Sorting Saturday -

I have been busy sorting, tossing, organizing. Making a mess and and cleaning it up.

Most of the work I have been doing lately is down in the basement. I have tossed out a lot of junk and stuff I have moved for years, that has been stuck in a box. I have decided if I haven't used it in 6 months or have no intentions on using it, get rid of it.

I have made quite a dent in the basement. Still have a long ways to go. Then there are the 2 sheds. Full of stuff I need to get rid of. I really have to downsize. I don't want to leave a lot of stuff for someone else to have to toss if anything were to happen to me.

I was worrying about organizing and linking everything back up to my Legacy Family Tree program before I went to my Mom's in July. Now I really need to get back to it and get my sourcing all fixed. I am trying to get the information on my tree that I have in Ancestry.com too. I should also put it in my WikiTree and whatever others I have out there. But to be honest, lately I just haven't been feeling myself. I feel so disconnected with myself. Not able to concentrate (which I have been trying to figure out why). I have a hard time remember where I left off. I know I can make lists. But then I can't remember where I put that. I am hoping I will get this all worked out soon and get back to my old self minus the smoking part. I have been doing pretty good in that area. Absolutely no smoking since October 2 about 10:30PM. I was very bad in September and bought a pack of little cigars. I was only smoking 1 or 2 a day but I sure felt guilty because I originally hadn't smoked since July 31 at around 8:30PM. But just having that 1 or 2 seemed to help me concentrate better. It sure did not help my breathing though.

Anyways that is a little of what I have been up to. Hopefully I will be back to my old self before long. I have so much to do and I fear I won't get it all done.

It's a little cool out, but at least a little bit of sunshine is happening today.

Sorting Saturday - Newspaper Clippings, Obits, Etc.

I have been busy sorting the newspaper clippings I brought back from my Mom's that I need to scan. I also have to go thru her scrapbook she has had for years. Everything is in there and some of the Obits I scanned the other day she has in there also. Some things are on family, some on friends, some are jokes, some are poems.

It will be a little bit of a challenge since she glued all the clippings into her scrapbook and the pages are bigger than my scanner. Some she has right tight together and others are spaced apart.

I also have some more photos of unknown people I need to scan. I know they are either friends of family that is no longer here or family that my Mom couldn't remember.

The one problem with all these clippings most of them do not have a date, or what newspaper they were in. So sourcing is going to be really challenging. I think some came from up north, some from Flint, some from Lapeer, and some from down state Jackson or South Haven area. Some are real old with tiny print.

Oh WELL. One piece of information at a time. 

Sorting Saturday - Sharon Haas

My sorting through all my images that I have downloaded from various sites is progressing nicely. In my Michigan Marriages I have them put all in folders by counties, then I added folders by years. So far I have 61 counties that I have marriage records in. I am working on Kent County records right now. Some of the folders may only have 1 image in them but I did it this way for easy adding of additional images later. I only have 28 more to do and I will have them all linked back up.

When I save the images I try to put the year, county, volume, page, the Digital Folder Number. and the collection it is from. This has really helped me out relinking them back to the right family marriages.

I have to say I wish I would have done this from the very beginning. I like make others that I have read their blogs have been in the process of reorganizing our data, images, etc. In the beginning, when I first started doing my research, I downloaded gedcoms from other peoples family trees that had same names and possible relatives in them. I didn't understand how to write sources. To that I still am not real good at but am improving thanks to Geoff Rasmussen through the Webinars, and others as I read the their blogs.


I try to catch as many Webinars as I can from different ones that put them on and usually have to go back and rewatch them. Thank Goodness for the ones that are put in Legacy's archives for a little while. So slowly but steadily I'm getting my reorganizing done.

When I get through my marriages I may have to go back and do a little more organizing in Births, Census, and Deaths folders. I'm not sure yet. I'm trying to think of the future when I have added so many new images so that I don't have to go back and redo again.

Last night I listened to Thomas and gang on Geneabloggers Blog Radio program. I try to catch all of them and am trying to download as many as I can to listen to again. I even chatted alittle bit on the chat screen. It took me a few minutes to get there but finally made it and didn't lose my internet connection this time. They were having way to much fun at Jamboree.

I have added a lot of new friends to my facebook and a lot of new blogs. I so enjoy reading them. I'm a bit behind in reading some of them, but am able to catch a few that gets posted thru facebook.

I added my geni.com family tree on my blog but don't know if I did it right and tried to add it to my facebook but the app doesn't work when I click on it. I still don't know how to use Geni.com family tree very well. I can only use the free features because I cannot afford to buy the membership.

I also have a Wiki Tree on my blog. Haven't added to it in a while and haven't put it in a page yet. I have been mostly concentrating on my Legacy Family Tree. Someday when I get everything fixed up on it I may publish it.

I have been keeping up with Randy Seaver and his blog posts. I enjoy his reviews and his posts among others. Keep those blogs and Webinars coming, so I can continue learning and smiling. I wanted to do a post on Surname Saturday but can't figure out who I want to write about so I will leave that for another time. Maybe next Saturday.

I'm getting anxious for my visit to my Mom's in July. I talked to her this morning and told her I planned to bring my camera and take her to the cemeteries and get pictures of the headstones of our families. My brother-in-law made a flower holder for my Step-dad's grave and she hasn't seen it yet so I hope the flowers my Sis put in it are still looking nice when I take Mom there. I told her depending on how well she has done on her sorting and getting all her pictures, newspaper clippings and everything done, we maybe able to do some visiting with Walt's Sisters. His one Sister Evelyn doesn't live all that far from Flint Memorial Cemetery and that maybe his Sister Bonnie could meet us at Eve's and we would be able to visit both of them.

Back to my Marriage Folders. Happy Blogging Everyone. Can't wait to read all the Blogs about the Jamboree.

Sorting Saturday is here: What a Job I have!!!!!!

Well the other day I by accidental coughing while trying to put things in Dropbox managed to put my whole Legacy program in Dropbox. Not at all what I wanted to do. I had to delete it out of there because it put me way over my 2GB limit and I can't afford to pay anything for extra storage. Along with the fact that my Legacy Family Tree program no longer worked that was on my hard drive. I was devastated. Well I got it all fixed back up on my hard drive and made a copy of it on a new 16 GB flash stick. It used 12.7GB on my flash stick.

I have been reading DearMyrtle's blog on organizing and Linda McCauley blog on organizing her system. Also looking at Thomas MacEntee's backing up your data.

I sure do have alot of sorting to do.

When I first set my Legacy Family Tree up I just starting putting in my info I had on family members and downloaded GEDCOM's then I started adding pictures. Unfortunately I had not put them in any specific order and was having Legacy get them from my C drive's Pictures. At that time I had an old desktop. Believe you me I am not a computer geek. I don't understand alot of the technical terms and how to use alot of features. Give me a good detailed set of instructions with pictures that show me what to do explained out in plain English and I'm good to go.

Then I bought a used IBM Thinkpad Laptop. I finally got it to hookup to internet (of which it now doesn't and doesn't have enough room on it because all the microsoft windows programs and IBM Thinkpad programs gobbled it up and I apparently removed the wrong program). I was using it to do my genealogy and alot more. But I had my Legacy program on a flash stick which I installed on the flashstick and my desktop shortcut for Legacy would take me right to my flash stick. So I got the brilliant idea of putting all my pictures of family that I had scanned or was on our camera disc in my Legacy program. So I first went one way doing it but then another way. Got everything linking up finally. But I didn't have much in there and I found myself copying the same image to another person that was say on the same Census Page Image. So now I had the same image in maybe 7 or 8 different members of my families photos in my Legacy program. Then I have Marriage records, birth records, death records which are mostly in book form pages which sometimes have 2 or 3 members of the same family on the same page.

So I thought instead of having the picture in that person's photo file I would make a folder for Birth Records, Death Records, Marriage Records, etc. and then I subfoldered them by State. The Census Records I have US Census>1850>State for instance. I literally have tons of images that I downloaded and put in folders in this fashion. But I still have a lot that I haven't gotten linked back up properly.

After studying the way the aforementioned people's way of doing things, (Which is kinda the way I started doing things at one point, but then couldn't remember who belonged to what family), I have been mulling over how is the best way for me. I'm still trying to figure that out.

I can't afford to make hardcopies of all the images and put in binders per family surname (which I really like Myrt's idea but space and funds limit me) but I mainly have photos of family not original documents anyway.

All of my searching on the internet has to be from free sites. So that limits me on alot on obtaining copies of originals.

Ok here is my one thought, I will use my Pember family as an example remember most is in photo format (jpg):
Legacy Program
    Photos
      Clampitt
      Haas
      Pember
          Birth Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Census Records
          Death Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Family Bible
          Land Records, Deeds etc
          Marriage Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Newspaper Records  
          Pember Adelbert E                   This is possibly James M's brother
          Pember Arnold M 1907-1989
          Pember Christine L 1928-       This is Arnold M's Daughter
          Pember James M 1878-1928   This is Arnold M's Father
          Pember James R                       This is possibly Adelbert E's son
    Sewell
          Birth Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Census Records
          Death Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Family Bible
          Land Records, Deeds etc
          Marriage Records (if more than 1 member of family on same page)
          Newspaper Records
          Sewell Joseph
          Sewell Ira J
          Sewell Alfred
          Sewell Isley
          Sewell Lucinda J 1901-1982 ( I have 2 original copies of her birth certificate one with her soc sec no on )  
    

If I keep all birth records, census records, etc for each surname in folder pertaining to record type for that surname instead of putting them in the individual persons folder I only need to look in that folder to see if I have something in there that pertains to person I am looking for.

You see my problem arises when a female marries. Should I make another surname folder with Birth, Census, Death, Marriages, etc. under that surname to follow this female. Example: My Grandma is Lucinda J Sewell. She first married Frank Reid, they divorced but she had 3 or 4 kids by him, then she married Arnold M. Pember my Grandpa, they divorced she had 1 child my mother Christine L Pember by him, then she married LeRoy Gibbs whom died before her and she never remarried. She's an easy one since I am quite familiar with her but some of the other families I'm not that familiar with and I'm afraid I might miss them when I am documenting and looking for say a census.

I have alot of females with only a first name to go by and alot of unknown as mother. I have them as Mrs. So and So instead of just first name or unknown. But Legacy says I shouldn't put Mrs. in.

Guess I'll have to work on that as I come to them. Maybe someday I'll find a marriage record that gives the female's last name.

My conclusion at least for now is to go thru and do as I have outlined above. Going to be very time consuming but I think it will be the best way. But the best way I can figure to do this is to Move all the Census files, Birth Record Files, Marriage Record Files, etc out of Legacy and onto C: Hard Drive. Look at each record and put them into appropriate Census Record  folder or birth record etc for say my Pember Family as I look at each record, etc until I get them back to appropriate family. It may not be freeing up room in Legacy but maybe make it alot easier if I oops again to relink them, especially since I have alot of them already missing links.

Any suggestions, thoughts would be greatly appreciated. If you happen to see a picture someone has posted of me with hair sticking up in the air like I got electrocuted, pulling my hair out or bald think nothing of it. Or if you don't see my mug on facebook it's because I am staring aimlessly at the computer screen wondering where that just went and searching for it.

Oh maybe I should make a list of what I have decided to do, otherwise I might forget.

Oh by the way I am much more organized than my dear mother. She is not at all organized, she has had almost 83 years (well knock off a few years for when she was a toddler) to collect, and stuff wherever and whatever EVERY WHERE!!!! I spent almost all of December 2009 with her and emptied out drawers in just one room and some tops of furniture in another and reorganized somewhat. Putting all of cards (ones to send to people) in 1 drawer, put all her genealogy like things in 1 cabinet sorting out obituaries, news clippings etc. She has pictures in drawers everywhere and cards and letters from people some family everywhere. Got alot of them together in one or 2 places. I have no idea how many bags of junk mail I burned. Anyways I set her up with boxes for her to sort stuff into from 6 more big boxes of stuff I had taken out of drawers (pictures, recipes, junk mail, newspaper clippings, jewelry, you name it) that I found in them. They are still there still ungone thru and resorted into the smaller boxes that she needed to go thru herself. She spends hours, days and months looking for something because she just stuck it someplace instead of where it belongs.

I have tried since I was a kid to keep things somewhat organized now I need to get that somewhat, ORGANIZED!!!!

Happy Sorting Saturday Everybody.