Genealogists need to know a few things in order to create the highest-quality digital files that they can pass along to future generations. Things like:
best practices for preserving a variety of files types
understanding the best way to scan documents and photos that will endure the test of time.
efficient, automated file backup and storage practices that involve little or no effort.
In this episode of Elevenses with Lisa, Mike Ashenfelder will share how you can apply these professional best practices to your precious files and get them in great shape.
Episode 75 Show Notes
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Genealogists need to know a few things in order to create the highest-quality digital files that they can pass along to future generations. Things like:
best practices for preserving a variety of files types
understanding the best way to scan documents and photos that will endure the test of time.
efficient, automated file backup and storage practices that involve little or no effort.
In this episode Mike Ashenfelder shares how you can apply these professional best practices to your precious files and get them in great shape.
Changing Digital Formats and Technology
Remember cassette tapes, 8-track tapes, long-playing vinyl albums, 78s, or how about even cylinders? The changing formats of audio over the years is a prime example of how technology keeps changing. And that change forces us as family historians to change too.
Large cultural institutions are faced with the challenge of continually changing digital formats and technology as well. According to Mike Ashenfelder, “it’ll continue to evolve…technology evolves.
Your digital camera takes JPEG photos for instance. My iPhone’s camera, it takes something called .HEIC. I’ve never heard of that up until we got this new camera. But it’s another contender, and there will no doubt be another one further down the road.
The point of my book is that you should save all files in the highest quality, so that you can pass them along to future generations. And yeah, there will always be new software, there will always be new files to save something might be better than .GEDCOM files (for genealogy). You never know. But basically, it comes down to saving, organizing and preserving things as best you can.”
Because file formats will continue to evolve, like archivists at large institutions such as the Library of Congress, it’s critical that family historians keep their eye on the latest standards and take steps to keep up before their current media is obsolete.
Digital Preservation at the Library of Congress
According to Ashenfelder, the Library of Congress received a large government grant in 2000 to study digital preservation and how other institutions were handling it. They pulled in other institutions and shared information. In the end, they discovered that generally speaking cultural institutions “all have the same basic practices.”
At the LOC, Ashenfelder wrote about digital preservation and interviewed a lot of subject matter experts. While there were many similarities, some details varied from institution to institution or project by project. But essentially, it always comes back to following standardized practices that ensured that files could be found. And that’s what we want as genealogists. We work hard to find genealogical records the first time, and no one wants to struggle to find them a second time on their own computer.
As we’ve discussed in previous videos and articles here at Genealogy Gems, well organized, easy to find files are more likely to be retained when passed onto future generations. If our files look disorganized and unnavigable, they run a greater risk of being tossed or lost.
Ashenfelder explains that institutions like the Library of Congress put naming conventions in place and stick to them. If you’d like to learn more about naming conventions and hard drive organization for your digital genealogical files, watch episodes 7 & 8 of Elevenses with Lisa, and my video class Hard Drive Organization.
Preserve Photos Like the LOC
Scanning Photos
File Formats
Metadata
Cloud Backup
I’ve used Backblaze for many years to ensure that all of my computer data is backup on the cloud offsite. Mike said that an executive at Apple recommended it to him as well. Get a free trial of Backblaze (thank you for using our affiliate link if you decide to try it out.)
Three ways to watch: 1. Video Player (Live) – Watch live at the appointed time in the video player on the show notes page. 2. On YouTube (Live) – Click the Watch on YouTube button to watch live at the appointed time at the Genealogy Gems YouTube channel. Log into YouTube with your free Google account to participate in the live chat. 3. Video Player above (Replay) – Available immediately after the live premiere and chat.
I just love hearing about the growth of digital libraries! Here’s a recent post from the Library of Congress:
“The World Digital Library, a collaborative international project led by the Library of Congress, now includes more than 10,000 manuscripts, maps and atlases, books, prints and photographs, films, sound recordings, and other cultural treasures. The 10,000-item milestone was reached earlier today with the addition of a set of priceless manuscripts from the Walters Art Museum of Baltimore, Maryland, a WDL partner since 2010.
The latest contributions include an early 16th-century Gospel manuscript from Ethiopia, written in Amharic and in Geez, the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia; a manuscript containing a richly illuminated Ottonian Gospel book fragment believed to have been made at the monastery of Corvey in western Germany during the mid-to-late 10th century; and a menologion, or church calendar, in Greek, created in Byzantium circa 1025-1041.
With the latest additions, the WDL includes 10,037 rare and unique items, comprising nearly 500,000 images. Content contributed by 102 institutions in 46 countries is on the WDL site, which can be accessed in seven languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Proposed by the Librarian of Congress and launched in 2009, the World Digital Library makes significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world freely available. The principal financial supporters of the WDL are Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Qatar National Library of the Qatar Foundation, and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress.”
VIDEO & SHOW NOTES: Video #4 of our 25 Websites for Genealogy Playlist. In this video, my guest presenter Gena Philibert-Ortega covers digital collection websites that are must-haves for family history research. You’ll find plenty of genealogy gems waiting for free at websites #18 through 22.
Websites 18 through 22 of our 25 Websites for Genealogy
Some of these websites will be new to you, and others are going to be very familiar to you. In talking about the familiar websites, I want to get you thinking about them differently, explain a little bit more about what you can do at these websites, and how to get the most out of them.
In this series of 25 Websites for Genealogy, we’re going to be looking at websites in different categories. Our third category is Digital Collection websites (#18 through 22).
At the DPLA you can search for public domain research materials that will benefit your genealogy research. It offers a searchable access to millions of items including photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States.
According to Lisa Louise Cooke, Google Books is the tool you should use every day for genealogy. It puts 25 million digitized and searchable free books at your fingertips.
Learn much more about how to get the most out of Google Books with these videos by Lisa Louise Cooke:
If you’re looking for new information about your family history, an important website to add to your research list is the Internet Archive. It’s a free website that attempts to archive the web, and that includes a vast array of genealogy materials!
Founded in 2008, the non-profit HathiTrust provides access to 18+ million digitized items in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Reading access varies depending on the item and whether you belong to a participating organization, but it’s definitely worth a look.
It’s important to know how to find a missing webpage when you’re a genealogy researcher. Clues to your family history are all over the Internet, and so are must-use research tools, directories, maps and how-tos. This free 2-minute video tutorial shows you...
Chicago Catholic parish records top this week’s list of new and updated U.S. genealogy records online. Also: Japanese internment camp testimonies; AK and NC WWI digital archives; CO, GA and NC school records; GA and MT newspapers; ID, NY and OR photo archives; IL...