Looking back to your grandparents’ youth or your own childhood memories can be exciting. You may come across very interesting facts about your ancestors through paper documents, photos, and audio or video cassettes. However, such material cannot be preserved forever in their current, easy-to-destroy paper or cassette format. Digitization services can help you preserve their valuable memories. Digitizing family history can capture and preserve thoughts, feelings and beliefs for future generations by providing much more than just the external facts and dates that research can provide. According to a report in www.deseretnews.com, document scanning and digitization can provide a complete picture of the “inner life” of a person.
Document scanning services are available to capture and preserve old documents, photos, home movies and more, in digital format. Using high-end scanning devices, they will transform your valuable records into electronic format so that they can be properly organized, stored safely on a computer, and shared with your relatives. The advantages of digital family history records include:
- No more worries of damaging or soiling the fragile historical documents or of mold of humidity destroying them
- Resolves the problem of photographs’ fading colors and diminishing contrast
- Digital copies can be made as bright and sharp as the original
- Accessing digital records is extremely easy
- Printing records will be easy
- Digital records are easy to organize, find, and use
- Digitization makes it easier to share family history records with others.
- Digital record storage requires minimal physical space
At the RootTech Conference held earlier this year in Salt Lake City, a leading marketer and rental agent of desktop photo-scanning systems offered attendees the opportunity to use professional-grade, high-speed scanners to digitize family memories on the spot. One of the attendees explained how he found an interesting story in a journal he found in his home and realized that the young man mentioned in the article was none other than his own grandfather. He then proceeded to digitize his family history and shares it with other family members. His advice about family history is: “Preserve it, digitize it, share it” but “don’t hoard it”.
Digitizing these heirloom documents are not an easy job. You may have piles of papers and boxes stacked away in the loft. Before you digitize them you have to remove the staples and paper clips and ensure that the physical documents are in good condition. As for the physical documents, you can consider putting them in well-funded archives, university libraries or historical and genealogy societies to ensure that they are not lost or misplaced. For large scale jobs, families can partner with an experienced document scanning company that offers bulk document scanning service.
