Prestige Worldwide

In order to digitally save my family’s history, I would have to start with some research on my family tree, including typing down significant stories, dates and places, and researching them.  Any old photographs I would scan in and save with the highest quality possible, and add footnotes with the people pictured, place and name if at all possible.  Any items of significance would also be recorded by having a picture with multiple angles taken of it (ie gold watch) as well.  My goal would be organizing digital files by family, and further by individual people. I think major life events should be noted, with pictures, locations and times, such as weddings, and moving into a new home. With today’s digital age I think it would be important to transfer any recorded video or audio into a digital format as well, to go along with the family history.  Old photo albums, which most are already organized by time, place and date should be digitized as well and cataloged.  I would use a high speed scanner to digitize any photos or albums, then I would go back through and make sure to type out any captions, to make searches easier upon completion, if somebody was trying to find a specific place or time.  The converted digital audio and video to digital would have to be watched and/or listened to so I could caption the entire recording of what was said.  All media would be saved using the highest quality possible, because I believe it is better to preserve the data of my family as much as possible, without taking the chance to loose detail or cut corners for a smaller sized end product.

Once all of the possible data has been gathered I would organize and save it to multiple external hard drives, computers, and flash drives.  I would also make a web site that can only be accessed by family and friends, where they would be able to submit, research, and comment on the family history as well.  Doing this would not only add another place of storage, but help with researching my families history, by have dates, times, people and places added in from multiple family members and friends.  They would also be able to upload any photos and other media they might have to the site.  The captioning of the media will also greatly help with “search” function, so things can be easier to find.  I would set it up so everything would have to get approval before it can be posted to the family history site.  The only part I would keep “live” with no approval is maybe a family and friends message board, which I would still moderate, just due to that fact that family drama always happens, and some things in hindsight are best left unwritten.  Creating a family history site would be a massive undertaking to start, but once it is up and running with submissions and family interaction, it would and should get easier to manage.  A log in would always be required, because of possible personal information, that shouldn’t be left to the public.  The hardest undertaking I can imagine is scanning in all the photo’s and media, and getting dates, locations and people written down.  The good news is, once the site is up, other family members can spend their own time doing scanning and research for the good of the history, and it would be less of and undertaking on me.

The other things to consider are the media/data storage, and cost for the website and servers.  Time is also another big factor, where it would pull you away from other activities in order to do this one that would be just for history and fun.  Modern Technology has made it easier and more possible to connect with friends and family from across the globe.  Now is an ideal time to incorporate and use the technology that is given to us in order to do something constructive with it, such as family history.  Will it take time and some money with dedication? Yes.  But knowing where you came from and who you came from outweighs the difficulties associated with such a task, and it is best to do it before more memories fade and relatives pass away.