I started a project for my local genealogical society library of scanning and preserving the research of someone's donated works. It entails 3 large boxes of papers and pictures. Someone has already started going through the collection and was organizing the pictures. I decided that the papers could be scanned and then tossed and thus save room at the library.
This project made me reflect on my own research. What would happen to my work when I die? Would it end up in boxes to sit on a shelf at a library or worst in the trash? So I decided to look at all the stacks of paper I have collected. When I moved to Arizona in 1999, I decided to take my research up one notch. I started sourcing my work and started a new file system. In this new file system, only those items that I have sourced are allowed in this file. So what about all the other stacks?
If I haven't taken the time to source them; how important are they? Well some more so than others, but if someone was going to get this collection, do I want them to try to read my dead mind and figure out what's important and what is not? So I have a huge file collection of papers back from 1992 when I use to belong to Prodigy. Does anyone remember Prodigy? It was a dedicated, closed network that predates the World Wide Web. AOL was another such network. Both of these networks did open up to the World Wide Web, but the services they offered on their closed network was only available to their members. They had a genealogy community on Prodigy and I would check out their surname message board and print out messages with surnames that I was researching. Now looking at these pages that are neatly filed by surname, I must re-evaluate how valuable are these. Well lets look at one.
I have a date, time and who the message was from and who the message was to and the subject of the message and the body of the message. However, if I do find a connection, how would I make contact to either the sender or receiver? All I have is their name and their Prodigy user id. Not much help is this? So this is where I am starting. I will verify that I am only throwing away all these pages of useless messages. Yes I could turn all this into scrap paper, but I don't want to take a chance and have these pages find their way accidently back into my research, so the trash is the safest place for now.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Happy New Year
As the first day of the New Year comes to a close, I was thinking of what I want to do in the upcoming year for my genealogy. I don't want to call these resolutions, but rather goals, perhaps even research goals.
I have several goals, some that involve my research and some involve projects that I have started for my genealogy society.
My first goal is to spend at least 1 day a week doing my own genealogy. I need to put on the calendar my own research. It could mean, just cleaning up my files, or reading up on genealogy to futher my research or actually doing new research. But making sure that I spend one day, and Monday is a good day on my research.
2. To spend at least 1 day a week on my genealogy society obituary project. This is a two part project. One part is separating the individual obituaries from the group scan image. Then creating an index that can be updated to the Genealogy website for sharing. The other part is to create an index on all the obituaries, not just the one's assigned to me to separate. I can get quite a few done in a few hours, so if I spend half my time on the first part of this and the rest on the second part will be great. Most likely Tuesday will be devoted to this goal.
3. To volunteer at my local genealogical society library. I find that sharing what I know, whether it is direct genealogy skills as in researching and finding or my computer knowledge such as scanning, printing, saving, copying, pasting, etc... is very rewarding. I have volunteered my Wednesdays for this goal.
4. Not to over extend myself where all these genealogy project are concerned. I am a newly elected 2nd VP for my genealogical society. I also volunteered to do the newsletter (with the help of others, but I will be the one to actually compile the newsletter.) I would like to have a monthly meeting to gather others to do articles, or talk about subjects for the newsletter. So I see this taking 1-4 hours a month. The newsletter only comes out four times a year. I also volunteered to be the society webmaster which doesn't involve alot of work, just maintaining it. I don't think this will involve more than about an hour or two a month (at the most). Plus I can't forget to do my blog. Of course this can be done any day that I do something interesting for genealogy.
5. To work on a very huge project which is to scan and preserve the research of a desceased family historian whose work was donated to our library. Most likely 4 and 5 will have to share Thursdays. If I am not doing 4 then I will try to work on 5.
Oh I almost forgot that I volunteer to help with the share sessions that are being held twice a month on Tuesday's mornings. So my 2nd goal might not get done those weeks. Or atleast not as much. However, I could work on this goal during the evenings when I am only watching TV.
So I plan on doing genealogy about four days a week, I leave Friday, Saturday and Sunday for my hubby, since these are the days he is off of work. So if he is working, then perhaps I can squeeze in more time, but then again, I do need to clean the house and do laundry once a while. Also, my day is usually only from 7am until about 2pm, which is 6-7 hours, depending on how long eating lunch takes. Plus, once School is out for the summer, all bets are off. I need to be available for my youngest daughter who is 15 and my granddaughter who is 5.
So what are your research goals for the year? They don't have to be so involved as mine. Perhaps you need to set aside one day a month to do your research, or how about one weekend a month. Get a calendar for the year and block out time on your calendar for your research.
Happy New Year!
I have several goals, some that involve my research and some involve projects that I have started for my genealogy society.
My first goal is to spend at least 1 day a week doing my own genealogy. I need to put on the calendar my own research. It could mean, just cleaning up my files, or reading up on genealogy to futher my research or actually doing new research. But making sure that I spend one day, and Monday is a good day on my research.
2. To spend at least 1 day a week on my genealogy society obituary project. This is a two part project. One part is separating the individual obituaries from the group scan image. Then creating an index that can be updated to the Genealogy website for sharing. The other part is to create an index on all the obituaries, not just the one's assigned to me to separate. I can get quite a few done in a few hours, so if I spend half my time on the first part of this and the rest on the second part will be great. Most likely Tuesday will be devoted to this goal.
3. To volunteer at my local genealogical society library. I find that sharing what I know, whether it is direct genealogy skills as in researching and finding or my computer knowledge such as scanning, printing, saving, copying, pasting, etc... is very rewarding. I have volunteered my Wednesdays for this goal.
4. Not to over extend myself where all these genealogy project are concerned. I am a newly elected 2nd VP for my genealogical society. I also volunteered to do the newsletter (with the help of others, but I will be the one to actually compile the newsletter.) I would like to have a monthly meeting to gather others to do articles, or talk about subjects for the newsletter. So I see this taking 1-4 hours a month. The newsletter only comes out four times a year. I also volunteered to be the society webmaster which doesn't involve alot of work, just maintaining it. I don't think this will involve more than about an hour or two a month (at the most). Plus I can't forget to do my blog. Of course this can be done any day that I do something interesting for genealogy.
5. To work on a very huge project which is to scan and preserve the research of a desceased family historian whose work was donated to our library. Most likely 4 and 5 will have to share Thursdays. If I am not doing 4 then I will try to work on 5.
Oh I almost forgot that I volunteer to help with the share sessions that are being held twice a month on Tuesday's mornings. So my 2nd goal might not get done those weeks. Or atleast not as much. However, I could work on this goal during the evenings when I am only watching TV.
So I plan on doing genealogy about four days a week, I leave Friday, Saturday and Sunday for my hubby, since these are the days he is off of work. So if he is working, then perhaps I can squeeze in more time, but then again, I do need to clean the house and do laundry once a while. Also, my day is usually only from 7am until about 2pm, which is 6-7 hours, depending on how long eating lunch takes. Plus, once School is out for the summer, all bets are off. I need to be available for my youngest daughter who is 15 and my granddaughter who is 5.
So what are your research goals for the year? They don't have to be so involved as mine. Perhaps you need to set aside one day a month to do your research, or how about one weekend a month. Get a calendar for the year and block out time on your calendar for your research.
Happy New Year!
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