Boothbay Region Historical Society volunteers Mari Tiwari (left) and Sally Kent pause while scanning the societys family history files. (Courtesy photo)
In 2022, the Boothbay Region Historical Society in embarked on an ambitious project to produce digital images of its collection artifacts, photographs, and documents with the twin goals of preserving them against loss or deterioration and making them more accessible to researchers and visitors to the society’s museum at 72 Oak St. in Boothbay Harbor.
So far, the society has digitized about three quarters of the approximately 20,000 images in its photography collection and photographed more than 150 artifacts.
As each item is digitized or photographed, it is entered into CatalogIt, a state-of-the-art collections management database that displays each historic item and all information associated with it. Eventually, the society will have a dedicated computer terminal for in-house use by researchers.
The long-term goal for the digital database installation is to make the society’s collections records available online to the public.
Contrary to the popular belief that few 18th-century women owned property, the Boothbay Region Historical Society’s archival collections contain evidence that many women bought, sold, and inherited property, like this 1792 document naming Rosanna McMillen administrator of the estate of her late father, John Orr. (Courtesy photo)
“CatalogIt is specifically designed for small and mid-sized museums, like us,” said Aimée Keithan, Boothbay Region Historical Society executive director. “It has an image forward, intuitive interface that researchers will find easy to use once it’s ready to share with the public.”
Turning to the society’s document collections, earlier this year volunteers using flatbed and high-speed, sheet-feed scanners finished digitizing the history files, a collection of more than 5,000 documents organized by subject matter into 200 topics.
One of the areas of greatest interest to visitors is the society’s extensive collection of local genealogical information. Since completing the history files, volunteers have been digitizing the society’s genealogical materials. These include obituaries, descendancy charts, correspondence, news clippings, notes, and secondary materials.
The family history files are maintained in four separate collections. The family history files were compiled by Barbara Rumsey, the society’s local historian, and cover more than 400 individual family names. A second set of family history files covering an additional 315 surnames was compiled by Muriel Howard and donated to the society following her death in the mid-1980s.
Additionally, there is a collection of 27 linear feet of 3- by 5-inch index cards compiled by Muriel Howard and containing genealogical notes on individuals. Finally, the society possesses a collection of bound family histories compiled at different times by various authors and covering more than 50 families. Downloadable indexes to the society’s history files and family history files may be found on the society’s website at bit.ly/3ZuSrH3.
At present, the society’s dedicated document scanning volunteers have reached the letter M in the family history files compiled by Barbara Rumsey. Completing the digitization of the society’s bountiful genealogical files will be an imposing task, and the society would welcome additional volunteers.
To express interested in joining this worthy project, call 633-0820 or email info@boothbayhistorical.org.
