by Cathy Gilmore | Apr 14, 2017 | archives, 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!
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by Cathy Gilmore | Mar 28, 2017 | archives, Features, Resources
A few weeks ago I was browsing in an antique shop when a stack of old photos caught my eye. As I examined these portraits and family poses one by one, I discovered names written on the back: David A. Page. Teddy O. Keefer. Ester Olson. How did they get lost?
Photo 0020 on found.kindex.org is David Alonzo Page with wife Gilheld “Nellie” Qualseth and children Gladys and Elmer, c1900.
As a self-proclaimed hoarder of my own family records, I couldn’t imagine letting go photos like these. And yet it happens every day. Parents pass away, downsize, or move, and family records are lost or thrown away. Records that do remain are often sold in estate sales, eventually finding their way to antique stores or flea markets where they sold as mere commodities.
Kindex wants to change that. While we are doing all we can to rescue records before they are lost, we created the Kindex Lost & Found Archive as a home for records without families to claim them. Found.kindex.org is a destination where collectors, volunteers, researchers, and family members can work together to rescue our histories by preserving, indexing, and discovering lost family records. There are many ways you can be a rescuer—and you don’t have to own any records to get started.
Rescue by Indexing
Rescue history by transcribing photos, postcards, and other records rich with information. Indexing on found.kindex.org creates a new repository of names, dates, and locations that make thousands of records searchable for the first time. All you need to get started is a free Kindex account and a generous heart.
How to index records Kindex Lost & Found Archive.
Postcard 0016 on found.kindex.org
Rescue by Collaborating
Become a collaborator on found.kindex.org and you can add your own collections of “lost” records to be crowdsource indexed. To become a collaborator, contact us for an invite or go to found.kindex.org and click Add a Record.
Rescue by Partnering
If you are an antique collector or dealer you can help rescue history by partnering with Kindex and sharing your records on found.kindex.org. We have partnered with some great local antique shops, including Longwood Antiques and Cobwebs Antiques & Collectibles, who have agreed to allow Kindex to scan photos, postcards, scrapbooks, and other indexable records. We, in turn, have agreed to host them in a crowdsourced indexing archive where the records can be searched for and found by their names, descriptions, keywords, and other metadata—all at no cost to them. Records are attributed to the store they came from, so when they are found, researchers can contact the store owner to inquire about the records.
Who is the cute & mysterious gas station attendant my mother met on the road to Las Vegas in 1959? We’ll learn soon on found.kindex.org.
What’s the Catch?
There’s no catch—just do have a few guidelines:
- Records added to this archive must have some sort of indexable text that would identify the record to an individual or group.
- Collaborators who add records to Kindex archives retain copyright ownership. By adding records to Kindex, you are grant Kindex a license to host and create a derivative (i.e., an index) of your records.
- Record owners may watermark their images so much as the watermark does not detract from or obscure any part of the record.
- You must follow all Kindex Terms & Conditions. You have an opportunity to review them when you create a free Kindex account.
- To index records as a guest, or to add records as an archive collaborator, you must have a Kindex account.
Please contact us with an questions you may have, and happy finding!
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by Cathy Gilmore | Mar 16, 2017 | archives, Features, Resources, Software
Announcing the release the Kindex Collaborative Upgrade, the best way to bring family and friends together on a single, online archive. Upgrade to Collaborative and transform your archive into a destination where friends or family can help gather, index, and search—or simply enjoy reading family records.
Also released today is the option to create a Public archive when upgrading to a collaborative account. Enjoy the benefits of Crowdsourced Indexing, and jumpstart your indexing by allowing any Kindex user to transcribe and tag your records. Public archives also help others to discover and connect to your archive.
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by Cathy Gilmore | Dec 28, 2016 | archives, RootsTech 2016
If you’ve followed Kindex for very long, you’ll know that we frequently post about our Grandma Dorothy Smith Clark. Today I want to share with you why her story is so important to us.
As a child, I asked Grandma Clark what she would like for her birthday. “Tell me a story,” she answered. This voice speaks to me still. As a young teenager she encouraged me to create and write. A visit with her hardly went by without her suggesting, “Write me a poem.” That encouragement speaks to me still. Today, when I read her letters and diaries, I see her notes in the margins revealing instructions for a personal history—a project she never completed before passing away. Those notes speak to me still.
A marked-up page from Dorothy’s life history.
When my cousin Kimball and I decided to launch Kindex, our aim was to create a solution for the enormous body of work our grandma left behind. While it was impossible for Dorothy to envision the type of indexing tool we are building today, I like to think she had a sense of what was to come. She had the gift of foresight, the ability to anticipate and address needs. In a sense, building Kindex will finish the work she started, while also helping us tell her story.
And what is her story? I’ll share just a part. While still a young mother, Dorothy completed her Book of Remembrance. A work of art in its own right, its pages reveal her deep sense of ancestral belonging, records of her parents’ and grandparents’ spiritual gifts, and a recognition of her own divine purpose and talents. As Dorothy developed her own spiritual gifts, her ability to discern the needs of others and act in faith became a catalyst for ministering to others, notwithstanding the fear and shyness she often felt. To the question posed to the Savior, “Who is my neighbor?” Dorothy could answer: the plumber, the piano tuner, the refugee, or the outcast—anyone in her path in need of help.
A watercolored page from the Dorothy Smith Clark Book of Remembrance
Dorothy’s 1964 poster sketch titled “We Believe in Sharing” affirmed the scope of her desires: to give all she had—her talents, testimony, labor, food, and possessions, bringing “more happiness, enrich[ing] the world, sharing all that has come to us as a church and as individual members.”
[1] Often overcome with social anxiety or limited by her heath, Dorothy preferred personal visits to projects, created art to share the gospel, and wrote hundreds of inspired letters that today stand as a witness to bear one another’s burdens. Without prejudice or judgment, her nurturing influence reached beyond her own nine children when she became a foster mother to two Navajo children and a personal advocate for many Southeast Asian refugees who affectionately called her “Mother Clark”.
Dorothy Clark with husband Ellsworth, foster son Cody Black, and Cody’s family.
While Dorothy’s art was never exhibited, her painting of Paul Wildhaber’s “The Armor of Righteousness” was the centerpiece of her home. Unlike others who traditionally depicted male religious figures, 20-year-old Dorothy changed the painting’s subject from hero to heroine, thus broadening the view of those who are “armed in righteousness”. From her childhood fairy gifts to the ministering of the needful and forgotten, her visionary example of what a woman can do endures through her depiction of this righteous and strong heroine.
Dorothy Smith in Paul Wildhaber’s studio.
Dorothy Smith’s completed “Armor of Righteousness”
Dorothy continued her talent of creating and sharing family histories well into the last years of her life. In 1980 she participated in the World Conference of Records in a booth of her own design.
Dorothy at the World Conference of Records in 1980
As I think about her life, I see a patterns emerging as her children, grandchildren, and beyond strive to finish what she started. Kindex is just a small part of a larger effort to emulate the kind of woman she was. Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed at the pressures of launching a startup while still raising a young family, I look at the binders and boxes of her records and think, “Soon, we’ll know your story. Not long yet.”
Dorothy and Ellsworth in New Zealand, 1974
[i] Dorothy Smith, Sketches. “We Believe in Sharing”, 1964
by Cathy Gilmore | Jan 13, 2016 | archives, Love Letters from the Archive
[Ellsworth is in Georgetown, Idaho on summer break from his studies in Salt Lake City. He is looking for work and missing Dorothy. You may note the absence of Dorothy’s letters. We know she sent him replies, but she had apparently discarded some letters she sent Ellsworth. Spelling an punctuation (a particular vice of Ellsworth’s) have not been corrected. -CG]
Georgetown Idaho
June 24, 1932
Mein Leibes Schatzie, (you said once you did not care if I said that)
There is a new word for you to learn. (schatzli) I couldn’t remember it for the longest time, but it came like a shot this morning. I shaved today and that could be a good reason for an approiate [sic] word to come to me. You see I had not shaven for a week. Well, you should have seen me. I looked like a porcupine. I’ve been weeding garden and hoeing again today, and believe me it’s plenty hot. We have almost as not weather here as they do in Salt Lake during the day, but thank the lucky stars it cools off in the evening.
I couldn’t get all the french in the last two letters, but I will before long. Also I want to ask you what you meant when you said “Noth kent kein gebot” OH! I see now I’ve written it down, only it seems that I can’t quite make out the noth. It means some sort of extremis knows no law. The other expression you used meant ‘To me it is all the same’ (mir ist alles emerlei[?])
So you don’t give a ‘hoot’ whether your letters are interesting or not. Is that what you mean? Gee! they are always interesting to me, but I hope that you cared whether they were or not. You surely are funny sometimes. You change so quickly. did you know that it is been forever that Carbolic acid has been formed to be mostly a bluff anyways it’s not really as effective as once thought.
Oh! Well! ‘doh de doh’ It looks like i have to toughen myself and not let things worry me.
Say, about the snaps. They should be here any day and there as soon as possible. I’ll send them to you. I hope that is soon.
The dance what was scheduled for tomorrow evening has been postponed until Tuesday. I wish they would make up their minds. I am pretty stiff now though, and a few days to loosen up a bit will help. I don’t know what I’ll loosen up for though. It seems that I’m not so crazy about the idea as at first.
Say, in those crazy dreams you have where I’m around some other woman, all you had better do is to remember that dreams go in opposites. That would make things much nicer for me.
You must not get any dream ideas of me running arosn around with someone else’s wife. When I take a girl out I hope that she does not foul me by making me believe things that she has already told someone else. I guess I’m funny that way. If you want to get rid of me, just get married, divorce your husband and come around. I’ll probably say “Yes dear I love you more than ever” (like heck I will) I wouldn’t say it anyway.
Now I think I’ll sign my name
Pure Concentrated Sulfuric Acid Clark
Now forget all that, I guess I’m just a little piqued at the way you ended your letter. The beginning was so good and the end so- so. Not at all like the Old German Proverb “Wie die Anfang zu die Ende” (How the beginning so to the end)
I guess the beginning was too good so the end had to compensate.
Anyway, I guess such things are the spice of life. Keep it up, just so there is compensation as much one way as the other.
It’s funny how a fellow reads things into letters. When I sat down to write your letter seemed the best ever and the more I read it the more I read into it. I guess I had better put it away and read it again when in better humor.
I wish I could see you tonight and talk to you . I’ve so much to say that will seem funny on paper. I’m afraid I’m a pretty poor correspondent card You might read things into it also. Then lets hope that I’ll get better in my writing, become I guess its improbable that I’ll see you soon. Oh. Dot. Now here I am getting ‘blue’ etc.
I’ll cut this rotten letter short and hope that the next one is very much better.
Auf wieder sehen to the sweetest girl in the whole world
Repentantly
Ellsworth
Don’t worry about the ‘can de vil’ and the contemporaries. I have promised.
[circle with X inside] (not habitual)
believe as you will about the sentiment you know me better than most people I believe
