Digital Video Tape
Preparing To Make Your Family Tree Digital Video?
The family tree digital video is one of the newest ways to preserve and share your family tree. It’s better than paper because of its multi-media format and more durable than old fashioned film.
During the early days of your family tree research, you dusted off old boxes of family photos. You talked to everyone you could and recorded many (perhaps all) of those sessions. You’ve looked at many old documents. You may have even run across old family films or VHS tapes. If you’ve wondered how to bring all these things together, then consider a family tree digital video.
Digitizing your records is a very good way to preserve them because they will not degrade as quickly as all the originals. Additionally, copies are easily made or emailed so sharing them is far easier than in the past.
While you could do it yourself, I advise letting a professional make your digital family tree. There are a number of companies that can do this for you and if you have a lot of very old, fragile material you’ll want to turn the job over to a pro. Very old films from the 50s and 60s become brittle. In fact, some may be so brittle that even a professional won’t want to try to use them. At minimum, they won’t be able to guarantee their safety during the production process. I learned this back in the 70s when trying to get brittle films put onto VHS. Count yourself lucky – you have VHS tapes to work with! Still – at least to me – a shot at using old film is better than no shot at all, so I think it is worth a try if the professional is willing to attempt to digitize your old films.
Your old photos will be much more durable than old film, but can still be fragile. The VHS tapes should be very easy to convert to digital video unless they’ve been stored in very, very poor conditions.
When sending your material to a professional, try – whenever possible to send copies. It’s just common sense. Things get lost in the mail, businesses go out of business, and files can be damaged by flood, fire or storms. Your most precious originals should be kept in a very safe location. Can you scan your old documents and photos and send the scans to the professional? Did you have a second copy of your VHS tape anywhere?
Professionals are skilled at taking a lot of material and editing it down to an entertaining final product. Since they need far more than they use, you can expect that you’ll send them many more hours of taped material than they end up using. They will select out the most captivating moments and make your final DVD much more interesting to watch.
Remember though, you also have many hours of taped interviews to add to your old family videos. You can even go out and make some new ones with the express purpose of adding critical information to your family tree digital video. Go ahead and tape shots of their favorite old car, old homestead, gravestones, or of them doing their favorite craft or hobby. Videotape the old church they went to or whatever persons, places or things that will help the viewer really get to “know” the person. This will help make your final video so much more interesting because it will be about people and not just the “names and dates” the most people associate with genealogy.
After you’ve sent your material to the professional, give them one or two weeks to complete your family tree digital video. The more material you send, the longer it will take them. The wait is worth it though because in the end you will have a great way to share your family history!
About the Author
Kay Cromwell has been researching her family history for over a decade now. She’s successfully traced her family back to the 1600s and wants to share her knowledge with you. Visit her website: http://www.mygenealogysecrets.com for more information. She even offers a FREE mini-course for beginners and more great articles on genealogy. (Check the site map at the bottom of her web pages to find the articles list.)
To learn more about family tree formats check out this article: http://www.mygenealogysecrets.com/which-family-tree-format-is-right-for-you/
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