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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 1999-10 > 0939327260


From: Adelbert Semmelink <>
Subject: Re: Death Notices
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 22:14:20 +0200


We have made progress and will start putting a team together this
weekend.

The reason why scanning and photocopies will not work is the way the
books are bound as well as the sheer size and weight of the
handwritten files. I experimented with photos taken of the idices
which I then scanned in. The scanned photo works quite well but it
is an expensive option. I have experimented with a handheld scanner
at home but that also was not very satisfactory.

We have, in the mean time been informed that a large proportion of the
Death Notice indices later than the 1950 indices have actually been
microfilmed. If those films are readily available we will start on
those that have not been filmed. Those that have been filmed can
then be captured anywhere. I'll follow up on that.

We will probably use tables in a wordprocessor because that can be
imported into a spreadsheet or database and via that into a genealogy
database. That is one of the things we will discuss on Saturday.

I have investigated voice recognition software and have used a few
different ones. The main issue here is that we want to retain the
integrity of the spelling used in the indices. (Arbraham instead of
Abraham or Cellier vs Cillie or Selliers etc with or without the
accent).

The Cape Archives Depot is currently busy with a longterm project
(years) where they are creating an electronic index directly from the
original death notices. That is a long term project which will be
more accurate and complete than the manual indices. It will still be
valuable to capture and preserve the original indices especially for
those who need to do research in the next few years.


--
Adelbert Semmelink

Researching families: BASSON and SEMMELINK worldwide

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