Cousins and Kindex founders Cathy Gilmore and Kimball Clark are thrilled to be included among the group of 10 semifinalists competing in the RootsTech 2017 Innovator Showdown.
Dorothy Clark at the World Conference of Records, 1980
For Kimball and Cathy, what began as a project to scan their grandmother’s records grew into a realization they needed to do more to make her life’s records not only accessible by her large posterity, but also searchable, engaging, and easy to manage. This idea grew into Kindex, a web software archival and indexing tool that enables anyone to gather, index, and share records in a collaborative archive.
A unique product in a sea of competitive family history technology, Kindex is the only web software indexing tool dedicated to helping everyday people manage and share their records. “Most people don’t realize it, but almost everyone has an archive management problem,” Cathy said. “Almost every home has a box of letters, a shelf of journals, a bin stuffed with documents of all kinds—and it’s all unsearchable and at risk of being lost over time.” With so many records at risk of being lost, thrown away, or damaged, Kindex helps families rescue their records, making them accessible and searchable for generations to come.
After reaching the semifinals in the 2016 RootsTech Innovator Showdown, Cathy and Kimball have tirelessly moved Kindex forward, fueled by bootstrap earnings via scanning services and archive pre-sales.
Milestones include:
MyKindex (a personal archive & indexing tool. Release January 2017).
Kindex Family (a collaborative archive & indexing tool. Release February 2017)
Continued development of Kindex Projects, a custom indexing platform for groups such genealogy and historical societies (Release Spring 2017)
Expansion of youth market through continuing development of a mobile app and planning of youth record gathering events
Explored B2B partnerships and applications of indexed archives.
Increased interest in the stories gleaned from family letters, journals, and other historical documents, coupled with the increasing demand for accessible, fully-searchable archives, places Kindex in a position to be a significant disruptor in the family history market. No longer just about names, dates, and trees, Kindex paves the way for families and groups to create narrative genealogies based on their primary source records. “We are a unique and innovative product in a market that is evolving quickly,” Kimball said. “The stories made searchable by Kindex are the gateway where increasing numbers are entering family history.”
Kindex believes that every life, no matter how important or insignificant, deserves to be remembered in history. We are proud to play a role in the rescue of records, and invite you to try it out on kindex.org.
When Kimball and I founded Kindex, one of the first goals we established is to “Gather What is Scattered”—a goal that would rescue and unify the family records that are found in almost every home. Accumulating, organizing, and digitizing family records is the first—and often the most challenging—step families face. And the larger the family association, the more complex this “gather” step can be. For example, here are four types of family associations:[1]
Immediate families: individuals, couples, or family units consisting of a husband, wife, and children
Grandparent families: families including descendants of siblings
Ancestral Family Organizations (AFO’s): families that include all descendants of a common ancestral couple.
Surname-based Ancestral Societies: associations of ancestral families that share a common surname.
Once family organizations move beyond immediate families, they face significant challenges in knowing what family records exist and who has them. For example, when parents pass away, children may inherit various family heirlooms, including photos, journals, letters, and other artifacts. As these records are passed down, it becomes difficult not not only to track who has what records, but also ensure the records are being handled and stored properly. Sometimes, children who inherit or discover family records fail to understand their value, and records are lost, thrown away, or damaged. On the other hand, there may be family members who hoard family records, reluctant to share what they have. More often than not, historical records relevant family associations are in hidden in homes of their members.
There are many things family associations can do to combat these challenges, including:
Create a “call for records” by mail, email, or social media that invites family members to search for family records in their own homes. Define what records you are seeking and offer help to those needing support.
Create a database determining which family member holds what records.
Hold family “scanning parties” or have a “scanning room” at your next reunion.
Offer to help an elderly family member by organizing or scanning their records.
Enlist the help of professional scanning services, if needed. (See Kindex Gather Services.)
Establish a common digital archive where family members can contribute their records.
One example of a “Call for Records”
Because family associations of all sizes seek preserve and share their historical records, it is important that family members have access to a common repository where digitized records can be gathered. When a family association creates a Kindex webpage, (i.e., ezratclark.kindex.org), members of that family collaborate together to gather their digitized records into a single archive. More than just a online archive, Kindex provides the tools where families can index and search an ever-expanding family record database.
Kindex family pages offer several advantages over standard digital storage and family tree databases. When you create a Kindex Family page, you can:
Determine whether an archive is private or public
Create archives for both deceased and living individuals
Establish which ancestors/family members are included in your archive, thus creating a well-defined family identity as opposed to a more open-ended family tree database. This helps families gather, index, and search their database more effectively.
Currently Kindex is assisting several Ancestral Family Organizations with their “gather” efforts, including the Sampson Family Organization, the Ezra T. Clark Organization and Jesse N. Smith Heritage Foundation. We are also helping several grandparent organizations digitize and prepare their records for Kindex family pages.
From living individuals to large family organizations, Kindex is determined to help families gather the records that are scattered and lost to history. How will you help rescue your family’s history?
Note: Kindex software is currently in Beta, with Kindex Family pages becoming available in December 2016. We invite you to try it out at Kindex.org and click the “Log in with FamilySearch” button. Or, contact us at sales@kindex.org to learn more and to reserve your Kindex subdomain.
1.FamilySearch Wiki, s.v. “Create and Maintain Family Associations and Organizations” (accessed October 4, 2016), https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Create_and_Maintain_Family_Associations_or_Organizations
This photo of Dorothy Smith and her theater friends appears in her Book of Remembrance. It has been one of our favorite images of her youth. But with no caption, and nothing written on the back, we didn’t know anything about it. For years we wondered about its context, and it wasn’t until we transcribed one of Dorothy Smith Clark’s handwritten life sketches did we learn the real story behind it. In addition, we also discovered a photocopy Dorothy made that identified many of the people in it. Since then, we have identified and tagged eleven people in the photo on FamilySearch. Now this photo can be searched, shared, and appreciated, thanks to the transcription of Dorothy’s life sketch.
When saving photos to any online site, include as much information as possible, even if you don’t know the people in it. Consider information such as:
Provenance (Where did the photo come from? How did you receive it? Who was the original owner?)
Captions (Did the photo come from a scrapbook that included a caption?)
Information written on the photo itself, on the front or back
The stamp or mark of the photo developer
A description, including setting, subjects, time period, or other tags that will make it easy for someone to find.
The date the photo was taken (or an estimate of the date)
Other supporting information, such as information extracted from letters, diaries, and other documents.
Identify the people in the photo. If you are unsure, but want to suggest a possibility, make sure that it is clear in the description.
Don’t give up on unidentified photos. The little information you have may help solve a mystery. Index them. Transcribe the information on them. And of course, if transcribe your family’s documents, the description may already be written for you:
“When Marvin and I were about 13 and 11 we travelled with a group from “The Alberta Conservatory of Music” under Leo McCoombs to several surrounding communities. Billed as the “Lethbridge Kiddies” in Easter in Fairyland, our offering included piano with narratives, violin arrangements, dances and humorous readings by characters dressed as Rain, Snow, Clouds, and various flowers. My role as a pink hyacinth included a short piano number and later a group dance. Despite the novelty and excitement of being “on the road”, the stage never held any real attraction for me, even after some pleasant times in dancing choruses and road shows.” —Dorothy Smith Clark, Life Sketch [Dorothy Smith (KWC4-9F9)]
Our team is working hard on our upcoming release of KindexBeta in mid-February. Many of you are just as excited as we are about this ground-breaking software that will change the way families archive their own documents like letters, journals, diaries, and other papers. Let’s take a look at our software’s three main steps: Gather, Index, and Share.
The top area of the screen contains your unique cover image, along with the Add a Record and Search tools. The Search tool enables users to search all or part of your family archive, as well as the entire public Kindex archive. The Add a Record tool adds documents, photos, and audio/video to your family archive. When uploading records, users enter key information such as document type, name, and dates, then move to the Gather screen where the records are managed.
Here is a Gather screen of a sample Family Archive. On the left is a 2-Generation Family List, populated by names linked to your FamilySearch account. In the main area are records in various stages of completion. Records may be sorted by family member(s), or file type(s). In this area you may sort and browse the archive, view original records, and select records to index.
Within a smart and flexible Index screen users transcribe and tag their records. For this record (a letter), the user may scroll and zoom while entering the letter’s content and information in fields to the right. Note the presence of different fields for this record’s information, including names, FamilySearch ID, and dates. These fields are dependent upon each record type, and are designated when you contribute specific records. Square buttons immediately above the transcription area include formatting tools (strikethrough, and underline), tagging tools (FamilySearch ID Tag, GeoTag, and Event Tags), and help tools (user comments and help). These fields and tagging tools mark key data that enables records to be sorted, searched, and shared in powerful ways.
A button on the right expands the indexing to a full screen view, as seen below.
After a record is indexed, it is submitted to the archive to be reviewed by the record’s contributor From our Share screen, you may:
View and read indexed records (letters, journals, photos, etc.)
Print and download the original and indexed records
Share the link with family trees
View contributors and indexers
Share the record on social media.
Users may expand to a full screen mode and adjust font size when reading indexed records, as seen below. At any step users may Search all or part of their family archive, as well as expand their search to the entire Kindex archive.
While not an exhaustive list of all the software’s features, this sneak peek gives you a taste of how easy and powerful it is to transcribe your documents and create searchable archives with Kindex. We look forward to helping individuals and family organizations manage and transcribe their archives, as well as working with family history partners in integrating our indexing tool within their software. We anticipate software updates that are optimized for mobile use and utilize speech recognition tools, as well as integrating OCR tools for both typewritten and handwritten documents.
Please visit RootsTech Booth #1017, and at the “Innovator Alley” at the RootsTech Innovator Showdown where we will be presenting our web software as semifinalists!
Kindex™ brings family records out of obscurity through indexing—creating a searchable, shareable archive that connects records to families and researchers. Here’s how it works:
Gather
Organize your family records by person, record type, and date. After you scan and digitize your records, add them to your Kindex.org Archive.
• Unite family records (multiple file types) • Establish record provenance • Unlimited space
Index
Transcribe your records and invite others to help. Add tags for people, places, events, and subjects. Archive Administrators verify all indexing (transcription and tagging). • Invite family and community to index • Build your searchable archive • Credit those who transcribe and tag
Share
As Archives grow, search, read and share new family stories and records. Connect Family Archives together, and print complete, sourced archival books. • Add tagged records to FamilySearch Memories • Share memories on social media • Print archive—in part or whole—to an easy-to-read PDF • Read transcribed records within the browser • Download original records
See our debut at RootsTech in Salt Lake City, February 3–6, 2016!
For further information on our software, products, and services, please contact us.
