Family history archive

[Bunothan]

I recently received a legacy from a late 100 year old relative who died on the Isle of Islay, Scotland last year.  She was my family history research mentor.  She left me all her old photographs from the late 1800's onwards, along with papers, postcards, certificates, paper clippings etc.  which she wanted made available on the internet for present and future researchers . 

I need to include:
     adding in a descriptive text file (e.g. those in group images and their relationship to folk in my family history database)  to attach to each photograph, 
     Family names
      location where image was taken, 
     approximate date on image of a photograph or document. 

I thought if I could then create a slideshow with images  and  respective data, to put on a website in order that  her material would be accessible to fellow researchers of families on the Isle of Islay as she requested. 

My only experience of this sort of thing was when my relative was still alive, I scanned some of her old photographs  into an album format which a colleague in Seattle added to his research information on the Islay  pages on the web.    I produced the album of the photographs on DVD  with simple tags which I sent to him.  I think I  need something more sophisticated because of the potential size of the new task.

The original simple album was placed  on the Islay web page then eventually transferred  to Rootsweb. 

  See:  http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~steve/islay/betsy/
     
I haven't a clue how to sort out and catalogue the six large boxes containing thousands  of photographs and documents. 
has anyone on the Forum been involved in something similar who could advise me regarding  iMatch's capabilities to handle this task and how I should go about it?

[jch2103]

You've been given quite a task! I have some experience with genealogy and related photos and documents, but can't consider myself an expert.

From the link you provided, I gather that you've already added pertinent genealogical information using The Master Genealogist. I'm not familiar with that particular program but I understand it's well regarded. That is of course a key basis for further work with photos and documents, including providing reference numbers for individuals and families. I don't know to what extent The Master Genealogist allows you to link to external photos and documents, but this would likely be useful to give you and integrated view of all your data.

IMatch is an excellent tool for organizing a large collection of photos and documents. I'd suggest starting with figuring out a consistent folder and file naming strategy for these files. There are many options, and I'm not aware of a 'best practices' guidance for this, but others familiar with genealogy may have suggestions. I've restructured my own genealogy information more than once, and currently am working with a '[last name], [first name]

[optional description, e.g. wedding] [date].[file extension]' format. I'm always interested in better ideas, however.

IMatch provides the necessary tools for information you want to include as metadata for images and documents. For your 'needs' list, I'd start with using the 'Default' metadata layout:

- Descriptive text: Use the 'Description' tag (but see my note below about face recognition).[/li][/list]
- Family names: You may want to use @Keywords here, in a hierarchical format (Last name|First name).
- Location: I'd use the tags for Country, State, City and Location; you might also want to take advantage of the GPS coordinates tags (you can use the IMatch Map panel to help locate specific items like houses, etc.)
- Dates: The Default metadata layout gives you access to Date Created and Date Digitized. There have been several discussions on this Forum about how to deal with approximate dates. Note that once you've added Date Created, you can use the IMatch Timeline to view images and documents sorted by date.
- Face recognition/person tagging: There are several ways of using semi-automated face identification/tagging. This might or might not be useful in your situation. Programs for this include Picasa (discontinued, but still free and available) and Lightroom (not free); IMatch can track and optionally display face tag data; see the Help and also several discussions on the Forum.
- Other metadata: Depending on your needs, you might want to track some attributes of the original documents, such as type (e.g., post card, photographic print (perhaps including size), Cabinet Card/Carte de Visite/etc. (depending how old they are), certificate, news clipping, etc. You'd like want to use @Keywords for this, using hierarchical keywords.

IMatch gives you the capability to export images with included metadata. One option is Design & Print.

It sounds like you have a potential task of digitizing a large volume of photos and documents. You may want to consider whether you'd want to do this yourself or use a commercial service. The answer may depend on the format of the items you have; if you have lots of photo prints of the same size, for example, that might tip toward using a service. I've scanned several thousand slides/prints/etc.; as you know, it can be time consuming, but it's possible to work out a routine to make it a bit easier. Whichever way you go, your naming convention will be important for keeping organized.

There are a wide range of options for putting this kind of data in the internet. Some paid genealogical web site (e.g., Ancestry) encourage users to post their data (including photos and documents) on their sites, but so far I've resisted doing this myself. I don't know what options RootsWeb has for this besides your example. At the other end a pure photography sites such as Smugmug, which allow you to organize your images and also include some metadata. Others here may have better suggestions.

Good luck! Let us know if you have other questions or need more suggestions.

[Bunothan]

Thanks for your response John.  A lot to think about methinks.

Iain

[Mario]

As I wrote to you in my initial email, digitizing the files will be the one major task, adding metadata like descriptions, location, time information and keywords will be the second.

I suggest you first decide which information you want to add to each file. From your email I think that you need to fill out (at least)

Title,
Description.
Keywords
Country, (State), City, Location

To speed up processing, prepare your Thesaurus (I did sent you a link to some info about that already) so you can assign keywords quickly.

Always work on batches of files. Both the Metadata Panel and the Keyword panel can edit any number of files at once. If you select all images of the Jones family, you can add the same descriptions and keywords quickly.

Using Metadata Templates to quickly apply prepared sets of metadata to any number of files can be very helpful.

Using IMatch Favorites  allows you to assign categories or keywords with a single mouse-click or key press. Also works for Metadata Templates.

Don't get too fancy. Simple is usually better. 5 good keywords is better than 20 not so good keywords.

Once you have the images in IMatch and the metadata added, you have many possibilities to 'use' your files:

1. IMatch writes the metadata into the file so you have it for ever.

2. If you upload your files to a web service (image gallery, genealogy web site) these will be able to read the metadata in your files. If not, choose a better service ;-)

3. You can export the files and data in many ways using the features available in the Import & Export panel in IMatch

4. The Batch Processor allows you to export individual files in any size, and to include and render metadata (e.g. show the data under the image).

5. The Design & Print feature in IMatch allows you to print books, leaflets, posters and other things. Again, you can not only print the images, but also use the metadata you have entered (e.g. to print the description under each image, and the title above it)

6. The Juicebox web gallery export in IMatch allows you to create image galleries you can upload on any web server. Or just look at them via your web browser locally.

See this article in the IMatch knowledge base for more info: Creating JuiceBox Web Galleries

[Mees Dekker]

The Master Genealogist is discontinued as of the end of 2014. I myself am a happy user of My Heritage, which also provides a lot of possibilities for further research.

Pictures cane easily be imported there and coupled to events, persons, places etc. Also, it can produce reports.  I would say: give it a try.

[sinus]

The Master Genealogist is discontinued as of the end of 2014.

You talks from Richard?

[Mees Dekker]

I do not use it myself, but I found this:

http://www.tamurajones.net/TheMasterGenealogistDiscontinued.xhtml

[Bunothan]

Thanks for your suggestions guys.

I have stayed away from online providers such as Ancestry and My Heritage, as I feel they have the perfect business model.  You pay them a large annual subscription.  You do the research and  pay the costs associated with it , then they encourage you to share with others who are also paying them  a subscription,  to copy  and attach your data to their trees (if you let them).  If you don't pay the subs, you dont get access to your own data and exhibits.   I have 20 years research with some 38000 individuals in my project and some 16000 exhibits connected to individual and multiple records, all running in TMG.  Yes it is dated, but I have yet to find a program to which I can easily transfer ALL my data to safely and accurately.   

Anyway,  I now have the additional headache of scanning all the documents and photographs I was left by my late relative, as well as repairing the hundreds of old photographs. I need to catalogue the originals, and import the scanned images into iMatch. 

Pass the headache pills!

[Mario]

When I recall correctly, TMG was based on the FoxPro database system.  So getting the data out of TMG, in some format, should be doable. The problem will be to get the data "in" some other application, and to make sense of it.

IMatch is principally prepared for tasks like importing data from Access or FoxPro databases via ODBC drivers (in scripts) but I have no idea about what information TMG stores or how to transfer it into some long-term format like XMP...

[jch2103]

For various reasons, I've ended up using Legacy Family Tree for my genealogical data. There doesn't seem to be a 'perfect' product at this time, so it's a matter of trade-offs. Apparently Legacy will be introducing a direct import function in their forthcoming version 9 of the software http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2014/09/legacy-family-tree-will-soon-import-files-from-the-master-genealogist-software.html. Obviously they've had delays in introducing the feature and there's no way to tell at the moment how well it will work.

Let us all know if you have any additional questions about IMatch.

[Bunothan]

Thanks everyone.  I will now get started on the scanning process and follow your advice on file naming, using iMatch tools to identifyand catalogue the images.  Re TMG, I now understand that Rootsmagic imports data directly from TMG...after a bit of 'tweeking'.  That's a maybe! I already have all my existing TMG  'Exhibits' in an external file, and have a 4TB external drive to dedicate to the iMatch for data storage, so that's a start. 

Happy New Year?