Cattle at a Pond in Comanche County, Kansas. Photo by Bobbi Huck
Cattle at a Pond in Comanche County, Kansas. Photo by Bobbi Huck
Contributor's Guidelines
for the Comanche County, Kansas: History & Genealogy web site
Sending Articles, Obituaries and other text Please transcribe articles and obituaries submitted for use on this site and send them to me as plain text in the body of an email.
Please don't send text in Word attachments or in any other form than plain text unless you've checked with me first and I've asked you to do so.
Over the years, Shirley Brier and I have worked out a format in which she sends articles and obituaries to me which allows me to easily and quickly work with the material. It would be very helpful to me if you'll send the obituaries and articles in the same format, which follows:
Subject line of the email: the person's complete name, including maiden name if known, such as Sally Ann (Wilson) Jones.
1. Alphabetical list of names of people mentioned in the article (for use on the Biographies page), for example: Clark, Cline, Jenkins, Lohrding, Proctor, Shaw, Unruh, Wagnon & Wilson.
2. Name of newspaper. Date of newspaper (Written as month, day, year in this format: January 10, 1932.)
4. Headline
5. Body of article, with paragraphs separated by a space.
6. Notes, including links to other pages on the site.
7. Additional notes, such as if you have photos available of the person, special memorabalia to scan such as wedding certificates, death certificates, etc. It would also be helpful to know if there is a history for the person in the 1st or 2nd Comanche County History books, or a photo in Comanche County in Pictures.
NEVER send scans of articles as .pdf-format files.
Sending Images Please send images as .jpg format files attached to e-mail with image captions as plain text in the body of the e-mail.
A good photo caption includes the Five W's: Who, What, Where, When and Why.
NEVER send .pdf-format files to me.
Scanning Images and Text From Books
Illustration of a scanner set up with two supports on either side of it
which are the same height as the scanner bed to facilitate scanning books.
Shown above is an illustration of a simple work setup for scanning books which utilizes a simple support - a pile of books works fine - on either side of the scanner which is the same height as the scanner bed.
It allows a codex-bound book to lay flat without damaging the binding and allows precise positioning of the book for scanning as well as the addition of a dark cloth over the book and scanner while the scan is being made.
The key to making a good scan is to have the page being scanned pressed firmly and evenly against the glass of the scanner!
To guard against image degradation caused by "light leaks" around the edge of the pages, position the book on the scanner, cover it with a dark towel or other dark cloth, then press the book page firmly against the scanner glass while the scan is being made.
Left to right: The Alpha Hotel in Wilmore, Kansas; Tommy Wilmore Family; aerial view of Wilmore, Kansas
Internet Resources For Locating Aerial Photos of Places: http://terraserver-usa.com/ is a wonderful resource for USGS aerial photographs and topographical maps of the USA. It allows one to search for locations by longitude and latitude and by geographical names. I've found it very useful in communicating with people about the exact location of geographical features, such as small cemeteries.
If you know the location of a feature and could drive to it from a nearby town, then you can use the Terraserver site to "follow the roads" and find an aerial photo or topographical map of the area.
The URLs for Terraserver images tend to be long and to "break" when pasted into emails. A handy way to deal with this problem is to create an alternate URL for the page using http://tinyurl.com/. Just copy the Terraserver URL from the browser window, then paste it into the submission form at Tinyurl.com and hit "Enter" on your keyboard to create an alternate URL which is short and will not "break" when pasted into an email.
For example, here is the TerraServer USGS aerial photo of Wilmore, KS, 01 April 1996. The url for the page is: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=11&x=1203&y=10330&z=14&w=2, which is so long that it will certainly break into two lines in an email. Following is the tiny url for the same web page: http://tinyurl.com/ykvgbl.
Having the "tiny url" for a Terraserver aerial photo of a place makes it possible for me to copy and use the aerial view on web pages about certain features and locations. For example, see the aerial photo of Wilmore in the above composite photograph.
So, if you're sending an article about your grandparents for use on this site, you can also send the tiny url for the Terraserver aerial photograph of their house or farm to have the information included on the web page about them.
-- Jerry Ferrin
This website is being created by Jerry Ferrin with the able assistance of many Contributors. Your comments, suggestions and contributions of historical information and photographs to this site are welcome. Please sign the Guest Book. This page was created 20 October 2006 and last updated 15 December 2006.