a Search tip while I am thinking about it…
I just never find time to Post these important things…
My Sidekick, Jennifer from California, amazed me a while back with her awesome common sense. In our emails we readily admitted we were both OCD…(obsessive compulsive disorder). I now think it is a requirement for genealogists… (admit it Forrest King)… smiling… and you too David Gammon… and also my friend Tracy the Librarian.
I got stuck in my searches at the Library of Virginia for the original patents of the Olde Pharts… long dead.
The problem was that many of the damn patents were unreadable…. but let me explain…
Back in the day, photography was 35mm, you remember, “film”. A particular film used was called “Ortho”… it was for high contrast black and white. That was what the Lib of Virginia used. The problem was the volume of images they shot. Ortho was great and cheap… the problem was the “photographer” when he got bored… he did not adjust the “details” to get a good shot… he just flipped the pages and ‘clicked”.
So many “unreadable” images found themselves online.
Then… Jennifer from California clued me in that those very same images were available at Familysearch.org. Evidently they did not get bored… must be a Mormon thing?
I did not know that… DUH!
Here ya go… no charge…
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/584564?availability=Family%20History%20Library
Here is an example… note the horrendous dark image vs the crisp one… (it is dark because I tried every trick I know to ‘fix’ it in Photoshop… it was hopeless).
Kudos to Jennifer. I am updating many of my files…you know… now that I can read them.
Note that you can still use the Library of Virginia “search engine”… then use the Deed Book and page to pull up the better image on Familysearch.
I actually had wondered about the difference in film quality! How cool you addressed this!
JJThornton
July 30, 2023 at 9:13 pm