A Family History Mission: Preparing documents for digitization

Maryland State Archives

No. 60

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them or click back through all the posts.

I am going to go through the process of prepping (preparing) the documents from the Maryland State Archives for digitization and then show where you can find what is already available. 

We are digitizing documents for FamilySearch and the documents we digitize are subject to an agreement between FamilySearch and the archive. The contracts are specific about which documents are made available to us. The project here at the Maryland State Archives has been going on for five years or so and we expect that it will take another six or seven years to complete. We are digitizing primarily probate documents and those related to probate actions in the Orphans Court of Maryland beginning around 1600.

Certain sets of documents are identified for digitalization. We work through the records county by county. The documents are stored on the shelves in boxes called "clamshells" and physically brought to us to prepare for digitization.  Here are what the boxes look like.

Here is what the boxes look like with documents.

The documents are tightly folded and are essentially the same condition as when they were filed away. Most of these documents have never been touched for as long as 200 years. The first step is to sort the documents into folders. Here are the documents as they are sorted.

 Here are the folders.

 
The documents in the folders have been preliminarily sorted are still tightly folded. The documents are sorted chronologically into small groups of 3 to 6 or more document sets to a folder. We select a folder to work on and then review the documents to make sure they are in chronological order.

We fill out a "target" sheet or cover sheet for each document set. The folded sets of documents may contain a series of related documents. 

The target sheet lists the main names and type of court action associated with the documents. Each packet of folded documents becomes a separate subfolder. We then carefully unfold the documents and record the information. This information is used as waypoints or a preliminary index for the digitized documents by the Archive. Unfortunately, FamilySearch does not use or incorporate this highly useful preliminary index to the records. Here are the documents being unfolded. 

Some of the documents have metal fasteners that need to be removed. 

Here is how I organize working on unfolding the documents. 

The documents are put back in the boxes and then they are ready to move to the camera stations. 

If we find mold on the documents, they have to be sent to be irradiated by the Archive before digitization.

The information on the target sheets is entered into a database that is used by the Archive to keep track of the documents.

The boxes of folders are delivered to the camera stations and are ready to digitize.

Here is a camera station with a document ready to digitize.

The target sheets are also digitized and the information in the database is verified when the image is made.

The original documents are put back in the box and they are filed away by the Archive. We are done with those documents. The images are transferred to a hard drive and shipped to FamilySearch where the images are processed and then incorporated into the FamilySearch.org website. Here is a screenshot of some of the records found in the FamilySearch.org Catalog from Maryland.

Unfortunately, these particular records are only available to be viewed in a Family History Center. But other records are available to everyone online.

Here is what some of the records look like.

If you have any questions, put them in the comments.