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By Erin Smith
The Bladen County Register of Deeds office has been a hub of activity this week as a team from Logan Systems has been scanning records to turn them into digital images. The digital image can be uploaded onto a computer and ultimately the Internet.
Bladen County Register of Deeds Beverly Parks said the funds for the project were approved last year, but when the office received their microfilmed images, they were not able to utilize them. Parks explained due to the microfilmed images being damaged Logan Systems had to send a team to the Register of Deeds office to set up their equipment and scan the items.
When the team has completed their task, Parks said there will be a paper copy and a digital copy located in the Bladen Courthouse, Logan Systems will have a digital copy and the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh will have a copy.
Parks said once the task of scanning is completed, all of the records contained in the Register of Deeds Office will eventually be digitized and available online. Currently, the website offers researchers an index from the inception of the county through 1987. It also offers indexing and images for all recorded items from January 1988 to the present.
“Eventually, it (recording of records) will become all digital. Some of the larger counties have already gone to digital copies of records,” said Parks.
David Jaksa, one of the team members who was scanning images, said, “We’re preserving American history one page at a time.”
Both Parks and Jaksa emphasized that should anything happen to the courthouse or the Register of Deeds office such as a fire, flooding or some other type of damage, the records will not be lost because there will be a digital copy available.
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