Audio conversion equipment?

Andrew Alan Croshaw

I'm hoping for a miracle. I have a dozen audio reels of family history information, but i cannot seem to find a resource for digitizing this audio information. I have reels that are 7 inches, 5 inches, and three inches. I live in the Salt Lake Valley and could drive to a family history center or come downtown to use any available equipment. Thank you for any direction you might provide!

Andrew Croshaw

CDBurk

Hi @Andrew Alan Croshaw

You might want to call the Family History Library in Salt Lake to see if they have any equipment that can help you to convert your audio reels into a format that would be acceptable to use as Memories. The following Wiki article explains how to contact the Family History Library directly. I am aware of scanning equipment in the FHL, but do not know about audio equipment.

https://www.familysearch.org/family-history-library/

Family Tree does not have a process to do this type of conversion, and when you wish to add an audio file as a Memory in Family Tree, it must be .mp4, .mp3, or .wav format, and can be no larger than 15MB. As a side note, the Firefox browser cannot play .mp4 files on MAC, iOS or Android devices.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-upload-audio-files

Because I am not certain the FHL will have equipment to help with your goal, I did a Google search titled: converting reels to .mp3 or .mp4 and generated several useful results, however, there do appear to be costs involved with this type of conversion process.

We wish you success as you prepare your audio files to be shared as Memories of your ancestors, and success with your continued family history efforts.

Andrew Alan Croshaw

I appreciate your help here. Thank you very much.

Gordon Collett

Several years ago I was visiting Salt Lake and took with me a bunch of old Super-8 film my parents had and an audio reel tape to a place that I had heard about on a genealogy podcast which gave it very good reviews. They did a great job with the audio tape, which is pretty simple to convert if you have the equipment, and probably as good a job with the film as anyone could. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the podcast or the outfit and I'm not sure this is a place to put such anyway. Don't be put off when you google that the titles all say video conversion. A lot of the places can do audio tapes also.

Just wanted to say this is very possible, there are some very good places in Salt Lake that do this which generally charge per foot of tape, and is very worthwhile doing. Just google, check reviews, check prices, take up a collection from family members if necessary, but do pursue this.

EsplinMark

Many FamilySearch center have equipment to convert audio and super-8 film to digital files. I work at the Family Search Library in Logan that has that kind of equipment. Look at https://www.familysearch.org/centers/locations/ to find a center near you. Then click on their website to check what equipment is available.