If you happen to walk into the Fairfax Town Office and see a couple of people with floodlights and other photo equipment and happen to notice a red SUV with Utah license plates out in the parking lot, well that is bound to attract your attention:
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 001a.jpg)
Mark & Louise Nuzman, husband & wife team from the Utah Genealogy Society are digitizing some of Fairfax's Old Land Record Books
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 003a.jpg)
A camera focused on the large book photographs the pages and stores it in the computer
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 004a.jpg)
Lights on each side shine on the book and the camera over Louise's head is focused on the book
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 005a.jpg)
Louise clamps the pages down with two special clamps - She was just flipping the page as I took the photo
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 006a.jpg)
A page in the above book has an insert which Louise flipped over so that the writing underneath could be photographed
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/2007-02-12 007a.jpg)
A clearer view of the camera above can be seen that is connected to the computer
Mark & Louise will be mailing a DVD to the Fairfax Town Office in 4 to 6 weeks with the photos they have taken of the book. Names from the information in the photos will be indexed and linked to the State, County, Town, Book and Page so that in the future you will be able to do a search for a particular Name and be told exactly where it appears in our Fairfax Town Land Records. I am not sure how much they will do, but they told me this method is much faster than the old microfiche method. They charge nothing for doing this and it certainly is a great backup for our land records.
Their web site is:
http://www.familysearch.org/
In case you would like to check it out.