Some Basic Technology Tips for Enhancing Family History: The Wonder of Digitizing to Put Permanent Form to Artifacts Left Behind by Our Kindred Dead

1. Some Basic Technology Tips for
Enhancing Family History
The Wonder of Digitizing to Put
Permanent Form to Artifacts Left
Behind by Our Kindred Dead

2. Artifacts are such things as the Written Word, Photos,
and even Audio Recordings.
Preserving these opens windows into the lives and
thoughts of our kindred dead, the environment in
which they lived, and the types of character they
developed.

3. Written Materials: Letters, Diaries, Journals, Recipes,
Song Texts, Poetry, Scrap-Books, Obituaries, News
Articles, etc.The Hindu
A wonderful man is the Hindu.
He does the best he kin do.
He sticks to his task from first to last
And for pants he makes his skin do.

4. Recordings Made of Events in A Person’s Life
Records and Magnetic Materials

5. Teacher in 2 Room School House Teaching Singing to 3 Classes of 4th Graders
Putting on An Operetta for High School 17 Years with St. Johns Mandolin &Guitar Club
Photos Profiling Aspects of One’s Career

15. The Dragon Speech Recognition Program

16. Audio Materials (Nutshell Version): What they
look like, How to get them digitized, Digital
forms required
• Audio recordings are often found in materials kindred
dead have left behind who lived into the 20th century.
• Getting them digitized can be a problem as the playback
machines are obsolete and have all but disappeared.
The good news is that there are companies who
specialize in preserving these machines and offer
digitizing services.

17. What is the MP3 Format?
• The digital forms of these recordings (sound
files) can vary in size depending on the sound
quality desired, the larger the file, the better
the quality.
• However, these sound files can be compressed
into smaller files, the most popular one being
the MP3 format because, though its files are
small, the sound quality is still good.
• Because of this, the MP3 format is the
standard for uploading sound files to

18. Materials Used to RecordEvents in A Person’s
Life -- Records and Magnetic Materials

19. 78 RPM Records: Popular for Personal Recordings

20. Magnetic or “Memory” Wire Cartridge

21. Wire Recorder Using Magnetic Wire

22. Magnetic Tape – Reel to Reel

24. If You Have Any Of the Below, You Most Likely
Must Take Them To A Professional Place.

25. Most Likely Audio Cassettes Like These Can Be
Digitized At Home

26. With Proper Program and Equipment, Cassettes Can Be
Connected to your Computer and the Contents Transferred
Early Cassette Players: These only had 1
microphone input and one headphone output.

27. Boom Box with Cassette
Mid-Range Cassette Deck
High-End Model

28. • If you have one of these machines you can
probably connect it to your computer with a
cable and transfer the contents of your tapes.
What comes through the cable is called the
signal.
• It is not quite that simple but the following
information and tips will be helpful. First, all
playback machines have input and output
mechanisms. They are of various types, hence
the cables are also of various types.

29. The Connecting cables (also called “patch cords”) have
different connecting ends (called “plugs”) to fit different
inputs, or “jacks.”RCA to Mini Plugs
Mini to Mini Stereo Plugs
Examples of Mini Plugs & mini
Jacks

30. Three Common Types of Plugs (which, of course,
will fit 3 types of Jacks)
RCA and Mini Stereo RCA and Mini Stereo Phon(o) Plugs: Stereo & Mono

31. Older mid-range models of
Cassette Players are stereo
and use RCA Jacks, color
coded to White (left) and Red
(right).
These machines do not
have a microphone
input

32. The best connection is from a “line
out” to a “line in.” On a computer
these are found on the sound card.
Sound Card Inputs are color coded
Anything produced in the last few years will
have a sound card that supports stereo
inputs and they will be Mini Jacks.

33. Getting the Cassette Tape Actually Digitized
• From here there two ways to go in digitizing a
cassette, one somewhat complicated and the
other hardly complicated thought it will cost a
little.
• The complicated way is to download a free
music program to the computer, record to it,
and than have it export that recording as an
MP3 file.
• The less complicated way is to use an MP3
Converter deck which will cost initially $30-
50, but if you have a lot of tapes it is well

34. MP3 Converter: Any Music File In, MP3 Out

35. Besides doing cassettes directly, other playback
machines can be hooked to it as well.

36. Organizing Photos to Show a Life’s Thread
Photos portraying life events of a person enhances our view
and understanding of them as individuals, what was their
work, what did they make, for example, quilts, furniture,
or clothes, what was their civic or social life like, family
reunion activities, etc.
Thanks to scanning technology these photo can be given
permanent life, no fading or cracking with age. If the
originals are faded or cracked, other technology can help
restore them.
The following pictures show a brief thread of the life of a
teacher of English and music and her contributions to the
education, civic, and social life of her community. She
inherited these talents and the necessary formidable
teacher-frame-of-mind from her pioneer grand and great-
grandmothers. These pictures show activities which
continue to have an impact on three generations of her

37. Teacher in 2 Room Schoolhouse 1948-49, Grades 1-4

38. Teaching Singing to 3 Classes of 4th Graders

39. Music Teacher-Putting on A High School Operetta

40. St. Johns Mandolin & Guitar Club @1960