Updating and Sharing the Farkas Family Tree Book

For the past few months, I've been reassembling the digital scans of 31 years of meeting minutes from my maternal family's Farkas Family Tree. This family tree association was formed by the children of Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler Farkas in 1933, and it met regularly until the end of 1964 (or possibly very early 1965).

Lessons learned at the end...

Updating the original

The original book, shown above in all its 600 page glory, was created from printouts of my scans in 2014. My mother's first cousin Ron kindly lent me bound volumes of the family tree written minutes and historians' reports (really) to scan. I also assembled the family tree song lyrics, the written constitution (really), and other info about the tree. 

Missing from the originals were the minutes from many of the World War II years, but I scanned everything that was available at the time. I spent weeks indexing the name of everyone named in these documents. Then I mocked up a cover with a 1958 family photo and a cousin's handwritten names of each person, and through a local copy shop, printed one for myself.

Quickly I realized it was better to split the volume into two spiral-bound books for ease of browsing. I have the original gigantic volume, which I prefer because I like everything in one place, but everybody else has two volumes.

More recently, the meeting minutes from the war years were found and so I scanned those and distributed them separately, after adding the names to the index.

Reassembling and then splitting the updated file

Now I want to digitally share the fully-assembled book with as many of my second cousins as possible. It took a long time to get every pdf scan into a single document. Then I discovered that this one document, in pdf format, was a hefty 698 MB. 😟 Even when I tried to reduce the size by compacting, it was way, way too large to be emailed.

Way too large to be worked on, in fact. The software app Adobe Acrobat would not allow me to do anything with it, advising that the gigantic file be split into smaller files.

In my next iteration, Part 1 had 219 pages (ending at the end of a month's minutes) and Part 2 had 219 pages (beginning at the start of the next month's minutes). Part 3 had the final 160 or so pages. I compacted each part and the files became a more reasonable size, the largest "only" 150 MB. Still too large for email.

Free digital transfer - LOCKSS

One of my 2d cousins agreed to be my guinea pig for a digital transfer using the free site WeTransfer.com. I signed in, then uploaded Parts 1, 2, and 3 to WeTransfer, added my cousin's email, plus a cover note, and included a reminder that the transfer would expire in 3 days. 

The same day, my cousin accessed and downloaded the digital files. He wrote a quick note to confirm that the parts arrived safely, telling me how many pages in total he had received (so I could compare with what I sent). Hours later, he told me he couldn't stop reading. Now he plans to digitally share the files with his kids. He agrees this is important for LOCKSS - lots of copies keep stuff safe. 

The next day, I emailed several more 2d cousins to ask whether they would like to have the digital files. YES! I've already transferred files to three and will be sending more soon. The more cousins who have the digital files, the longer these family documents will be alive for the future. 

Update: a cousin requested that I share the files via DropBox, which is also free, and I'm happy to say he was able to easily download the three big files from there. 

Next step: reprinting

My next step is to reprint this updated version. More in my next post.

Lessons learned

• Don't be afraid to update if and when new details and/or documents become available. We want to leave future generations complete and accurate info, if possible.
• Find out about technical limitations when digitizing. I didn't realize that a pdf could be too big! Luckily, there are always options. In this case, I subscribed to Adobe Acrobat for a month to have the capability to work with pdfs.
• Make it easy for relatives to receive what you want to share. I wrote emails first and explained (touted) what I wanted to share and why I couldn't just attach the pdf--then said how easy it would be to use WeTransfer. One cousin just said he'd visit me with a USB in hand so I can load it and send it home!

-

Planning a future for your family's past? Please take a look at my book for practical ideas about keeping family history safe for the next generation and beyond.

Family Tree Veterans: The Farkas Brothers

Farkas brothers in World War II

My mother's twin sister and a number of first cousins in her maternal Farkas family served in World War II. My mother and all of her Farkas family descended from Moritz Farkas and Leni Kunstler, the original ancestors who left Hungary and came to America at the turn of the 20th century.

The children of Moritz and Leni created the Farkas Family Tree association to keep family members in close contact. It was active from 1933-1964, meeting up to 10 times a year, not including social events like a Thanksgiving party and fishing trips.

During WWII, service-members wrote home to the family tree about their military experiences. Happily, I have those letters and for Veteran's Day, I am excerpting from the letters to honor the service of two brothers on Veteran's Day: George and Bob, sons of Albert Farkas and Sari Sadie Klein Farkas. George and Bob were among my mother's first cousins.

George Farkas

In 1942, at the age of 19, George Eugene Farkas (1922-1949) enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. His letters home to the Farkas Family Tree traced his movements through training and posts around the country, then his flights around the world. George initially trained at Maxwell, an air base in Alabama. He wrote home:

"This flying game is no cinch and you have to keep on the ball. You need a dozen hands and eyes to see and do everything at once. The first day he [the instructor] showed me some turns and glides and elementary stuff."

However, George was soon shifted from pilot's training to navigator's training, where he did very well. More than a year after enlisting, George graduated as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

In January, 1944, he wrote about his first full foreign mission: "twenty-three days travel during which time were in four continents, crossed two oceans, the equator, and changed seasons six or seven times." Their mission was a vital one: over and over, they delivered planes to various bases worldwide and repositioned planes as needed for the war effort.

While in London, George visited with his first cousin, WAC Sgt. Dorothy Schwartz (my Auntie, twin to my Mom) and experienced first-hand the bombing blitz. His letters home were candid, detailed, and vivid, eagerly awaited by everyone in the family tree.

Robert Farkas

Robert A. Farkas received a medal for WWII service

George's younger brother, Robert Arthur Farkas (1924-2014) enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943, at age 18. He was placed in the medical corps, and he wrote home regularly about his rigorous training.

One of Bob's letters is about being drilled in the use of firearms: "...the Garand, .45, carbine, Tommy gun, light and heavy machine guns, and the new anti tank gun, the bazooka. We are quite sure to be armed if we get to the Pacific theatre of operations."

By October of 1943, Bob was on a troop ship to England, then on to France and Belgium. By December, he was in the thick of the fray in Germany. He wrote home:

"I learnt more in the first couple of days of actual combat than I did in all the time that we trained in the States."

Bob was stationed in Germany in 1944 and the early part of 1945. He wrote home to praise the troops he helped to patch up and to tell of the vast destruction the U.S. military had caused as it drove German troops away, town by town.

Bob also impressed his family with descriptions of the high level of care the medical corps provided in the field, including the use of plasma and a powerful new medicine, penicillin. Very conscious of the family's worries, he sought to reassure them with his letters and his positive spirit.

Saluting these and all veterans on this Veteran's Day.