Family History Notes

New Memorial For My Late Wife, Lydia May Wardell. St. Johns Cemetery, Arizona - July 9, 2012

White Paper: Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally

You'll be interested in Gary T. Wright's paper on digital preservation.  Gary is a FamilySearch employee and offers many helpful suggestions.  The paper may be accessed here, and my comments are below.

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Gary,

Many thanks for your excellent paper and your thoughtful contribution. A few suggestions you may want to consider:

    1. Media Obsolescence

I'm not sure the example (page 4) of the phonograph LP as an enduring media form is a good one--this is more likely the exception than the rule. There have been many popular storage formats over the years that are now very difficult to work with at present owing to the lack of usable technology. The computer 5 1/4 inch floppy disk and the open reel tape recorder come to mind--the latter having a history almost as long as the LP (ca. 1950). Users are likely better off assuming that obsolete technology will disappear and planning for orderly migration to the mainstream of what the market supports at present.

    2. Archival Video

I had difficulty understanding your reasoning (page 6) surrounding appropriate formats to archive digital video. Quicktime is Apple's proprietary container format and is burdened by the same limitations and issues that surround all proprietary formats. Many times highly successful companies can and do disappear quickly, often taking their proprietary formats with them. As with other container frameworks, Quicktime relies upon encoding schemes (file formats) that are almost always lossy by their nature.

The Quicktime File Format (QTFF) is the basis (mostly) for the MPEG-4 file format; hence it is hard to understand why MPEG-4 should not be preferred, as it enjoys much wider acceptance.

Likewise, the Audio Visual Interleave (AVI) is a container format that (usually) employs lossy encoders. There is little to recommend AVI over more current container technologies, such as MP4 (the typical, although not the exclusive, container for MPEG-4).

Except in very unusual circumstances, users will archive their video using some form of lossy file format/codex--the alternative is simply too unworkable. An uncompressed standard definition DV AVI file, for example, can run around 30gb per hour, which is beyond the means of most users to store--and unnecessary.

Users are likely better off with widely-accepted, non-proprietary current container and codex technologies, such as MP4 and MPEG-4, while recognizing that these (like AVI) are lossy formats and some quality is invariable lost, especially with repeated reformatting  Such standards themselves will need to be reevaluated in the future as technology continues to evolve.

 

Why Should I Care About Photographs?

"I don't have time to worry about photographs! I've taken some myself and collected others from parents and other family.  It just isn't important."

Think again.

If you're serious about family history, you need to put the day-to-day cares of life aside at least for a while and focus on what you have, how you will acquire more, and how you will care for your collection.

If family history is a bit less of a priority, and everything else just seems so much more interesting and important, I can promise you that the day will come, perhaps not too far distant, when photographs will be among your most treasured possessions.

Our lives can change radically and quickly.  We usually have a view of our own situation and surroundings that is limited and fairly comfortable.  What we don't expect is how external events will force us to change that view--many times when the tools and opportunities are no longer with us.

For some time I made part of my living as a photographer and I've been involved in production projects more heavily in recent years.  When my wide passed away in 2007 I had a number of pictures, many excellent ones, but not nearly as many as I should have.  I had some video of her I had preserved over the years, but no real interviews, family stories, or shared memories.

What a tragedy--I should have known better.

In a short time those pictures I had become among my most treasured possessions and I would have given a great deal to have more.  Each of us faces a similar situation, whether respecting parents, siblings, or children.  If we fail to develop our photographic record while we have the opportunity, we will surely lose that opportunity when we least expect to.

Have you ever heard of "Dead Fred?" One of this site's purposes is for users to post photographs that lack adequate identification or information in hope that someone can make a family connection and provide details.  Your parents and grandparents--the same ones who gave you those pictures you've been ignoring--are the source for details, background, and family history recollections about those pictures that will be lost forever when they are wrong.

Recently a genealogy newsletter I occasionally read commented that our family history may be lost in two or three generations if we fail to preserve it.  The writer is wrong: it takes only a single generation to lose almost all contact with even the comparatively recent past.

Here are five good reasons you should pay attention to your old photographs, and how you will go about acquiring new ones:

    1.    There is no better time.

We always assume, for some peculiar reason, that we will have more free time in the future.  Even if the assumption were true, which is usually is not, we may not have the financial resources, the access to family members whose history we want to preserve, or the health to do what we want to do in the future.  We need to start today with the time and resources we have available.

    2.    You already have old photographs.

Even if you didn't realize it.  Every photographic print you have is deteriorating, some slowly and others surprisingly rapidly.  One an image deteriorates, some of the changes can be compensated for, but the character and detail of the original is lost forever and can never be recovered.

    3.    Many old techniques were better and deserve to be preserved.

Photographic prints made prior to about 1985 are usually superior to those produced later, when low-cost processing techniques came into widespread use.  The color and artistic techniques used on professional portraits, for instance, were frequently costly and represent a true lost art in this age of digital image manipulation.  These treasures need to be preserved.

    4.    Images tell a story that words never can.

The personal insights, interactions, and memories preserved on film are at least as important as personal journals.  Pictures allow us to see others as they saw themselves and appreciate their priorities, lifestyles, and relationships in unique ways.

    5.    Digital technology makes creating new pictures easy and cheap.

There is no financial excuse for not taking as many pictures as you can.  Digital photography imposes no penalties for mistakes.  A quality digital camera is a wonderful tool, but it can never substitute for a photographer who won't take pictures.  Buy the best camera you can afford and stop waiting until you have good equipment to start taking as many pictures as you can.

One professional photographer I know, the recipient of many awards, purposely uses very modest equipment as proof that expensive and sophisticated set-ups are not essential to top-quality results.  Put your effort into taking more and better pictures--but take pictures!

 

Finding Mother

About 1996 I was an early pioneer of making family history available online (wardell-family.org).  Seems commonplace these days, but it was new and unique for the time.  I might do it different now, as privacy concerns are much more defined in recent years, and I while I was preparing all the material I wondered whether it was really worth the effort.

The Internet has brought about a number of significant benefits, however.  One was the opening of contacts with people I'd never known, who were able to share some valuable material.

This picture of my mother was taken when she was five years old.  It was kindly sent to me by a lady who had known her as a young woman, although she never provided many details about the relationship.

Some photographic restoration provided this charming picture.  But for The Internet, it would have been lost forever.

The message here is that our history is rapidly disappearing.  I read a quote recently that suggested all the details of our lives would be lost in two generations if we failed to document it ourselved.  This is incorrect: it will happen in one generation.