Genealogy for Christmas

What genealogy-related purchases have you made as Christmas presents to yourself? What did you add to your wish list for others to purchase?

I'll start . . .
Each year about this time the university presses hold sales that last usually until at least Christmas and sometimes in the new year. I purchased a few items from a couple of university presses. I also took advantage of a 50% off sale from Arcadia Publishing to purchase several books in their "Images of America" series and one or two perhaps from a different one. I'm excited about the arrival of these books. I'm expecting to order 2 or 3 books from Heritage Books in the next few days.

I hope Santa brings me time to work on my own genealogy this next year. I keep getting closer to breaking my closest "brick wall," and I'd love to see it come crashing down in 2022. When it does, I intend to write an article (although I may decide to use it as a certification portfolio piece first).

Merry Christmas to me: I just purchased the new version of RootsMagic: RM8, which is a fairly substantial update from the previous version. I've already started going through my database to clean up inconsistent data, and hope it helps jump-start my interest in my tree. My family research has been sitting dormant for a couple of years now, so hope this gives me a nudge.

>2 kac522: I'm still trying to get used to the new interface. I'm not really a huge fan at this point, but I tend to use Word for more substantial stuff anyway.

Not exactly a Christmas present, but the family has decided since I'm working on archiving the contents of the "Big Boxes from Grandma" they are going to give me a good document/photo scanner. They just want me to tell them what kind I want, so I'm researching.

>4 southernbooklady: That's a good present!

Although flatbed scanners provide very good resolution, they are slow and mechanical and the drivers to keep them running do not always keep up with the operating system upgrades.

I have a CZUR Aura book scanner that I have used with success for document scanning. The resolution is good but not 600 dpi that you can get from a slow flatbed. It uses a foot pedal to initiate a scan and the image can be saved in a couple formats (PDF or TIFF).

For books it is especially helpful since it uses three laser lines to give the software hints on how to flatten the page images from the open book. This is enormously valuable since manually fixing the distortion of pages is very time consuming.

CZUR has other models like the Shine Ultra (~$150) but it does not have the laser lines and relies on the page edges for flattening.

If you get an Aura, look for one with the clip on side-lights. If this is not available, you can get some rechargeable LED desk lights which can be placed in a way to reduce glare on shiny originals.

I have scanned thousands of pages from books and magazines with my Aura and while there are many improvements I would wish for, it is very solid for the price (~$250).

James

>6 Keeline: That's the one my friends Elizabeth and Linda own. It's on my wish list, but I'm still using my flatbed at the moment. We're supposed to be getting a book scanner at work sometime so I'll probably use it rather than purchasing my own since we'll probably get one with archival quality resolution.

>6 Keeline: does that model come with OCR software, or do you rely on something else, like Adobe, for that?

>8 southernbooklady: I have the CZUR Aura and the CZUR Shine Ultra. I use the Aura exclusively even though the camera is a little better on the Shine Ultra.

Both book scanners come with software for Windows or Mac to interface with the scanner and collect images for saving and manipulation.

Since I mainly work with the Aura, I will focus on that though this aspect is probably the same for both.

After you photograph a bunch of page spreads from a book (or single page documents), you can return to a section of the program that lest you view them and make small corrections. For example, the Aura does a pretty good job of finding the book's gutter but sometimes it is wrong and an adjustment is needed. Sometimes I take extra steps (and time !!!) to crop the pages. You can make some level and color adjustments here too.

When that work is done you can save in a few ways. Select the pages you want to wave (usually all of them) and choose options like:

* Save to TIFF (be sure to select the "separately" option so each page is in a separate file)

* Save to PDF (I like to change the default to 100% to get the best quality).

* Save to PDF with OCR (it might be called something different).

The last option is what you are asking about. It can do an average job of this but it is rather slow. For my preference I usually save to PDF and use another program to do the OCR. I think it uses a version of ABBYY Fine Reader under the hood.

I have an Adobe subscription so I use Acrobat Pro to do this. This is also slow (but a bit faster than CZUR). Part of the problem is that the program has not changed dramatically since 2000 and it is written with the kind of hardware available then — limited RAM and only a single processor core. My 2020 MacBook Pro has a 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7. That means it can be working on 6 things in parallel. But this is not the case for most Adobe software. No, it just uses 12% of the hardware that is available.

If I want to fully utilize my computer, I can use a command-line tool I installed (with a bit of difficulty) called OCRmyPDF which uses the Tessaract engine. When it is running, you know it because the processor meters are maxed out and the laptop fans spin up. It is faster than Acrobat Pro for this work.

Any OCR is going to have a lot of errors because the page images are not ideal. The typefaces of the old books can also be confusing to the software. It does the best it can. It is better for word searches than uploading direct to Gutenberg.org. Extensive editing is almost always needed before it is ready to make into an eBook or republish from a word processor or page layout program.

I love the Aura and have used it extensively in the couple years that I have owned it. New machines are first offered at a discount through IndieGoGo campaigns and it can take 9-12 months between the contribution and receiving a device. This was especially bad with the Shine Ultra which was released during the beginnings of the 2020 issues. If you order an already released device, it is like buying anything.

The next announcement is for the ET 24 Pro which will have its campaign begin in April. Probably no one will have one in hand until 2023 though. It promises Linux support, HDMI video output, 24 megapixels, side lights (important !!), and other features. The campaign price will begin around US$399.

I am happy to provide some information about my experiences with the Aura. It has some quirks that need to be worked around. There are things I'd like if they were improved but it is still the best device out there that I have seen or worked with for scanning books and flattening the page images.

Glossy items like photo albums and slick magazines are often a challenge for any overhead photography. The main issue is lighting.

James

>9 Keeline: that is all hugely helpful, James, thank you. Like you, I have the full pro versions of the Adobe Suite, so I can use their OCR if that is what is needed. I'm not dealing with too many non-English documents at the moment. Some church records in Latin, some letters in German-Swiss, but that is about it. I was wondering about the advisability of investing in the higher-end CZUR ET scanner, but I think it might be too much of a 10-speed bicycle for what I really need.

I am looking to scan some photographs though. I have a stack of photo albums that someone created years ago -- like in the 80s, I think. They are those awful things where the pages were slightly sticky. After so long they are yellowed with age and all the photos are essentially glued to the pages. I'm afraid to try to disengage them. So I was thinking I could scan them "in situ" to get copies into the family online archive while I figure out a solution for rescuing and preserving them.

>10 southernbooklady: Among the CZUR offerings, look at the Aura Pro with side lights. You may also want to look at two desk lights like these to adjust the light to illuminate without reflecting into the camera lens. They were recommended in Facebook groups for the CZUR scanners. These have rechargeable batteries (via USB) so can be placed as needed. There are some color temperature settings which can help to get the best results.

Bostich Office KT-VLED1810 desk lamp

One thing to watch for is if there is fluorescent ambient light (like CFL bulbs or FL tubes) in the room where you use the scanner that your images can have an unwanted blue tint. Warm LED bulbs have less of a problem with this.

James

keeline, I just wanted to circle back and thank you for your detailed review of the CZUR scanner. We bought an Auro Pro with the sidelights and I have to say I am really impressed with how easy it is to use, and how good the quality is on all the scans I've done so far.

I find the accompanying software a little clunky so I mostly edit in other programs, but the scanning itself is smooth as silk. It's really made a huge difference.

>13 southernbooklady: I am glad you are pleased. Mine gets a lot of use and it is sitting next to my computer now. I have been scanning some small-press magazines related to Big Little Books. I was helping the editor to digitize them so he could put them on the website. He passed away a couple years ago and the project stalled but I am getting back to it.

If you do large flat documents that won't always stay flat, see about getting a large piece of Museum Glass. This is a special kind of non-glare glass that is very transparent. I've had some success flattening dust jackets and photographing them.

Let me know if you run into any quirks or useful tricks.

James