Organizing / Filing Photos & Documents

[tmomeyer 0]

Hi,

 

Family History Photo & Document Cataloging: I'm looking for an organized method for labeling photos and documents that 'tags' it to the digital scan of the item. And would like to be able to store text and keywords with the scanned items to make searches and finding digital items easier to do. Recently purchased TMG Gold Version 7, however, from looking at a couple of recommended "links" sites, I suspect that others may use Clooz or other programs. What are recommendations? And, are you writing on the back of the items with archival ink or using sheet protectors for each item with the identifier number on the protector?

 

Scanning: Did some research on the internet and came up with recommendations to 300 to 600 dpi and 24 bit color resolution (for black and white and color photos). Will probably be 'borrowing' some items and have to return them, so would like a good digital copy. And, would like to share digital copies of items that I have, so I read that if you start 'high res' you can always dumb down (compress or change to lower res) to fit more on a CD or DVD or lower it down even further to use in email or the web. What are others using if not 600 dpi and 24 bit color resolution?

 

Thanks, Tom

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Tom,

For documents, I file them in hanging file folders by surname and use cheap three ring binders (think around ten cents each) for document type. I use the TMG source number to locate them. I use file folder labels and write the TMG source number on that, and stick that to the protective sheet and not the document. When I scan it, I store it on my computer in the same filing system: SURNAME/DOCUMENT/personname.jpg

 

Pictures go into an album with acid free papers to protect them. Again, I use file folder labels that get stuck to the album. The pictures slide into sleeves.

[jenealogy 0]

Tom,

I scan everything using 300dpi and they look just fine. As far as numbering goes, I enter the source into TMG, then take that number and add 4 digits to the end. So for example, the MSL# is 3633. I scan every document from that source and put it into a "Scanned documents" folder. Then using and freeware called Rename4U, I select all of that sources scanned documents (I usually scan lots of documents at one time using the Automatic feed on my HP Officejet 5610 All-in-one) and tell Rename4U to automatically number all of the documents 33633 with an additional 4 digits starting with 0001 (or wherever I left off). Every document that I scan from that source is then 36330001, 36330002, 36330003, etc.

 

I file all of these exhibits in a "PICS" folder and have found that I need to have folders for the 1,000's, like 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 (as in the numbers of the sources from MSL).

 

For Word Documents -- notes that I keep for each source, I do basically the same, name them by the MSL #.

 

Hope this helps.