{"id":891,"date":"2006-12-19T22:30:08","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T05:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/19\/not-all-microfilms-are-created-equal\/"},"modified":"2012-03-27T22:43:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T05:43:41","slug":"not-all-microfilms-are-created-equal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/891","title":{"rendered":"Not All Document Images Are Created Equal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I wrote about the World War I Draft Registration Card I found for Allister Rawding .\u00a0 The images I presented were downloaded\u00c2\u00a0from the internet\u00c2\u00a0and were fairly difficult to read.<\/p>\n

While filing that record, I found I had electronic images from FHL US\/CAN Film 1684748 that I had saved several years ago .\u00a0 To my surprise, the record I had saved from the Family History Library microfilm was of much better quality than the image I obtained from an online database .\u00a0 Compare the images below with those I published yesterday<\/a> and see for yourself:<\/p>\n

\"WWI<\/a><\/p>\n

WWI Draft Registration for Allister Rawding – Front<\/em><\/p>\n

\"WWI<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

WWI Draft Registration for Allister Rawding – Back<\/em><\/p>\n

SOURCE: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,\u201d Allister Daniel Rawding, serial no. 1044, order no. 612, Norwood, Norfolk County, Massachusetts; FHL US\/CAN microfilm 1,684,748.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click on the link for a PDF Copy of the World War I Draft Registration Card for Allister Daniel Rawding<\/a> .\u00a0 I was surprised at how much clearer these images are than the same\u00c2\u00a0images I had downloaded from the internet .\u00a0This is especially surprising because the Family history Library microfilms and the images on Ancestry.com are reported to originate from the same microfilms held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.<\/p>\n

Many historical documents have been microfilmed multiple times, by different agencies .\u00a0 Sometimes I’ve found that the Genealogical Society of Utah (the Family History Library) has, itself, filmed the same documents multiple times, with one filming of much better quality than another.<\/p>\n

But even\u00c2\u00a0the Family History Library does not necessarily have the best microfilm copies of a set of records .\u00a0 Several years ago,\u00a0I looked up some newspaper obituaries on microfilm at the Family History Library, but found them almost unreadable .\u00a0 I found a different filming of the same newspaper at a Local Public Library that was incredibly better.<\/p>\n

The lesson here is, if one copy of a set of documents is of poor quality, there might be a better\u00c2\u00a0copy available through some other facility.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2006 Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I wrote about the World War I Draft Registration Card I found for Allister Rawding .\u00a0 The images I presented were downloaded\u00c2\u00a0from the internet\u00c2\u00a0and were fairly difficult to read. While filing that record, I found I had electronic images … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[120],"tags":[283],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rawding","tag-massachusetts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-en","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15726,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions\/15726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}