Understanding Errors Made During Microfilming

 Bedford County Tennessee deed books O-R were microfilmed by the Tennessee State Library and  Archives and are digitally available via FamilySearch in Image Group Number 008150799.  I'm so thankful to have these records and others like them available to access from home.  

The IGN 8150799 images might be confusing to some because of errors in the target images.  Target images are documents added that give additional information about the item being microfilmed. Some examples are: End of roll, End of item, Tight Binding, Smeared Ink, etc.  Volume O contains deeds for 1821-1822 and has an index for those deeds at the front of the book.  While the dates covered are correct the book is more than an index.

Volumes P, Q, and R are also listed incorrectly as Index Books on the target images but now we have an additional error.  The person who created the handwritten target pages wrote 19 instead of 18 for the first two numbers of the year. 

 

Volume P

Volume Q

Volume R

Thankfully, FamilySearch has it listed correctly on their site. It is essential that you know what records you are using. A citation is more than just a road map back to the source, it requires understanding the why and when of the record creation as well as recognizing any errors made in the transferring of that record to a different format. This is just one example of errors you might encounter while researching.

Notes:  

Bedford Co TN Deed Books(w/ front index) IGN 008150799

Volume O   Images 6-227
Volume P    Images 229-457
Volume Q   Images 459-659
Volume R   Images 661-931

Scanning Negatives

Over the past few weeks, I've been scanning old negatives that my mother and aunt have come across while they were packing things for a move. A good number of them were negatives of pictures that I'd never seen before. The above picture is of my Dad while he was in the army during the Korean War.  The process I used for this was fairly simple for the larger black and white negatives.  

• I scanned the negative just like I would a regular photo using my flatbed scanner.  
• I opened the file up in IrfanView(a free image software)
• The selected from the IrfanView menu  Image > Negative(invert image) and this changed the negative to a picture image.
• Use image editing software to clean up the image.

Some of the color negatives(126 Kodak Film) were easier to convert to digital picture using a GMYLE smart digital image copier that I'd purchased about 10 years go(It connects via USB and is about 4" x 4"  and came with two trays--one to load film and another for slides.  The scanner came with ArcSoft Software  to retrieve the scans.  When using it I just scanned and then used an image editing software on it.

You could probably come up with your own combination of how to do this using what you have available.  You'd need a way to backlight the negative and scan it and then a way to convert it from negative to positive.