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Increased interest in the stories gleaned from family letters, journals, and other historical documents, coupled with the increasing demand for accessible, fully-searchable archives, places Kindex in a position to be a significant disruptor in the family history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.
Do you wish there was a better way to archive and search your family’s letters, journals, and photos? Are you still using a combination of spreadsheets, PDFs, and word processing tools to transcribe your family history records? For Archive Awareness Week, we are reprising our top ten reasons why we love Kindex.
We’ve got SaaS. Kindex is web software containing tools to help you archive and index, and search your digital records. There is no software to install, just go to kindex.org and create an account.
We ❤ hoarders. We all know the feeling. Someone in your family wants to borrow the priceless family record you’ve kept in your home for years? Hard pass. Rather than wait until they pry it from your cold, dead hands, why not digitize those records and put them on Kindex? You can make your archive public or private, and invite others to view and index. So, whether your a record-keeper, a record-hoarder, or you’re a downright record-hider, Kindex helps you share your precious family records without the risk of your great-nephew spilling his Starbucks on your grandfather’s journal. And, you can learn what’s been hiding in Aunt Sue’s closet all these years (well, besides those bell-bottoms).
We have layers. With Kindex you can add layers of searchable data to your records. We move beyond titles and descriptions to include valuable data points such as record provenance, transcription, keywords, date, place, and addtional tags.
Share the love. Are you the family historian that gets stuck with all the work? Not anymore. Create a Kindex Family archive and share your records (and the indexing work) with anyone. Get your family and friends involved, and they might learn why you’re so crazy about your ancestors. Or just why you’re crazy. Still, they may be inspired to add a few records of their own to share with you, so it’s a win-win.
Thanks for the Memories. Kindex is integrated with FamilySearch, which means you can import the Memories you’ve added to FamilySearch into Kindex and make them searchable with our indexing tools. In the coming weeks we’ll also have the ability to share Kindex records back to FamilySearch. That means all the people you tagged with FamilySearch IDs in your record transcriptions? They’ll get shared with those people on FamilySearch.
Be a rescuer. Having a well-preserved letter, journal, or diary of an ancestor is at the top of many people’s wish list. Kindex offers families the ability to grant this wish by helping gather, index, and share records that would otherwise be lost, damaged, or thrown away. Rescue your family records on Kindex—your descendants will thank you.
Search your way. Tired of searching huge genealogy databases and getting too many (or not enough) results? With Kindex you can create personal or family archives containing just the records you want, so you get the search results you want.
Like, settle down with the family history. We get it. You would rather research Alexander Hamilton, or bugs, or Roald Dahl? You can use Kindex to archive, index, and research any topic. Put your documents on Kindex, and start indexing. Just make sure you’re the record holder, or you have permission to upload and index that record.
You’re special, but not special enough to have your own indexing software. Some archives are lucky — they have their own custom indexing software. But if you’re not the Smithsonian or National Archives, it doesn’t mean you’re stuck doing the old Spreadsheet/Microsoft Word/PDF tango. Are you an archivist, historian, researcher, or librarian who needs a custom solution for indexing a collection? Kindex Projects, due to be released in Spring 2017, will support records that require custom indexing fields, multiple download formats, and privacy options.
Kids these days. It’s been said that kids nowadays don’t read—they search. By offering a searchable database of family records, Kindex provides a familiar and fun gateway for people to enter and learn quickly about their ancestor. Then, after they read an indexed record, they may be inspired to jump in and index one themselves. The feeling you get when you read and transcribe a record your ancestor kept is one we hope everyone feels—especially our kids.
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
In my grandmother Dorothy Smith’s collection of photos there is a picture of her standing alone, posing on a hill with a snowy mountain in the background.
When I first saw this photo, I turned it over to see if any information was written on the back. I was lucky to find a description in my grandmother’s own handwriting.
University Hill Provo
April 1933
I was going to catch a butterfly but it flew away and left me.
Springville Art Exhibit
I was so pleased she had written the date, place, and occasion of this photo. But who took it, and why was she there? I knew she kept a diary from that time, and because it is transcribed, I was able to search for those dates and words. Here’s what I found from the day the photo was taken:
Sunday April 23, 1933
Went by Orem Electric to annual Springville Art Exhibit with T.S. Knaphus, sculptor. Spent 3 hours in Provo, sight-seeing on our way back to S.L.C. Took kodak snaps on B.Y.U. campus.
This was a very interesting day for me and rather an outstanding one I suppose, inasmuch as I was so kindly favored and well treated by one so prominent in his sphere.
En route he gave me valuable instructions and criticisms on art. Urges strongly that I begin to busy myself with “oils” and harness the talent he believes lies dormant. (I hope to do this soon, as I have been so inspired today)
Left Knaphus at 8 P.M. to finish the day with Ellsworth. Youth does have its preferences.
What started as a photo and ended with a diary search reveals a snapshot of Dorothy’s life from the early 1930’s, where Mormon sculptor and artistic mentor Torleif Knaphus and husband-to-be Ellsworth Clark contended for Dorothy’s affections. It was a very pivotal time in Dorothy’s life as she was mentored by influential artists and courted by multiple suitors. To connect an image with a specific page from her diary in history adds rich context to his photo and lends a greater understanding to who our grandmother was.
Sometimes searching for stories in our family records is like chasing butterflies: we never know where the path will lead us, and catching them is elusive. With Kindex, our goal is to make that path easier through the ability to search and share family records. Had I been required to manually page through these diaries (shown below) to find that story, it would have been far more difficult and time-consuming. So here’s to catching butterflies—and finding stories!
From venues to menus, reunion planning involves numerous parts, including meals, activities, displays, entertainment, games, and publicity. While most family reunions include heritage-related displays and activities, we believe family reunions are a unique and ideal setting for accomplishing important family history goals, such as record gathering and digitization.
Family records such as journals, photos, and letters are treasured items, but families often fail to gather, preserve, and share their records with one another. Inevitably, records are lost, damaged, or thrown out. Records that are digitized are often difficult to access, search through, and read.
Using reunions as a catalyst to gather and scan family records is a rare opportunity to address these concerns while accomplishing key family history goals. 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
Sampson Family Reunion
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 and 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 (forthcoming), 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. At your next family gathering, make it a reunion of records with Kindex Gather Services.
Unite what is scattered. Reveal what is hidden Find what is lost.
