This is a perfect project for the new proposed Society - down the road. And with the co-operation of Heritage Place. >Resent-Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 12:37:55 -0600 >X-Original-Sender: jtginnc@coxnc.rr.com Sun Apr 21 12:37:54 2002 >From: "Janice Tripp Gurganus" <jtginnc@coxnc.rr.com> >Old-To: <NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com> >Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 14:38:03 -0400 >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 >Subject: [NC-PCFR] Picturing Pitt County >To: NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com >Resent-From: NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com >Reply-To: NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com >X-Mailing-List: <NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/691 >X-Loop: NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com >Resent-Sender: NC-PCFR-L-request@rootsweb.com > >Dear PCFR Members and Friends, > >Here's a wonderful article about yesterday's photo-scanning event that appeared in today's Daily Reflector. Wish I could send the photos, too. > >Eleanor, Wayne, Betsy, Brenda, Laymond, Robin, Roger, Frank, Bill, and ALL OTHERS who participated make us so proud. This was a huge success! Those of us who couldn't be there (myself included) are very appreciative of your time and effort on this worthwhile project. A big "THANK YOU" for making us look so good!! > >Janice > >_________________________________________________ > > >Effort preserves Pitt County images >By T. Scott Batchelor, The Daily Reflector >Crinkled, torn and faded images of Pitt County ancestors passed through a beam of light Saturday that transformed them into ones and zeros, preserving legacies for coming generations. > >People brought dozens of photographs of relatives and old homesteads to Sheppard Memorial Library to have them scanned into a computer during an effort called Picturing Pitt County. > >It was the first such session sponsored by Pitt County Family Researchers, a genealogical society dedicated to cataloging the family trees of Pitt residents. > >Herman Allen showed up with several photos that were scanned onto a computer hard drive and ultimately burned onto a CD-ROM to be used as another resource for genealogists. > >In a 1915 snapshot, a line of relatives - including Allen's mother with his then-baby brother cradled in her arms - posed in front of a house on Hooker Road in Greenville. Behind the home stood rows of corn. > >"If something happens to them, they'll be preserved," Allen said of the photographs being scanned into the system. > >Eleanor Allen, the PCFR member who headed up the effort to create the database, said the photographs will be cataloged by family name and geographic location so researchers can cross-reference them. > >She expects the CD-ROMs to be available in the next few months. The next step is to place the images on the society's Web page, where some photos already reside. > >Frank Clark brought a picture of his father, Warren Henry Clark, that was snapped in 1898 in the Beaufort County town of Pantego. > >Clark, wearing a suit and cocked hat in the photo, came with his family to Pitt County in the 1920s in search of farming's greener pastures, his son said. > >"I've been doing this now for 22 years," Clark, 68, said of his efforts to detail the family tree. "It's important to me because I wanted to teach young people a little more about their family, their ancestors, where they came from and what they look like." > >Those efforts, including preserving the images in a database, is especially important for black families such as his, because records for them are sparse, Clark said. > >An hour after the session began at 10 a.m., Eleanor Allen said volunteers had helped scan about 30 photographs. > >Allen used a digital camera to photograph the photographs that couldn't fit on the flat-bed scanner - a device that looks and operates like a photocopier, but instead of spitting out paper copies sends the images onto a computer's hard drive. The image on the camera was then uploaded to the computer hard drive. > >She used that method for a wide picture of the 1914 graduating class of East Carolina Teachers College. > >Besides serving as a centralized location for photo storage, the Saturday session also bolstered the rolls of PCFR, organization President Bill Kittrell said. > >"People have joined today," he said. Begun in 1994 with about 20 members, the organization now boasts a roster of more than 250, with participants hailing from as far away as California, Kittrell said. > >Electronically preserving the images of families and structures important to Pitt County is a necessity because many of them would be lost otherwise, he said. > >"Some of the family members don't care about old pictures," Kittrell said. "They get thrown away." > >Luckily, Ann Whitehurst Johnson had a copy of a photograph of her grandparents that was damaged in a recent fire. > >That photo was being scanned into the database on Saturday, adding another layer of protection and making them available to those who want to become acquainted with their ancestors. > >"It's just a wonderful way of being able to share with other people," Johnson said. > >Eleanor Allen said she hopes to organize more scanning sessions and to catalog other documents, such as family Bible records, using the same technology. > >The Pitt County Family Researchers Web site is www.rootsweb.com/~ncpcfr/ > >T. Scott Batchelor can be contacted at sbatchelor@coxnews.com > > > >==== NC-PCFR Mailing List ==== >Post to this mail list at: NC-PCFR-L@rootsweb.com >Visit the PCFR website at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncpcfr >Browse our rich collection of old family photographs, private documents, and public records. > >============================== >To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >