This is more like a "Hint from Heloise" than a snippet of genealogy
data. Scanners have advanced a lot in the past few years. Most of them
have Optical Character Recognition, or OCR. They can read clean
documents and put the data into a text file. If the page is clean,
clear and in a commonly used font, it takes a minute or two per page.
The one we have at work, a top of the line model, has read copies of
pages from old books, with ten generations of Xerox pimples, with 90%
accuracy. It reads original pages -- things I printed once and
deleted, then decided I wanted to keep -- with 99% accuracy.
Scanners start at $59 at Wal*Mart and go up to $200 or so. Some copy
shops (Kinko's, in my neck of the woods) will let you use theirs for
$10 an hour.
Scanning hard copy wouldn't be particularly efficient if you just have
names. Scanners can't enter names, birthdates and relationships into
the proper slots of your genealogy program. If you have three pages of
notes for the first four generations, a scanner might be worth
thinking about.
----- Original Message -----
From: Eric and Sara Long <scoobydoo(a)sltic.com>
To: <CADY-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 1999 5:22 AM
Subject: [CADY-L] Lemuel Cady and Ruth Gleason
Looking for those researching Lemuel Cady and Ruth Gleason. I had
everyone's names in my database along with 3500 names in my family
tree. I
have lost it all thanks to my BIL. I have lost several branches of
my
trees. Thank god that I have some on hard copy. I thought that I
had it
backed up but now I can't even find that. Thanks for any help.
Sara
scoobydoo(a)sltic.com