| DearREADERS,
Last night Audrey, Barb and I finalized our itinerary for our 18- day Pennsylvania research trip, which includes the U.S. Army Military History Institute, at Carlisle, PA. We needed to look up the hours of operation and, much to my surprise, when I went to their website, I discovered the Historical Photographs Online Test Sampler. The website explains: |
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"These are sample images from many of the collections in the MHI Special Collections Branch. These pages are part of an MHI effort to examine the issues involved in digitizing photographic images for use on the Web."
There are two databases of photographs pulled from the thousands of images archived at the USAMHI.
Medium Resolution - photographs are scanned at 150 dpi. (134 images) Low Resolution - photographs are scanned at 75-100 dpi. (519 images)
One may search each database using the following sort criteria:
Image Types: group, individual, items, screenHistorical Period: 19th Century, American Civil War, Spanish-American War, Early 20th Century, WW1, WW2, Korean War, Mid 20th Century, Vietnam War, Late 20th Century.
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RG262S Indian Wars Misc Box 1.13
Geronimo and Naiche with Apaches. |
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MM Vol. 45 P. 2129
Officers of Battery A, 2nd U.S. Arty. near Fair Oaks, June 1862.
Identified as: 2ND LT. Robert Clarke, CAPT. John C. Tidball, 1ST LT.William Dennison, 1ST LT. Alexander Pennington. |
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RG117S A. K. Doolittle Coll. Folder 25 1ST LT. Rodney Williams. (WW1) |
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RG653S-Desert Storm Mis Col. Ken Knight 1-60 46 C Btry-3/82FA 1st Cav Div. Shower area; sinks on right; tanks on top hold about 200 gallons; immersion heaters from mess hall heat the water.
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Making copies of the photos are easy!
Thumbnails of the photographs are presented, with a description as I've shown above. If you find an image of an ancestor or his/her unit, you need merely right-mouse click on the photo and save it on your computer. Then it's only a matter of going into your genealogy program and linking the image to each individual's profile. An alternative is provided at the website. Left-click on the desired image to expand it to full size for immediate resizing and printing. Using the LT. Rodney Williams sample above, I was able to detect creases in his uniform and a tear in the original photograph. Low resolution?!? It is a dream!
If photographic-quality duplicates of any of these photographs are desired, the website advises following these steps:
"Print out the pages containing the thumbnail images of the photos to be duplicated. Highlight or otherwise indicate which images are to be duplicated on the printouts. Contact Special Collections at 717-245-3434. After determining the number and types of photo prints required, they will compute the cost for the duplication effort. (There is a hard limit of ten (10) photographic duplicates per person per year. If more than ten duplicates are required, request a list of commercial photographers in the local area when calling.) "
Checks or money orders should be made payable to "MHI Fund", along with the highlighted printouts of the thumbnail pages, to:
U.S. Army Military History Institute
ATTN: Special Collections
22 Ashburn Drive
Carlisle, PA 17013-5008
Providing photographs of our ancestors' military service provides a firm link to the past! Hooray for this use of Internet resources making access to such important images possible! If you find something useful, be sure to write immediately to the USAMHI and let them know how valuable their test efforts have been! That may encourage them in their digitizing efforts! Given the USAMHI mission and vision statements, it would appear they've hit on something big by providing access through the Internet!
From the US Army Military History Institute Home Page:
Mission: Preserve the Army's history by ensuring access to historical research materials.
Vision: MHI serves as the primary research facility for the historical study of the U.S. Army in order to foster a greater understanding of the Army's role in our nation's history and in its future.
Sounds like just the sort of materials genealogists love!
Myrt :)
DearMYRTLE
is a daily genealogy column (KEYWORD: dearmyrtle) published on America Online in the Genealogy Forum. Due to the volume of e-mail, Myrt is unable to respond to each individually. Representative samples are used as a basis for articles from time to time. Contact DearMYRTLE at: dearmyrtle@aol.com
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