SUMMARY: PRESENTING AND PRESERVING YOUR
FAMILY HISTORY: YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, SO HOW
DO YOU LEAVE IT?
©2017 by Donald R. Snow - Page was last updated
2017-02-04.
Go to the Utah Valley
Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .
This is a 2-page Summary of the full 4-page notes.
The numbering is the same as on the full note so some
numbers are skipped here.
ABSTRACT: Presenting and preserving your
family history are closely related and doing one helps
with the other. This class will discuss ideas and
freeware programs to help with both of these, including
scanning and file naming, finding it on your computer,
storing and showing the data, backing it up,
collaborating with others, and having your data so you
and others can see later what you have done. The
goal is to have your family history organized,
presentable, and in a format that will last longer than
you do. The notes with active links and related
articles are on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
1. Instructors are Donald R. Snow (snowd@math.byu.edu)
of Provo and St. George, Utah and Linda Snow
Westover (linda.westover@gmail.com)
of Orem, Utah.
2. These notes with active Internet links and
related articles are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
4. The problem: Presenting and
preserving your genealogy are closely related; the
idea is to work so you, or your descendants, can
pick up where you left off. Examples and
details will be in PowerPoints, demos, and videos.
BEING ORGANIZED
5. Best way - write it all out with sources,
photos, scans, etc., send copies
everywhere, and put it in FamilySearch -- but who
does all that???
7. Organizational ideas to consider --
genealogy database at home and also FamilySearch
Family Tree; importance of collaboration; research
logs; digitize everything; make video slideshows; be
sure your kids know where to find your
passwords
BACKUPS, STORAGE, AND ONLINE COLLABORATION
9. Have backups, backups, backups! At
least two-generations of backups, not all at your
home
10. Include the date after the name, e.g.
[file name]-YYYY-MM-DD.[ext], so they sort in
chronological order -- YYYY-MM-DD is International
Date Format
11. Store your proven genealogy on a permanent
website; keep private items at home in your own
database
12. DROPBOX -- https://www.dropbox.com/
-- very helpful and 2 gigs of space free; GOOGLE
DRIVE 15 gigs free -- https://www.google.com
13. ANCESTRAL QUEST -- http://www.ancquest.com/index.htm
-- very helpful free Collaboration feature; avoids
problem of two people working on same database at
same time inadvertently, so not all changes get
saved
14. EVERNOTE -- http://www.evernote.com
-- free and commercial versions, very helpful for
family history -- two kinds of notebooks; local
notebook is good place for passwords and private
info
DIGITIZING AND LABELING DOCUMENTS SO SORT IS
CHRONOLOGICAL
15. Scan directly to flash drive with new
scanners, e.g. Lexmarks at FHCs
16. Labeling scans so findable and sort
chronologically -- examples:
StaffordAnn(Snow)(Condie)(1867-1948)-1948-05-04-Death-UtahOnlineDeathCertificates--Screenshot-2013-10-09.jpg
and
ManwaringDiane(Snow)(1934-2012)-2012-10-10-Death-UtahDeathCertificate--Scanned-2012-11-03--34.pdf
Include key words so searchable -- Birth, Death,
Marriage, School, Military, Medical, LDS, History,
News, History, Genealogy, etc.
17. More details about this method are in
Freeware Corner notes on my website -- see http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-freewarecorner-2014-06.html;
freeware program EVERYTHING -- http://voidtools.com/
-- allows finding all files for that person,
regardless of location on your computer, and shows
them in chronological order to form an interactive
timeline of their life; more details about photos in
other sets of my class notes
SOUND RECORDINGS, MOVIES, AND VIDEOS
19. Transcribing sound -- freeware LISTEN N
WRITE -- http://listen-n-write.en.lo4d.com
-- details in my notes on audio transcription at http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
20. 8 mm movies -- have them
transferred to DVDs commercially, expensive,
but new equipment leaves out "flicker" that we used
to see
21. VHS video tapes -- devices to digitize
them yourself; commercial is better, but
expensive
22. Conversion programs after digitization so
you can edit them -- http://handbrake.fr
-- and Format Factory -- http://filehippo.com/download_format_factory
23. Extract parts of videos to form videos by
subject, e.g. to form a video about individuals
SLIDES, PHOTOS, AND SLIDESHOWS OF YOUR PHOTOS
24. 35 mm slides -- scan these yourself or
have them done professionally, use 2000-4000 dpi
(dpi - dots per inch for printers; ppi = pixels per
inch) for screens
25. Wolverine slide scanner (small, about
$100); scans slides and negatives at 4064 dpi; fast
(about 3 seconds per slide), but labor-intensive
since you have to feed the slides or negatives in by
hand -- available from Costco Online; could hire a
grand child to scan them for you
26. Kodak Photo Scanners in some FHCs -- will
scan high res, both sides at once, and up to 8 1/2
inches wide, fast, and easy to use 27.
My photo naming system -- different than my system
for documents -- examples
PHT-2007-10-13-10h05m18s-SharonHintzeAtFRC-01-IMG_0603.JPG
Freeware program NAMEXIF -- http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html
-- puts exact date and time from metadata to front
of file name -- makes all photos sort
chronologically -- details in notes and articles
28. Many free programs to help organize and
generate slideshows of your photos; both these do
editing and facial recognition
PICASA -- still available and free, but no longer
updated from Google
PHOTO GALLERY -- free from Microsoft
FILE EXPLORER -- helpful for photo naming with the
Preview Panel open so you don't have to open file in
another program; click on View > Preview Panel
29. Can upload your photos of people to Family
Tree to preserve and share them
30. Helpful information about scanning
resolution on websites in notes -- recommendation is
to scan so final result has 250 dpi (dots per inch)
for each inch you want to print
31. PHOTO FILMSTRIP -- freeware program to
make videos of your photos -- http://www.photofilmstrip.org/1-1-Home.html
-- "Ken Burns"-type videos with apparent motion form
stills; allows captions and music or narration;
helps hold people's interest
CONCLUSIONS
32. This just scratches the surface, but we
hope you got ideas to help make your information
last longer than you do.