* Best way to index my collection of church register images

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Simonides
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Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

I've a collection of church register images that I've downloaded during visits to my local Family History centre. Typically they are several hundred, comprising baptisms, marriages and burials for each parish in the area I'm researching. Each parish has its own folder. Many images have names of interest, be they brides, grooms, witnesses, mothers and fathers. I was wondering what might be the best way to index them so I can quickly find the image later .

Ideally I'd want to be able to record the parish name and whether the image was:

reviewed by me or pending review
image of baptism or marriage or burial register
date
any names of interest
citation to the original source

Icing on the cake would be add the ability to store the information in the metadata of the image so the information is available if I upload or send the image somewhere.

I've been playing around with storing the information in a spreadsheet, some sort of image database eg. iMatch, Photosupreme, Adobe Bridge, database eg. Clooz or even Family Historian.

Does anyone do this? Any thoughts?
Last edited by Simonides on 19 Jan 2021 15:14, edited 1 time in total.
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PeterR
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by PeterR »

IrfanView has facilities for storing descriptive text in the metadata.
Peter Richmond (researching Richmond, Bulman, Martin, Driscoll, Baxter, Hall, Dales, Tyrer)
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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

thank you, Peter. I should have added that I'd need to be able to find the image easily perhaps with something like a query to find images with a keyword of "churchill" or marriages with keyword of "churchill" or "smith" I'll certainly take a look at Irfanview.
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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

Irfanview certainly has some helpful features and it supports searches for keywords. Thanks again for the suggestion.

From irfanview help: Text:: you can search for text in EXIF data (JPGs, TIFs, RAW-formats) and/or IPTC/Comment data (JPGs).

If several words are inserted (separated with space), all files with ANY of the words will be in the result list (like word_1 OR word_2).
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Martin Tolley
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Martin Tolley »

One thing you could also think about is using an EXIF editor which could allow you to incorporate not only keywords but also to include GPS coordinates which would allow you mapping possibilities. I use GPS to record locations and specifically for graves. I do a lot of photography and I use something called photomechanic - it's pretty dear, but it has very versatile keywording facilities. There are a range of other cheaper alternatives.
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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

thanks Martin, yes I looked at Photo Mechanic but don't think it lets me search on keyword combinations - perhaps I'm wrong? Their new product Photo Mechanic Plus probably works but it's outside my price range.
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tatewise
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by tatewise »

With FH V7, when you add a Media image with meta-data, it is possible to add some of that data to the Media record.
See Tools > Preferences > Media and check the Help provided for the Copy Image Tag Values to the Media Record option.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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dewilkinson
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by dewilkinson »

I create a folder for every individual, in batches of 1000, i.e. 1-999, 1000-1999 et seq in the FHs Media folder , I store the image in the principle persons folder and put a short cut to that image in the other people's folders. That way I only store the image once but can find it from anyone else involved in the image. Also, if I later edit the image it 'cascades'.

I name my images like "1943 marriage of Joe Bloggs to Mary Another", or "1901 census Joe Bloggs and family" (the family bit telling that there are multiple short cuts to that image).

I also add a bit of text to bottom of images with and names, notes etc so they stay together.

It works for me.
David Wilkinson researching Bowtle, Butcher, Edwards, Gillingham, Overett, Ransome, Simpson, and Wilkinson in East Anglia

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Gardengirl
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Gardengirl »

I’m not sure if it would suit your project but I use MemoryWeb for family photos and some certificates etc. It allows you to tag name, date and place which can then be used to search and reorganise however you wish. It might suit your purpose but is difficult to describe. Best just have a look at their website and youtube demos.

https://www.memoryweb.me/
Last edited by Gardengirl on 19 Jan 2021 19:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Gowermick
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Gowermick »

I use a custom ID for everyone in my tree. I then use this as the prefix for any Photo , PR image etc.
So an indivudual ‘Fred Bloggs’ with an ID of J00256abc, has a copy of the baptism register image called ‘J00256abc Baptism for Fred Bloggs’, his burial entry would be ‘J00256abc Burial entry for Fred Bloggs’ etc
Mike Loney

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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

Many thanks to everyone for your kind suggestions. I'm trying out some of the ideas at the moment and hope to be able to find one that works for me. It's wonderful to have the support of so many other FH users!
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trevorrix
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by trevorrix »

I have a simplistic approach to this issue.

Within the Media folder for each FH project I have a subfolder BMDs with subfolders Banns Baptism Birth Burial Death and Marriage.

For birth certificates and baptism images my file naming convention is 1852 Joe-Joseph Bloggs & Sarah Smith.

For death certificates and burials my file naming convention is 1852 Joseph Bloggs.

For marriage certificates and banns images and marriage images my file naming convention is 1852 Joseph Bloggs = Sarah Smith.
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BEJ
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by BEJ »

On a related topic: How can one see what metadata FH7 stores for each media file stored in FamilyHistorian as part of the multimedia file?
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tatewise
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by tatewise »

Open the Media record, via the Records Window, etc, and open the All tab.
Everything that FH has recorded is shown there, but I'm not sure what metadata you are expecting.
There won't be much more than is shown on the Main tab.

As far as the Media files themselves, their EXIF and other metadata will be embedded within the file itself exactly as it was when it was added to FH and will need an external photo viewer/editor application to see it.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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BEJ
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by BEJ »

Got it. Thanks.
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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

As a reminder, I started this thread because I was looking for a tool to help index a collection of images, in particular the parish register screenshots of baptisms, marriages and burials.

I'm pleased to say that although it's a bit on the pricey side, iDImager's Photo Supreme works well for me and makes it easy to index and find images eg. burials with surname_a in parish_b etc.

thanks for the suggestions given in this thread.
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sbell95
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by sbell95 »

This is coming way too late, but I thought I should add that Tropy would suit this purpose perfectly. It's open source and designed for historians who utilise a lot of primary source documents, manuscripts, etc. It's quite similar in aesthetic and functionality to Zotero, being supported by the same nonprofit corporation. Tropy may be a good option for people who are trying to do something similar to you -- an intermediary step of sorting through and organising many digital images of original sources before adding them to their family tree software -- so I'll just leave this here in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread!
Sarah Bell – Australia
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Simonides
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by Simonides »

thank you Sarah. It took me a while to come across your message but Tropy certainly looks like a useful tool.
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trevorrix
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Re: Best way to index my collection of church register images

Post by trevorrix »

My filename naming convention for images of baptisms marriages and burials are ...

Baptisms
1768 Joseph-Frederick Bloggs & Susan White

Marriages
1765 Frederick Bloggs = Susan White

Burials
1819 Joseph Bloggs

If there is more than one for the same year I add suffixes 1 2 3 4 as necessary. As you need more information in your filenames just expand as necessary.
Trevor Rix
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