Genealogy-specific digitalization services?
July 15, 2014 6:08 PM Subscribe
How can I help my dad digitize his extensive collection of genealogical documentation?
My dad is a genealogy nut. His basement represents dozens (possibly hundreds) of binders containing historical documents (original and photocopied), small artifacts (e.g. war medals), and extensive records describing/indexing as such. I find it profoundly uninteresting, but let's take that off the table for the moment. What concerns me is the eggs-in-one-basket thing, where a fire or a flood could destroy decades of work that can never be reproduced. Also, I suspect he has the same fear.
If it's remotely reasonable from a financial and personal effort perspective, I would like to find a service that would be able to comb through those documents and digitize them (with guidance, if they're patient with ornery, tech-unsavvy clients); at a minimum for archival purposes, but if it can be normalized into some sort of useful, standardized data schema then all the better.
How would I go about finding such a service? And if such a thing is very uncommon, how would I go about finding and vetting someone who could perform it as a custom thing? Very VERY roughly, what might I expect to pay (per hour or per project)?
My dad is a genealogy nut. His basement represents dozens (possibly hundreds) of binders containing historical documents (original and photocopied), small artifacts (e.g. war medals), and extensive records describing/indexing as such. I find it profoundly uninteresting, but let's take that off the table for the moment. What concerns me is the eggs-in-one-basket thing, where a fire or a flood could destroy decades of work that can never be reproduced. Also, I suspect he has the same fear.
If it's remotely reasonable from a financial and personal effort perspective, I would like to find a service that would be able to comb through those documents and digitize them (with guidance, if they're patient with ornery, tech-unsavvy clients); at a minimum for archival purposes, but if it can be normalized into some sort of useful, standardized data schema then all the better.
How would I go about finding such a service? And if such a thing is very uncommon, how would I go about finding and vetting someone who could perform it as a custom thing? Very VERY roughly, what might I expect to pay (per hour or per project)?
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Another advantage of this is that he can play with UV and Infrared and filters to help restore damaged originals.
posted by Sophont at 8:40 PM on July 15, 2014