Sunday, January 26, 2020

Is That The Best Available Version of That Record?

As family historians, we put a lot of thoughtful effort into piecing together our ancestors' lives.

Genealogy can be a painstakingly difficult hobby. The fewer complications in the process, the better.

Last week, I wrote a life portrait of my second great-grandmother Bessie (Bair) Benedick. Her first documented appearance would have been in the 1890 US Federal Census, but that was destroyed in a fire 99 years ago this month.

That made Bessie's first surviving record appearance the 1895 census enumeration for the state of Kansas.

My go-to online genealogy site, for which I pay a hefty annual subscription, had a digitized copy of that census.

1895 Kansas Census featuring Bessie Bair

Unfortunately, the document was grainy and faint. It was difficult to make out the text and many of the names were illegible. Initially, I was just grateful that the record was digitized and available to view from the comfort of my home. Perhaps the 125-year-old document was showing its age and the poor quality was reflective of the record's current state.

But then I had an idea.

I searched FamilySearch, which is hurriedly scanning its many reels of microfilmed-records. Sure enough, I found a scan of the exact same census page.

1895 Kansas Census featuring Bessie Bair

Clearly one of these is not like the other!

It was like swapping my old black and white television set for one projecting in vivid color. Sadly, the crisp version was free and I paid for the poorly scanned duplicate.

There's a lesson for family historians: don't rely on one source even for the same document, and don't settle for poor quality.

If the copy you're working with is illegible, make sure there isn't a better one available to you. That may mean searching at FamilySearch or another online provider. It may also mean that you reach out to the courthouse or local archive to see if they can help you obtain a clearer copy.

Bottom line, your research and family's story are too important to work with anything less than the best. When compiling history for posterity, build with the finest quality available that will ensure your family's story endures time.

10 comments:

  1. Sound advice to look for another source for the same record. I've found the same thing a number of times.

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    1. Who knows - a clearer copy of the record may also yield more genealogically relevant details.

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  2. One of my pet peeves with the pay site you mentioned. I found the 1900 census illegible and had missing pages for a certain WV county. I remembered a blog post that explained how to find the film information on FamilySearch and locate the image at Archive.org if not on FS.
    Also, the subscription site used to use *.sid format for their census images in 2002-2004. I still have these images and very often they are better than the images online today.

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    1. Curious that the pay site would opt for some of the lower quality versions instead of the higher quality images you mention. I wonder if some of those decisions were centered on data speed and getting image files to load as quickly as possible, thus ceding some of the quality.

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  3. I also have often found FamilySearch to have better images (and better indexing) of the same records found you-know-where. (Are we avoiding naming it for any particular reason? Everyone knows what you mean.) But unfortunately FamilySearch doesn't have many of the records available unless you also subscribe to the other site. So if I do get a bad image on one, I do check the other.

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    1. FamilySearch is a real treasure in the family history game.

      I didn't name the offending party because I didn't want to upset the corporate Goliath. ;) Although they remain my go-to site and nobody, in my opinion, beats their tree display.

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  4. I have occasionally started with a poor image on FamilySearch and switched to Ancestry, too. Sometimes NONE of them are very legible, and I have downloaded them to my disk and "enhanced" them. I don't have the Adobe or VividPix products that others might use for this, but I have used the Photos program on my Mac to increase or decrease exposure and "sharpness." On my phone, I've adjusted gravestone photos with the Photos app, and I suppose we could download a census page to our phone and adjust it there.

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    1. Ah, the means we'll go through to get a legible copy if it's the difference between advancing our family tree or not!

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  5. I like Family Search better as their wildcard name searches are better and usually turn up the person you are searching for, the transcription of names/places sometimes leave a lot to be desired but usually if the document quality is good you can figure it out.

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    1. I absolutely agree! FamilySearch really is a fantastic, high-quality, well-maintained source.

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