper clips, sheet protectors, etc.
Execution
When family members with records arrived at the reunion, we checked in their records and gathered the following information:
- Record owner and contact information
- Primary person to whom the records originally belonged
- Inventory of items to be scanned
As more documents arrived throughout the day, we were impressed with the family’s response to the Call for Records. Records were gathered from New York, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah. Soon all our scanners were busy, and several family volunteers—including several youth—jumped in to help. Throughout the reunion, families entered the “record room” to check on the status of their scanning. They were delighted to see the process, and several volunteered their time to move the process along.
Mark Sampson, Kimball Clark, Dale Sampson, and Caleb Sampson busy scanning their family records. Caleb remarked, while scanning the journals of his ancestors: “This makes me want to go write in my journal when I get home.”
Ikara Bounds scans her family records while Kimball trains Caleb Sampson on book scanning
A Sampson family member pauses scanning to review an old school photo of an ancestor.
Follow Up
At the end of the day, we returned the records to their owners, and made arrangements to scan any records that remained. Following the compilation of all digitized files to an external hard drive, Kindex will:
- Orient each scan
- Save each in the appropriate format and grouping.
- Transfer the complete digitized archive to USB drives for family members to order
- Upload all digitized records to sampson.kindex.org, which enables the family to access each record and begin the indexing process.
Because of the Sampson Family’s dedication to the preservation and and sharing of their family records, their scanning event was a great success. Family members couldn’t wait to access records they had never seen, and were already planning indexing and book projects. Several volunteers became emotional as they paused to read journal entries between scans, pored over old photos, and when a copy of the Delta High School fight song was discovered, played an impromptu version of on the piano. Others simply poked in their heads and exclaimed, “Wonderful! We can’t wait!”
After the reunion, we asked Tonna how she felt about the record-gathering effort. She said:
“How do you explain something that took place at our past reunion that is so futuristic in thought and action. People don’t understand the potential in all of this—jaw dropping in thought!! Just trying to wrap my brain around it all. Aunt Zelda and Uncle Ivo’s history has been destroyed and through all the ancestors’ history. Those lost histories can now be put back together with even more force then could be imagined.”
The Sampson Family prepares letters for scanning.
We were honored to be a part of the Sampson Family’s effort to bring their family records out of obscurity, and hope to enable many more families see the the potential in utilizing family reunions for the gathering and preservation of their own family records.
Contact us to learn more about how Kindex can help you rescue your family records.
by Cathy Gilmore | Apr 14, 2017 | Features, Resources, Software
Kindex is excited to announce the release of two major software updates that enable Kindex users to customize and grow their archives in powerful new ways.
1. Add & Organize Records into Collections
Archive owners can now create Collections within their archives to organize their records. With collections, you can organize your records any way you wish. For example, your collections can be named as family names, record types, dates, or subjects.
2. Add Multiple Records & Assign Record Info (Metadata) to a Batch
You may now add multiple records to your archive quickly and easily, with the added benefit of designating Record Info (metadata) to a batch of records. This feature allows users to apply common metadata to an entire batch of records, instead of applying metadata individually. Metadata may include Record Info such as descriptions, provenance, dates, places, and keywords. Metadata can also be added and edited in batch form from your archive’s Gather page.
Step 1: To add multiple records, click “Add Records”, and select “Upload from my computer”.
Step 2: Select your records. If you don’t know how to select multiple files at once from your computer, hover atop the link “How to Batch Upload”.
Step 3: Assign your batch of records to a collection, or add a new collection for them to be placed, and review your upload progress. At this point, you may opt to add Record Info (metadata) as a batch now, or individually later.
Step 4: Add Record Info to your records.
What’s Next?
The following enhancements are currently in development and will be released soon:
- Manually order your Collections
- Nest a Collection within a Collection
Upgrade Now
If you don’t already have an Unlimited + Collaborative Kindex Archive, now is the time to upgrade and take advantage of these amazing tools. Please contact us with an questions you may have, and happy batching!
SIGN UP OR LOG IN
