History Burgoo

On the Road to RootsTech!

When February rolled around, three staff members from the Library boarded planes and flew off to Salt Lake City for the second annual RootsTech conference! What would make three Kentucky Librarians fly to Salt Lake City in the middle of winter you ask? Simple: we wanted to learn about the latest in genealogy technology at the ONLY conference offered for just this purpose! RootsTech is an entirely new breed of genealogy conference. It was started last year as a way for users and developers to interact, dialogue and plan for the future of the genealogy field. Top software developers, vendors and genealogy instructors were on hand to demonstrate how technology has influenced genealogy over the past decade as well as how it is shaping the next generation of research.With over 4000 attendees (up one third from last year), this conference shows no signs of slowing down, and some have called it the most important genealogy conference in the world! Indeed, we met genealogists from across the globe who had already connected to fellow researchers through the very technology tools we were learning more about. As technology increasingly enhances genealogical research on a worldwide scale, don't be surprised if you begin to discover global cousins! So, despite all of the hype, how did these three Kentucky Librarians fare at this year's RootsTech? Let us show you as we list some event highlights and session info we will be utilizing back home in the KHS Library!

Highlights:

The 1940 Census - As many of you are already aware, the genealogy community is eagerly anticipating the release of the 1940 U.S. Census on April 2nd. However, when it is finally released, it will NOT include an index. This has spured three industry leaders to begin a community indexing project that will allow volunteers to index at their own pace from the confort of their own homes. This was a HUGE theme of the RootsTech conference! There were sneak peek sessions, index volunteer stations and fun marketing elements to get people excited about indexing in April! The KHS reference staff will be presenting a more thorough introduction to the access and indexing of the 1940 census at our April 2nd Saturday workshop! For more information about the community program: http://the1940census.com

Kentucky Genealogy Dinner - Before heading to Salt Lake City, we made contact with other Kentucky researchers heading to RootsTech and made plans to meet for dinner on Friday evening. After two full days of the conference under our belts and with a lovely meal to help us relax, we focused our conversation on how to apply what we learned to Kentucky genealogy needs. We talked about workshop ideas, contributing content to wikis, blogging and how to get fellow Kentucky genealogists excited about how technology can assist in research! Here is a photo of the gang from that evening (Around the table from left to right): Louise Jones, Cheri Daniels, Lise Emberly, Jennifer Howard, Pat Layton and Linda McCauley. 

What we learned:

Instructional Sessions on the User Level -

• Utilizing wiki sites for sharing family history and regional/historical information
• Joining a new community effort to develop a better Gedcom
• Publishing family history research in visually dynamic ebook formats
• Using Tablets and genealogy APPS
• Allowing cloud technology to help organize your research
• Utilizing social media tools to help connect with distant cousins and living relatives
  Instructional Developer Sessions -
• How to host webinars so our patrons can attend learning sessions offered by the library at any time, from any place
• Developing online search databases
• Optimize our websites to be found by search engines
• Using web analytics to make our sites more helpful and easier for patrons to use
  Connecting With Vendors -
• GPS and how it is changing the way we record information
• Learning about the latest scanning technologies, such as microfilm scanners and easy-to-use overhead scanners
• The latest developments in family tree building software
• Updates and new features from vendors we currently use, such as Ancestry.com, Fold3, and FamilySearch, plus some new ones like Archives.com and BrightSolid
  
  Research at the Library:

RootsTech itself generates a lot of excitement and energy throughout the week. Yet, there is another underlying energy that feeds some of the attendee excitement: the Family History Research Library. Genealogists from around the world flock to this one Library to conduct research on an international level. Sort of a one stop shop for genealogy research. Can you find all of the records here? No, not even close, but you can find a good chunk of them, and if your ancestors happened to cross a state line, or even a country border, you only need to switch areas of the Library to stay hot on their trail! For many RootsTech attendees, this is their first trip to Salt Lake City and their first opportunity to conduct genealogy research at this amazing Library. For others, they planned ahead and flew in days before the conference to research to their heart's content! The KHS Library gang took advantage of the "Late Night at the Library" offered by RootsTech to begin their introduction to this Palace of Pedigrees! Despite being exhausted, we all got fresh inspiration to carry us on for several hours. We didn't leave until 11:30 that night! Despite all of the wonderful records they have there, we actually came away with a renewed appreciation for our patrons and our wonderful Library. It was an amazing trip - but we are all glad to be home!

--Cheri Daniels, Jennifer Howard, Louise Jones

Are These YOUR Kentucky Ancestors? – New Blog Series Coming Soon!

If you’ve followed any of our recent posts about the winter season activities in the library, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we are not only covering ground fast, but are encountering some wonderful gems along the way! So, you might also wonder; "What is all this processing for? Don’t you already know what is in the library?" Of course we do, but as technology changed over the years, things were not always processed in a manner that made it easy for our catalog system to find items once we took things online - which means you, our patron, could not find them either without quite a bit of digging through paper finding aids, or spotty catalog search results! Tweaking our collection descriptions will allow the catalog to find more items related to your research and/or Family History!

 Ok, enough with the boring details – but what does all that MEAN?! The long and short of it is: we are re-discovering some amazing details about our collection that shed new light on Kentucky families. Many of you come to our research library with one purpose in mind – finding your family’s Kentucky history. As you conduct your research, I’m sure you’re familiar with the microfilm room, the vertical files and the published indexes/histories. When most of those records were printed or photographed for microfilm/publication, they were all gathered into one place – usually from local Court House collections – and filmed to create as complete a representation of that county’s history as was possible at the time. However, as we have all learned the hard way, those records can have all sorts of problems with them: Counties didn’t record some events in the early years, some counties had devastating fires that destroyed decades worth of records, and sometimes the quality of the paper/writing has deteriorated to a point of illegibility.

 This is where supplemental information can greatly enhance your research or fill in missing pieces! Your ancestors may have left a paper trail that extends beyond the scope of formal record keeping, in the form of photos, letters, personal transactions, organizational memberships, family Bibles or even store ledgers! Don’t forget, our ancestors were social beings just like us and were involved in groups, businesses and other social activities that produced letters and records. The key to finding these types of records for your research is by expanding your search to include special collections/archival records, which is mostly made up of “primary sources” and rare publications. These items, unless re-published at a later date, will not be found in the regular stacks of our library, nor even in the microfilm room. They can only be found by searching our online catalog and then requesting the items at our reference desk. Our staff will be more than happy to retrieve these unique pieces of history for you to explore here in the library.

 As we process more things this winter, we are bound to find more links to your Kentucky families, which can then be found by you as you explore our Collections Catalog. Remember, it is free for anyone to use from home – at any time of the year! We also have the Digital Collections and Objects Catalogs available that hold images of some of these unique items. After you have explored these three free catalogs for items relating to your family or research subject, keep checking back! We are busy adding more content to these catalogs and continue to enjoy these months of new discoveries as we open a new folder or box and meet someone new from Kentucky’s past!  

 As I wrap up this post, I would like to introduce you to a new blog series that can be found here regularly: Are These YOUR Kentucky Ancestors? Each Kentucky County has its own unique records, resources and original documents/photos that help to enrich its overall story. A few times each month, we will feature a new original source, publication, document, or photo from a different County that specifically mentions Kentucky families by name. Along with the wonderful re-discoveries from around our state, we hope to provide some background on the item presented or some tips on how to use this in your research. If any of the featured items add to your Kentucky Family’s story, let us know! Don’t forget! If you see something you want to explore in person, come visit our library when it is open to the public each 2^nd Saturday of the month, or during regular season hours when they resume on March 13^th! Stay tuned, you won’t want to miss what we find!

--Cheri Daniels

Winter Season Weeks 2 and 3

Well, we had a few holidays so we merged our accomplishments into one blog.  Hope you don't mind.  We have been cataloging like madhatters.  Our microfilm cataloging crew has knocked out 13 counties without knocking out or down each other. Carroll county gave us fits, but check it out online.  We are proud as peacocks!

Carroll County in the Online Catalog

 

Our maunscripts cataloging crew (same group as our microfilming crew) has cataloged over 250 collections.  Among our favorites are the Virginia Louise Hart Memory Book and a recipe book from 1858.  The Memory Book (SC 679) documents the senior year of high school for a young female graduate from Paducah High School, class of 1921.  We have all taken to chanting the senior year cheer:

Hail! Sleet! Thunder! Rain!

Get out of the way of the gravy train!

Hoot! Hoot! Seniors!

The book is full of calling cards, newspaper clippings, play programs and photos, but one page that sticks out as the most colorful showcases scraps of fabric cut from dresses worn by Virginia during her senior year.

 

Another page which earns an award for the most unique and possibly the most romantic highlights the tokens of affection given to Virginia by her male classmates in the form of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum wrappers.

 

 

We are thinking of taking on Virginia's senior class motto as our Seasonal mission statement:

"We build the ladder in which we climb."

 

Another item that had us drooling was the Elmore family recipe book (SC 808).  Besides recipes for several pies and cakes, this slim little volume had a recipe for a wine laud.  We don't know what a laud is used for but the three ingredients melted together are sugar, butter and wine.  Perhaps someone can try this out at their New Year's Eve party and tell us how it turns out!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the staff of the Special Collections and Library. 

Winter Season Week 1

The Special Collections and Library team started off the Winter Season with a party for the Governor, complete with cookies and punch.  Well, really, the Governor was having the Inauguration reception here at the Thomas D. Clark Center for History and the SC&L staff watched from the windows above Commonwealth Hall.  We did not have too many researchers on Tuesday, mostly lots of folks taking the opportunity to look around.  They got to see the SC&L team hard at work cataloging manuscripts.

So what did we accomplish in our first week?  Well let me tell you!  We cataloged 183 small manuscript collections, 20 large manuscript collections and 17 oversize collections.  One of my favorite discoveries was a trio of hotel registers from around central Kentucky covering the time period of the Goebel assassination. Apparently, the investigators collected these registers in the hopes that they would show the activities of the assassins.  On a side note, how many people remember actually signing into a hotel register?

Another highlight was SC 574 the George Delph account ledger, which has marginally interesting account information on a dry goods enterprise in Nicholas County.  It was later used, however, as a scrapbook by an unknown collector who decorated its pages with cut out images of fashion plates, political cartoons and product labels.  You can look forward to digital images appearing in the Digital Collection soon.

We also got together late Friday afternoon with our colleagues at the Kentucky Department of LIbrary and Archives to show them what we would be doing this Winter Season.  Since they will be answering lots of questions about our activities, we thought we would invite them in for a tour.

Not to be outdone, our Oral History staff met with 10 young women as part of the Staging Voices program with the Kentucky Commission on Women.  These high school students are learning how to create a theater piece using oral history as the raw material for their inspiration.  They will be doing 6 or 7 interviews with women who have served as advocates for women or who have effected change in the lives of other women. The students came in on Saturday to learn how to use the equipment and to do a practice interview with Sheila Mason Burton, who inarguably has done much for women in Kentucky.

Well, it is time to get to work.  Stay tuned for our next update on Tuesday December 27!  Merry Christmas everyone!

ScanFest is coming to the Library!

Earlier this year, the KHS Library purchased a Bookeye 4 overhead scanner.  Since you may be wondering what that is, I’m going to rely on the old “a picture is worth a thousand words” adage.

 

Basically the Bookeye has the ability to create digital images of our collections by using an overhead camera.  We love this machine, because we can now take digital images of our collections that would be damaged using a traditional flatbed scanner.  Many thanks to the Kentucky Historical Society Foundation and the Kentucky Genealogical Society for providing funding to purchase the Bookeye.

So what is ScanFest?  On two Saturdays in October (Oct . 1 and Oct. 29) we are letting patrons bring in their fragile books (family bibles, diaries, scrapbooks, etc.), along with a USB (flash/thumb) drive and we will provide digital images of their materials -- for free!!

Customers can sign up for 20 minutes sessions by contacting the Library Reference Desk at KHSRefdesk@ky.gov.  To ensure the highest quality scans, there will be a 5 page scan limit per session, but you can sign up for more than one session.  Customers can choose  scan resolutions and formats (JPEG, PDF, TIFF).  Digital images will be in color, and black & white photocopies will also be available for 25 cents each.

Okay, a wrap-up:

• ScanFest will be held on Sat. Oct. 1 and Sat. Oct. 29, from 10 am - 5 pm
• Registration is required for a guaranteed time slot.  Walk-ins will be accommodated as time allows.
• Scanning sessions are limited to 20 minutes & 5 pages of material.  Patrons can sign up for multiple sessions.
• Don’t forget a USB drive!  (We recommend at least 4 GB to make sure that all files will fit on the drive)
• Recommended materials for scanning are fragile and tightly bound books such as family Bibles and scrapbooks.  Manuscripts and photographs are not recommended.

Email us at KHSRefdesk@ky.gov with any questions and to reserve your spot!

Learning "Thorough Research" from Elizabeth Shown Mills

Last Saturday I got to represent KHS at the annual seminar of the Kentucky Genealogical Society.  I was extremely excited because the speaker this year was Elizabeth Shown Mills, who is known as a leader in the field of genealogy.

If I could use only two words to sum up Ms. Mills’ presentation, those words would be “thorough research.”  So often people think of genealogy as a family chart, listing birth, marriage, and death dates, and linking one generation to the next.  Ms. Mills was quick to point out that “genealogy is not the gathering of names – it is the study of people, people who led lives beyond their birth, marriage and death.”  Since our ancestors lives consisted of more than just birth, marriage, and death, we need to look at other records, maybe records we don’t often think of as being “genealogical records,” in order to piece together the events of their lives.

Also, just as you and I live in connection with other people (friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family), so did our ancestors.  Mills suggests familiarizing yourself with neighbors (looking at 15-20 households listed before and after your ancestors in the census), family members (who may also be neighbors), and fellow church-members.  She calls these relationships a person’s “FAN club” (Friends, Acquaintances, Neighbors).

Going back to the “thorough research” idea, one of the things Ms. Mills emphasized is the use of original records.  Several of the cases studies she used in her presentation started with people only looking at abstracts and indexes and never going to the original record.  Okay, we all know that handwriting is a pain to read, especially when it’s on microfilm, but there is no way to be certain that you have all the possible information unless you have seen the record yourself.  Even if the record contains information that you may consider “extraneous,” make note of that information because you never know when it may become useful.  Perhaps that extraneous information will connect to the next record you find!

I’ll admit, as I listened to Ms. Mills, I couldn’t help thinking, “This sounds exhausting!!”  (Maybe that’s where the phrase “exhaustive research” comes from.)  However, her case studies proved again and again that if you research thoroughly, if you go to the original records and pull out every bit of information you can find, the answers can be found.  They may not be in black and white on a single record the way we would like, but you can make inferences and connections and discover ways through and around the “brick walls” in your genealogy.

Thanks to the Kentucky Genealogical Society for bringing Ms. Mills to Frankfort and putting on a great seminar!

-Jennifer Howard

PS...If you attended the seminar, please use the comments section below to add your thoughts on Ms. Mills’ presentation and what you found most useful.

 

Images:

1) Elizabeth Shown Mills

2) Portion of the will of J. Nelson of Madison County, Kentucky. Full document and transcript available on the KHS Digital Collections.

 

How (and why) I became a docent at the Old State Capitol

In the late autumn of 2008 my wife, Jan, brought to my attention a request in the Frankfort State Journal for applications to serve as a volunteer docent at the Old State Capitol. I answered the call and filled out an application. I was approved soon after and in November began my training.

I was given materials and guides to read and also shadowed a docent during tours. At that time, I worked with Leslie McWhorter, Annie Denny and other full-time educators at KHS. In January 2009, after giving joint walkthroughs of the facility, I was granted the honor of being able to go “solo” and lead my own tours.

My interest in being a docent at the Old State Capitol most likely stems from my overall interest in history, especially Kentucky history. Growing up and attending schools in Franklin County provided me with ample opportunity to be exposed to the stories and tales of the commonwealth. Frankfort, as the capital of Kentucky, provided a political backdrop for much of what went on and continues to go on in the development of our history.

I can remember my first tour of the building on a school trip in the late fifties when I was in the first or second grade. The guides were older ladies (at least they appeared that way through the eyes of an eight year old) that skillfully led 30 or 40 youngsters through the tour. I can remember how we were fearful of the staircase after hearing that no cement, mortar or metal held the stairwell together but it stayed erect because of the great design work that relied on the physics of gravity.  

At the top of the steps was a souvenir stand where I purchased a Kentucky state flag and an American flag. Those flags have long been misplaced but I remember keeping them for a very long time and I could always remember where I purchased them.

I remember that what are now the house and senate chambers were then filled with many of the artifacts that are exhibited in the Kentucky Historical Society’s present exhibits. There, I saw Goebel’s suit coat with the holes made by the entry and exit wounds. We were shown weaponry of all sorts from the different eras of Kentucky history.

Over the years I would visit the Old State Capitol, but not very frequently. There would be an occasional visit to a special exhibit or to hear a choral group during the holidays, plus attending the various festivals that were held on the grounds. But it was those visits during my early school years that stand out and whereby I based my decision to return as a volunteer docent.

Over the past two years I have met people from all over the United States as well as every continent in the world. I have led school groups, church groups and preservation groups. I have served in the upper chambers on Boone Day. But just as important as serving as a docent and attempting to be a good will ambassador for our commonwealth, I have been able to learn more about the history the commonwealth and that of the United States of America.

-Russ Wright

 

Russell Wright is a ninth generation Kentuckian who was born and raised in Franklin County. He is retired from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet with over 35 years experience as an audit manager.

Wright holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting and a master’s degree in public affairs. He is a certified public manager, a certified government financial manager and an enrolled agent (a designation granted by the Internal Revenue Service). He has worked as a tax advisor for several years and practices in Frankfort.

Wright’s interest in genealogy has led him to attend the Kentucky Historical Society’s Family History workshops. He is a member of the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Genealogical Society (KGS) and serves as a director at large on the KGS board.

In addition to volunteering as a docent at the Old State Capitol, Wright also assists at the Kentucky Department of Library and Archives as a narrator for the Kentucky Talking Library Book (KTLB) program. KTLB provides the visually and physically impaired with recordings of books that are by Kentucky authors or books about Kentucky. He also serves as president of the Friends of the Paul Sawyier Public Library and is a member of the First United Methodist Church in Frankfort.

Wright lives in Frankfort with his wife, Jan, and has two sons in their late twenties who live in Frankfort and Lexington. He also has a wonderful American bulldog, Lucy, who is approaching her first birthday.

 

For more information on how you, too, can volunteer at KHS, visit www.history.ky.gov/volunteer or e-mail the KHS volunteer administrator at phyllis.gilman@ky.gov.

What YOU Can Discover at the Kentucky Historical Society

 

When I first got the phone call that I had been accepted as an intern at the Kentucky Historical Society, I was thrilled.  I knew that working at a historical society was something that I had always wanted to experience, starting from my days as a history major at Western Kentucky University. I would spend countless hours in the library stacks and special collections areas (and not because as a history undergrad you spend more time writing papers than an English major did) but because I would get so caught up in the thrill of discovery while conducting research on a given historical topic.

As a high school history teacher, I attempted to instill that same thrill of discovery through research into my students by telling them to use resources other than Google and to open their eyes to a world of knowledge they probably didn’t know existed (I mean lets face it, as a seventeen year old, the only way you are going to become interested about a bunch of dead guys is if they sparkle in the sunlight and have an occasional scuffle with werewolves who never seem to have a shirt on). But there would be that occasional student who would come up to me and say “ I actually really enjoyed going to the local history society and finding out some neat stuff”, my faith in the next generation is still in tact.

When I decided to pursue my master’s degree in Library and Information Science at the University of Kentucky, I knew archiving was the area of concentration that would be a perfect fit for me, given the close relationship that history and archives share.  As an archivist, I would be a steward of historical artifacts that someone, someday, would see and feel that same rush of curiosity that I had felt in the library stacks as an undergrad.  The internship at KHS would offer some much needed hands-on experience in archiving practices and, as I would discover upon my first day at KHS, that there is much more to working in a historical society than I had perceived.  The theme of discovery continues.

On any given day I am working at the historical society, I am learning something new about the state of Kentucky.  If it is a day I am working in the Oral History Collection, I am more than likely auditing and  digitizing tapes of interviews or writing descriptions of collections that haven’t been cataloged yet. The most recent of which is the oral histories of some of our more prolific governors of the 20th century. I  can’t tell you the amount of intrigue one can accumulate while watching an interview with Bert T.  Combs over his battle with educational reform in this state or reading through a transcript of John Y. Brown and his dealings with the famous “Colonel” of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame (a subject that will the focus of my next blog entry).  And these are only a fraction of interesting artifacts to be found. 

Genealogy is a huge interest of patrons who come to the society.  When I am not in the lab digitizing, you can probably find me in the microfilm room, manning the reference desk and helping patrons find all sorts of records about ancestors that inhabited this state, spanning from marriage certificates from the late 1700s or court records of the 19th century.  There are even rare books that patrons can access that date back to the 1800s, a pretty awesome thing to behold if you are a history geek, such as myself. If you are a visual person, KHS has got you covered, with thousands of photogrpahs in our collection of many different topics. A personal favorite of mine are photogrpahs of Kentucky servicemen going off to fight WWII in the 1940's( seen below).  I could go on and on about the vast amount of historical information that can be found at the historical society, but then it wouldn’t be any fun in discovering it for yourself!

 

Interning at the Kentucky Historical Society will no doubt be a tremendous impact on my future professional career.  The things I have learned here will be things I take with me forever, a sentiment I hope that any who read this article will share and come down to KHS and just look around.  You never know what you may discover while you’re here.

- - Tommy Grant

Images:

Top Right- Bert T. Combs, portrait painting ca. 1970, KHS Collection 1975.17

Middle Left- Colonel Harland David Sanders, wikipedia.org

Bottom: James E. Bell in navu uniform. World War II vintage. He served in the South Pacific through most of the war as a pharmacist's mate on several ships ca. 1940s, KHS collection JPW.1990ph2.2JEFW3

Crowdsourcing: using technology to build community

I just got back from lovely Maysville, Kentucky, where the Kentucky Museum and Heritage Alliance is holding its annual meeting.  This year the theme was "Negotiating the Rapids:  Celebrating our Strength, Service and Stewardship".  Months ago I submitted a program presentation on the topic of crowdsourcing and, amazingly, they selected my topic for the annual meeting.

So you may well ask, just what is this thing you call crowdsourcing?  Wikipedia defines crowdsourcing as the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee, to an undefined large group of people or community, through an open call.  Translated that means telling the world that you are looking for a solution to a problem and waiting for some unknown person to solve that problem, usually for free.  Software developers and programmers have long used this method to fix glitches in programs, like "does anyone know how to..."

This can be really useful but, sometimes you get what you paid for, which is to say, not much.  Now I don't have any immediate programming needs nor am I designing any software, so you might wonder what use museums and archives could have for this technique.  Well, if you tweek the parameters just a bit this process can be transforming.  If you broaden the model to a "creative services exchange" where the institution vets the crowd in advance, and the staff facilitate the exchange between staff and crowd, then this can be a melding of staff and crowd knowledge which benefits everyone in the end.

 We are in the process of using this model with the William C. Ogden Photographic Negatives project.  We, the staff at the Kentucky Historical Society, were responsible for caring for, housing and inventorying this collection of over 10,000 photographic negatives.  However, the original housing for these negatives were glassine envelopes on which the photographer, Bill Ogden, had written sometimes cryptic notations.  

We had the knowledge to do a basic inventory, but we needed more contextual information to truly process the collection and make it accessible and usable.  For example, the envelope for the image below stated "Clay W. Buckner" but the image is of a woman in a wedding dress.  Is this Clay Buckner's daughter?  His bride?  We, at KHS, lacked that information.

 
Enter our partner, the Bluegrass Heritage Museum, with director Sandra Stults and her community of volunteers.  This museum is in Winchester, Kentucky, where Ogden resided for over 60 years.  His photographic studio was well known throughout Clark County and neighboring Bourbon, Fayette, Woodford and Franklin Counties.  Many of Sandy's volunteers knew Ogden or had seen photographic portraits created by him.  And better yet, they knew their community, their neighbors and the stories that provided the context for these photographic negatives.

So Sandy and I met and cooked up a plan to bring these two groups together to share their knowledge and to build on that knowledge.  We both wanted to learn more about the collection and to make it useful to researchers and community members alike.  KHS wanted to inventory the collection and to digitize the images.  Bluegrass Heritage Museum wanted to make the collection, or a portion of it, available locally in Winchester through an exhibit.  And so this is the way we used crowdsourcing to inventory, describe, digitize and exhibit this wonderful collection.  

First, we got the older community members to come to KHS to view the collection, and to work with staff to better describe the images.

Then, working with students from George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, KY, Sandy and her volunteers selected the images they wanted to research, scan and exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then they researched.

And they scanned.

And they described the results of their research and added this to the digital collection.

And we have the beginnings of a finished product.  Just the beginnings, mind you, as there are 28 images up online and 10,000+ in the collection.

And we also have a group that can't wait to come back and do more research, scanning and description.  And now that images are up online and on exhibit at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum in Winchester, we hope that others with knowledge about this photographer and his subjects will also share that information with us.  

A true exchange.  Two organizations working together to make these historic images available to their communities.  Ahh, this is what we are talking about when we say "crowdsourcing".

For further information about the Bluegrass Heritage Museum, visit their website at www.bgheritage.com.

To view selections online, please go to our Digital Collection at www.kyhistory.com.

If you have information that can help us further identify the subjects of these images, please contact us at Refdesk@ky.gov.  Please remember to identify the image by its accession number, so we can add your infomation to the correct image.

-- Louise Jones

 

 

 

 

 

Are you having ham, roast beef or turkey this Easter?

Well, it is that time of year again when the KHS staff find themselves looking at the atomic bunny picture in the Digital Collections and giggling.  This year we decided to look for other amusing images in the "DC" and came across the one below.  It made us wonder what culinary masterpieces will be gracing tables this weekend at homes across the state?

 

Does your family have Easter dinner traditions?  Ham and asparagus?  Fiddlefern salad?  Lamb with mint sauce?

 

And then there is the weather.  Seriously, hail, floods, tornadoes and more, and that was just last night!  Spring is supposed to be changeable but still!  Everyone has a memory of their favorite Easter hat or dress or suit.  As staff gathered at the reference desk today we were sharing memories of Easter outfits. 

 

I remember that my mother always bought my dress to be a size too big, so I could wear long underwear if the temperature was under 30 degrees.  And how about the year the Easter Egg hunt that got cancelled because we could not find ANY Easter candy due to the 6 inches of snow on the ground. 

 

Well, before you know it, it will be summer and we will be complaining about the heat and the drought.   In the meantime, family gatherings provide the perfect opportunity to get the family to tell stories about their favorite holiday memories and traditions. 

 --Louise Jones

Images:

Fred Trosch, butcher in the Willard Rouse Jillson Photo Collection, 1987PH08

Family gathering at dinner time, Frankfort, Ky. From the Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Ky., 1995PH02, contributed by Clara E. Hogan.

Children in Easter outfits. From the Ohio River Portrait Project, 1990PH02, contributed by John Strattan.

Easter Egg hunt for children and faculty at Paducah Community College., date ca. 1970.  From the Ohio River Portrait Project, 1990PH02, contributed by John E.L. Robertson.