Hi Margy (and others), Wow, we haven't seen this much intense activity on this list in a while. And this time it's all about GENEALOGY !!! We are replying for several direct emails about the camera but thought the list would also like to know. Keep in mind pixel resolution is the most important factor. The oldest box was labelled 1790. The boxes measure about 2.5x3.5 feet. They are about 5 inches deep. The only one we looked into was the 1790 box. It was full to the top. All items were loose papers. There were itemized statements. Hand written testamonials. These papers would be support papers for individual court cases. Dennis told us that 1790 was the oldest date in those boxes. I was under the opinion, based on his tone, that he considered the dates to be too recent for these papers to be considered a treasure. Just my opinion of course. He indicated he would have loved to find much older papers. The pictures came out as we expected. Very good resolution. We could read everything on the whole page. All writing was in good detail. We hand held the camera sideways to take the picture. We zoomed in to fill the frame with the book page. We used existing lighting. We figure the resulting image resolution was about 100-200 pixels per inch depending on the actual page size. There were some bigger books that we took half page pictures to make sure the resolution would be fine enough. This experiment proved out the feasibility for digital imagery. We found that existing lighting is very non-uniform. Bound book pages do not want to lay flat. Camera positioning is critical. We hurried with our pictures. We had not asked for permission to do this. We were denied permission at one other courthouse so we just took pictures and decided to plead ignorance if approached. So this was more of a "let's see what we can get while we can get" experiment. It showed us areas for improvement if we were consider using this method as a serious documentation tool. We need an actual platform or table to create a flat base for the document. When considering a book then we need to have a platform that allows for both parts of the book: the flat page to be imaged and the rest of the book that is held open. We need an acceptable method of making the imaged page lay as flat as possible. This platform needs to have side sheilds to limit external lighting. Therefore the platform should have it's own lighting source to establish a uniform light for consistent exposure, probably a flouescent source with the ballast located external far from the platform since they are great heat generaters. There should also be a mechanism to hold the camera parallel to the platform and needs to be adjustable in a 3 axis method. The exposure bed needs a reference ruler for sizing. And lastly, this platform needs to be portable! This platform design is a definite engineering task. As an engineer I have thought about it for quite a while and have developed plans but haven't invested the money to build it. I have no idea if court houses or libraries would allow a contraption like this to be used with their old records/record books. We have 4 images posted to our website if any care to see some results. These pages are records of BINNS people from 1674 through 1747 Surry Court Books. Each image is big, 600-800kb. Each image displayed lighting problems just as we expected. We have enhanced the brightness/contrast of each of these images. The original images are all in color. These have been converted to grayscale. All 4 images were of book pages much bigger than the loose papers we saw. Anyone can see these images at: http://freepages.arts.rootsweb.com/~vataxlists/Va/Surry/ We are not suggesting that this is a replacement for microfilm. Not yet. But this is definitely an alternative copy method to the old photocopies and when refined will be an excellent method for copying an old record that can not be copied any other way. Our camera has an IBM microdrive as the storage device. At highest resolution and images saved in color at lowest JPEG compression (yeilding best quality) this microdrive can store 245 images. We use a laptop using USB download and then burn the images to CD ROM. We took 38 images at the Surry Courthouse and 30 images at the Charles City Courthouse in a single afternoon which includes all the driving, eating lunch, looking through the indexes in the books, taking the books out and taking the pictures. For a hurried experiment we felt we didn't do bad. As a controlled and planned effort about 3-4 images could be taken per minute. Sorry for the long narrative. It describes our experiences and discoveries using a new type of recording method. Nice thing about this method we had an image that we took home and transcribed at our leisure. Steve and Bunny ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margy Bousman" <mbousman7@home.com> To: "Yvonne and Steve" <ysbinns@yspcbdesigns.com> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: "Loose Papers" of Surry > Hi, Steve and Bunny, > How Exciting!! I was wondering- did you see any boxes labeled before 1790? > I'm interested in Surry Co. 1670 thru 1720. > One more question- how did your camera do? Did the pictures come out as > well as hoped? > I've been interested in a scanner pen or something of that nature - to be > able to upload right into my computer. > Margy > > Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 1:12 AM > Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: "Loose Papers" of Surry --------- Subscribe to BINNS-L surname email list: mailto:BINNS-L-request@rootsweb.com?subject=subscribe&body=subscribe American Binns Families and Individuals: http://www.yspcbdesigns.com/americanb/index.htm 1790/1800 County Tax Lists of Virginia: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~ysbinns/vataxlists/index.htm

In 1997, there was a similar project that was successful for Rockbridge County VA marriage bonds. One of our VA USGenWeb Archives file managers organized the preservation and permanent online (free) storage of the actual bonds. You can see the result of this project: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/rockbridge/ Angela Ruley, the file manager, and also a member of the Rockbridge Genealogical Society, organized a fund that would cover all the costs of this project. The contributions went through the genealogical society, and in a very short time, enough was collected to purchase a computer, scanner and acid-free materials to preserve the valuable marriage bonds in the courthouse. Bruce Patterson, the county's Clerk of Circuit Court, was also involved in the project. Angela, along with Marilyn Headley, meticulously scanned the bonds and placed them the acid-free protectors. When they were finished, the images of the actual bonds were uploaded to the USGenWeb Archives and cd's were created for the genealogical society to sell for additional funding for the organization. I can provide the specifics, from an instructional e-mail sent to me by Angela, to Paul and whomever is willing to start this project. I'm not on the vasurry-L list, so please feel free to forward. Linda

GOOD, GOOD info, Linda, and I/we thank you very much. I want only to help with the fund raising and have NO desire to steal the thunder of anyone of you there in VA or anywhere else, for that matter. Simply stated, this project should be done and soon; we all will benefit immensely, and I, among many, will assist with a few bucks and emails. Steve and Yvonne are very knowledgeable in at least one of the methods that might serve us all. Surely, we all know of the expertise of Weynette Haun. I await any word from you, the Society members, as to what I/we might do. Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Linda Lewis" <cityslic@ix.netcom.com> To: <VA-SOUTHSIDE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 2:23 AM Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: "Loose Papers" of Surry > In 1997, there was a similar project that was successful for Rockbridge > County VA marriage bonds. One of our VA USGenWeb Archives file managers > organized the preservation and permanent online (free) storage of the > actual bonds. You can see the result of this project: > > http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/rockbridge/ > > Angela Ruley, the file manager, and also a member of the Rockbridge > Genealogical Society, organized a fund that would cover all the costs of > this project. The contributions went through the genealogical society, > and in a very short time, enough was collected to purchase a computer, > scanner and acid-free materials to preserve the valuable marriage bonds > in the courthouse. Bruce Patterson, the county's Clerk of Circuit Court, > was also involved in the project. > > Angela, along with Marilyn Headley, meticulously scanned the bonds and > placed them the acid-free protectors. When they were finished, the > images of the actual bonds were uploaded to the USGenWeb Archives and > cd's were created for the genealogical society to sell for additional > funding for the organization. > > I can provide the specifics, from an instructional e-mail sent to me by > Angela, to Paul and whomever is willing to start this project. > > I'm not on the vasurry-L list, so please feel free to forward. > > Linda > > > ==== VA-SOUTHSIDE Mailing List ==== > USGenWeb Archives Census Project > http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/census/ > > > ============================== > Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp >

thank you for your efforts, I assume there is a cost involved for you. I AND I AM SURE others would be pleased to make a small "donation" to offset any cost involved. phebe morgan

We all have a duty to contribute something to our heritage and posterity. Too many folks - people of this list EXCLUDED - seem to have fish-hooks in their pockets and purses when it comes to history. Whatever. :) Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "phebem" <phebem@home.com> To: <VA-SOUTHSIDE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 8:38 AM Subject: Re: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: "Loose Papers" of Surry > thank you for your efforts, I assume there is a cost involved for you. > > I AND I AM SURE others would be pleased to make a small "donation" to > offset any cost involved. > > phebe morgan > > > ==== VA-SOUTHSIDE Mailing List ==== > The USGenWeb Project http://www.usgenweb.org > > > ============================== > Shop Ancestry - Everything you need to Discover, Preserve & Celebrate > your heritage! > http://shop.myfamily.com/ancestrycatalog >