History of Bookscanned

A Simple Start

After scanning a short genealogy book for my siblings (so we could all access it) I realized that with a little bit of work I could make that scan readable by Google and other search engines. A few days later and I had OCR Show, a very rudimentary PHP script which lets you view an image and its coresponding text. You can still download OCR Show for use on your own site, but it won't likely be maintained.

Finding Myself

A few weeks later, I needed to confirm if an ancestor was male or female, so I searched online for the source listed in my genealogy book. When my very own webpage came up as the first Google result, I knew that this could be a useful tool for genealogy. By making my old books easily findable, someone else who has the same common ancestors will be able to learn more about their own heritage.

The Next Best Thing

Since I haven't been able to find all the information about my own ancestors online, I decided to put the rest of what I have online, and help others do the same. Maybe someday someone will upload a book with the information I'm missing. If not, I will still feel like I've helped someone.