Genealogy Toolkit: Custom Image Collections

In a recent bit of research I did on my 3rd great grandfather's Civil War records, I ended up adding a nice new tool to my genealogy toolkit.

I was trolling through an image collection of scanned documents for a Civil War widow's pension application and only a scattered handful had anything to do with my ancestor. (He only appeared in testimonies to the claims of another veteran. You can see the whole story in a separate post.) As I was digging around on Fold3, I saved down 9 different jpg images documents that seemed useful as sources. After I had these images, I was struck by the fact that the images themselves don't really tell the story (though they provide some evidence.) I was sitting with 9 separate "sources" for my family tree, each of which in isolation has limited value, and several of which don't even mention my own ancestors but are there for context. The prospect of adding, citing, and referencing them independently seemed rather futile, and in some cases didn't even seem to make sense. I thought it would be very handy to combine them into a single, multi-page document - a custom collection if you will. Then I could keep them together conveniently, attach them as a single media item to my tree, and not have a splatter of seemingly random images cluttering my media files. The finished product is here: Myers_Charles_b1842_18800000_Document_Military_BlakelyPensionClaim.pdf, and here's how I did it...

First, I downloaded all of the original images from Fold3 and saved them locally. My file naming convention is a modified version of Calvin Knight's and even though some of these images don't even refer to my ancestor Charles Wesley Myers, I decided to tie them to him to keep them organized. The only reason I am doing this is because he is my ancestor and they are pertinent to this story, so it made sense to me. In the file description, I was sure put the page (image) numbers in the collection at Fold3 as a reference.

Then I went to IrfanView, a lightweight but powerful image viewer. It is completely free and if you don't have it installed on your PC yet, I suggest you go get it. You should also get the plugins which you install by simply unzipping the files into the program's Plugins subfolder. The plugin iv_formats.zip has what you need for the next step. Once you've installed IrfanView and the plugins, go to Options > Multipage images > Create Multipage PDF select your images and click the button. After some processing, you will have in the destination folder a pdf file made up of the images you selected in order, and in their original quality. Piece of cake.

To cite the final product, I referenced the Fold3 catalog from which the images came, included the page numbers of the images in the pdf, and the URL for one of them (the most relevant of the bunch with my ancestor's own testimony.)

Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Dependents of Civil War Veterans, ca. 1861- ca. 1934 (http://www.fold3.com/page/3496_civil_war_widows_pension_applications/, Fold3, 2008), www.fold3.com, Pension claim for Walter Blakely in record collection for William F Hoyt (application # WC14930). Images 121, 126, 127, 131, 137, 154, 162, 163, and 164. http://www.fold3.com/image/1/232077405/.

I would love to hear from others! Has anyone else done anything like this, or are you going to give it a try? How are you citing a custom image collection like this?