Ancestry Magazine

It was an interesting concept, digitizing someone’s family history, turning their mountains of mementos, closets of clutter, and family files filled with facts into a personal digital archive. Quite honestly, it was a task none of us at Ancestry Magazine was confident could be tackled easily.

It wasn’t the dirty work we feared—we had already lined up a company that specializes in digitizing personal records. It was the willing participant we needed. Someone who started family history research back in the dark ages, before computerized searches were the norm. Someone whose one-of-a-kind papers were yellowing, whose files were stashed in creative corners of a cabinet long forgotten. Someone who could set fears aside and willingly let a team of scanners go where no digital access had ventured before.

Bluntly, we needed a guinea pig.

The Prospect
In walked Marilyn Carlson, a former professional genealogist who has been researching her own family history for decades. “I started doing research in the 70s,” she tells us, “and pages that I copied off of microfilms are all yellowed and have started to fade.” She admittedly has cabinets full of documents, and, unlike other potential subjects we approached, she didn’t turn tail and run at the mention of strangers picking through her house. A little more prodding and Marilyn actually feigned excitement over the prospect. We had our subject.

We had our own motivation for wanting to see someone digitized. First and foremost, it’s the way of the future, or, as some people may argue, the present. Music, photography, vital records, and statistics—very little of today’s family history isn’t either already digital or about to be.

Experience has taught us how much more convenie nt it is to access a census record, a passenger list, or a draft registration card from our home computers, and how much more likely our own relatives were to get a current picture of the kids since the advent of e-mail and digital photos. What we really wanted to show was that you didn’t have to be a big player or someone with a lot of time and electronic toys in order to take all of your family history records digital. And that you could bring in a company like the one we chose to work with, Acentra, and let them take control of the project while you sit back and reap the rewards.

The Preparation
Acentra’s president Matt Bills told us what they would do. “We go into people’s homes and digitize their lives. We sit in their living rooms and leverage all the technology we have, making it as human as possible,” he said. They could handle just about anything—paperwork, photos, a wedding dress, even old farm implements. And the result would be a conveniently accessible collection of all types of records, indexed for fast access.

Technicians from Acentra made an initial visit to Marilyn’s home to preview the items that would be digitized and to assess the equipment that they would need for the job. They would be digitizing photos, Super 8s, spiral-bound family histories, and folders full of genealogy research and papers. We also asked Marilyn to be intentionally difficult, stocking her home with odds-and-ends, including a one-of-a-kind historic map of Vendyssel, Denmark, and a bucket, shovel, and hoe that had belonged to her great-grandfather.

During their initial visit, the techs instructed Marilyn on how to prepare for the next visit. She would need to remove photos from albums and paperclips and staples from documents. Before each session, Marilyn would need to sort out stacks of material to be digitized, and, during the digitizing process, she would be expected to be availab le to answer any questions the technicians had. Other than that, she was finished.

The Project
How many technicians does it take to digitize a genealogist? Three. One to handle the documents or photos, one to put the items through a scanner, and the third to label each item according to the owner’s, Marilyn’s, instructions.

During a digitizing session, each of which lasted approximately two hours, the techs set up their equipment: usually a scanner and a laptop computer, although certain types of memorabilia like the wedding dress and the farm implements would require a camera and special storage arrangements, and home movies would have to be turned to DVD off-site.

Aside from the clutter Marilyn endured during the project—stacks of documents and photos were scattered on almost every available surface in her home for a few weeks as she determined what would and wouldn’t be digitized—Marilyn admits that overall, the process was sort of entertaining.

“At first you’re awkward with people you’ve never met, but [the techs] were all courteous and interesting,” she says. “It was fun to have them there. They were more interested in my family history than my own family [was]. And that made it fun.”

The Product
Marilyn assuaged our fears about granting a stranger snooping-rights into a person’s life. “I didn’t feel like it was at all invasive,” she says. “I felt like [the techs] were very professional. They were interesting to have around.”

She may, however, be unique in her cavalier attitude. Says Bills, his company has had to develop ways of working around the natural fear people have regarding intrusions into their personal lives. “If someone is really privacy-conscious,” he says, “we can cover the record with a sheet of paper while it is being digitized so that we do not see something like an old bank statement.” It’s an understandable concern, he says, and for his company, it’s a hurdle that’s never too tough.

Surprisingly, though, privacy isn’t the biggest cause of apprehension Bills’s company sees—instead, it’s the crippling fear some people have of getting organized. “Paralysis,” he says, “is the most common concern. People get paralysis thinking that they have to organize everything before they [digitize]. You don’t need to organize before. It is so much easier to organize after [the family history] has been digitized.”

The Prescription
Even if you never have a need to drop your family history in your purse, backpack, or pocket, it’s nice to know that if you really wanted to, you could. But it’s even nicer to know that every document, photo, oral history, vital record, or school picture you own can be quickly copied and shared over and over again. It’s comforting to think that your hard work and history is safely stashed away in as many locations as you’d like. And that with just the touch of a few buttons you can easily find almost any tidbit of family history you’re looking for.

Today, instead of searching through file folders, Marilyn, for all her effort, can drop a DVD into her computer and retrieve whatever she wants simply by inputting search terms: her personal archive has been professionally sorted and indexed. And while she hasn’t done it yet, she can attach any of these unique-to-her-family records to the appropriate person or persons on an electronic family tree, making every bit of her work that much more accessible.

But is Marilyn glad we prodded her into accepting our mission? Absolutely. “The value of having done this is priceless,” she says. “Even my family was excited about this. I’ve never seen them so excited about [family history] before.”

Kurt Laird is a Utah-based freelance writer.