Tech Tuesday ~ Do Something Traditional With Those Photos!

For those of you just joining us, please check out my previous posts on Scandia Musings discussing how my family digitized our slides and photos and organized all our jpegs into a workable (but never ending) project of photo organization. Now onward to play with those photos!

It’s all well and good to preserve, protect and organize your images, but the whole point of this digitization and organization exercise (and the true test) is to be able find, use and share images with others. I maintain both a Family Media Library (all the images from our slide and print scan project as well as the more recent images received from my parents, siblings and extended family members) and a Personal Media Library (all my images relating to my travel and genealogy research) with Memory Manager. How I organize my Personal Media Library is a story for another day/blog.

• As a result of organizing in Memory Manger, I can quickly find, use and share our family images. Some recent examples include
• gathering images for a slideshow for a relative’s funeral reception
• poster boards for recent high school and college graduations
• scrapbook albums for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary
• scrapbook albums for our family vacations and reunions

Slideshow
When a cousin died a few years back her siblings contacted my father to ask if he had any slides or prints they could use to put together a slideshow remembrance at her funeral reception. They knew they had a few photographs but they were having trouble finding them. My father called me, I opened our Family Media Library, clicked on the extended family sort box, clicked on their family folder, dragged and dropped a number of jpegs into the work area, sent them to desktop folder and emailed them to my cousin – all in a matter of minutes.

• Suggestion – please take lots of photographs; save them, organize them and share them. It was sad to think that her family did not have more than a handful of photos. At the funeral reception, lots of extended family commented that they had not seen the images before or they remembered the holiday and vacation images from our childhood slideshows and they all wanted copies.

Posterboards

When family members graduate we make posterboards for their parties.  We use the school colors for background contrast, pick a theme or hobby that reflects their interests, gather images from their early childhood and school years, images of friends and family, as well as vacations, travels and activities.  We make a collage of sorts and add something unique and personal.  Examples of these posterboards are shown below.

Ashley’s Graduation Posterboards - All jpegs were found in Ashley’s family sort box and Ashley’s folder and printed locally. Ashley has collected favorite quotes over the years and we typed some of them into a Word document, printed them on parchment paper, attached them to scrapbook paper (in her school colors) and made individual bookmark size cards that we laid out along the table top.

Emily’s Graduation Posterboards - All jpegs were found in Emily’s family sort box and Emily’s folder and printed locally. Here we used Emily’s love of travel and photography as our theme and included several images and stories about the places she has visited.

Parents’ Anniversary Albums

We had a party for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. One of the things we did was ask everyone to provide a memory or comment together with a photograph to include in an Anniversary Album. We provided them with the paper and a return envelope. We received an amazing number of lovely letters and images which we made into scrapbook pages. These pages were interspersed with pages of my parents’ early years, their family, church and work lives, their travels, and pages relating to the anniversary festivities. At the time, we put this together traditionally (a few pages are shown below) but we also photographed each page so we now have scans and could print these pages as a digital album (it is amazing how far digital scrapbooking has come in the past few years).

We wrote up the story of how my parents' anniversary party came about.

In addition to having a simple two color scheme for the albums, 

we rounded all the photo and story corners.

Whatever you decide upon, consistency helps people focus.

We came up with favors representing both families and we wrote about them here

and also included family photos.

 Through the Years - we reproduced the centerpieces for these pages

Take advantage of shapes and page designs that are repeated 

throughout the album - we used my parents' favorite colors, 

purple and red, as our color scheme and picked a few complementary patterns

(it helps to focus attention on the photos and stories).

 Lots of close friends shared memories of their own weddings

and their long friendship with my parents.

 Be sure to get photos and letters to include in the albums.

 Too young to write a letter? Original art in the form of drawings is great!

Our parents' wedding reception in 1954.

Our parents' anniversary reception in 2004.

Family Vacations & Reunions Albums

Because my sister Karen and I are gluttons for punishment such wonderful daughters (and since we had jpegs in Memory Manager and the prints that related to our family and extended family), we decided to put together a Family Vacations & Reunions Album. This 2 volume set (we have a large family, we all vacationed together in the early days, and we have a big reunion every 5 years) contains images from each vacation and reunion as well as a 2 page story introducing the vacation or reunion.  These albums turned out really well. We also photographed each page and Karen had both albums printed as digital albums (my parents have the traditional albums). The digital album is a nice way to share with extended family members (none of whom take pictures but all of whom enjoy looking at them).

 Come up with a theme and complementary colors for your album pages.

 Here we wrote about specific vacations and family reunions. Get creative and have fun.

 Include photos and remember that a few comments will add to the stories.

Play with fonts and colors but make sure to not be too busy.

Also come up with a set number of page designs that you can then repeat.

Remember the focus should be on the photos and the stories! 

 Include maps and descriptions about the places you vacationed. 

(Google can be a lifesaver here but also remember to check out tourism sites) 

Be sure to add any postcards or ticket stubs.

 Have fun and be sure to get lots of candid shots.

People enjoy seeing themselves and sharing those memories.

 Be sure to include any special things your family does together.

For traditional scrapbooks, be sure to have pages made up and ready

for that next vacation or reunion. It is easy to add to the albums and you

won't be disappointed if the paper is no longer available!

And just for fun (and to make sure our projects have our signature on them) we made 3 inch decals to attach to them.  Use your imagination, lots of color and have some fun!  Ours read:

Another Exceptional Endeavor by Those Sensational Snappy Sisters

(we know who we are and we love alliteration)

I know that there is a variety of excellent photo organizing software available.  Many people use online or dedicated photo editing software (Google’s Picasa or Adobe’s Photoshop), or the photo software that came with their computers (Windows Live Photo Gallery for PCs and iPhoto for Macs).   However, I started using Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator in 2008, I like working with them, and the updates have been excellent.

Creative Memories has been in business since 1987 and they focus exclusively on preserving photos and providing excellent products (both traditional and digital) to share those photos. The Creative Memories’ website lists their products as well as several video tutorials and pdfs (for those who like to read and watch how to do something) that clearly explain step by step how to do a variety of things (backing up media, editing photos, organizing and printing & sharing your photos).  Check out their pdfs here. So, how do you share your family photos? What projects have you made that include your family photos and stories? Please share!

Two Weeks In - How Is Your Indexing Coming?

Are you part of the Community Indexing Project? How is the indexing going for you? I have been feeling pretty good about my indexing. Each morning after checking my emails and having a cup or two of coffee, I sign in to the Family Search Indexing program, check my stats for the previous day (to see what my accuracy rate is and to check for any errors to hopefully learn how to do it better), and then download three batches of census sheets to index.  About an hour later, I am done with that project and move on to real life projects.

It is been going swimmingly and I have encouraged others to join in.  To-date I have indexed a total of 36 sheets - approximately 1,440 records.  I indexed 11 sheets from Colorado, 1 sheet from Delaware, 7 sheets from Kansas, 2 sheets from Minnesota, 4 sheets from Nebraska, 9 sheets from Oregon, and 2 sheets from Virginia. My accuracy rate is 98%.

I was feeling pretty good about myself until yesterday when, horror of horror ~ I had to return my first batch because I just could not read the enumerator's handwriting and I was getting a bit frustrated ~ so back to FamilySearch went a batch from Nebraska! But I downloaded a batch from Virginia ~ thankfully that enumerator had excellent penmanship and I was back at it again!

What have I learned in the past 12 days?

• Check out the Community Program and watch the tutorial put together by FamilySearch.org on indexing. It is a great introduction and provides a nice overview to the whole process.  
• Download the Indexing Manual from FamilySearch.org ~ browse through it and have it available for any questions you may have (it is a great resource).
• Be sure to pay attention to the tips and explanations included in the right-hand side of the indexing software ~ it answers some of the most common questions.
• Check in with the Archives website on the 1940 Census.
• Check out the FamilySearch blog on the 1940 Census. There are plenty of updates and helpful tips.
• Check in with other indexers on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. There is always conversation and someone to answer your questions.
• Learn how to use the adjust highlight button ~ it will make your indexing life so much easier!
• Learn how to use the previous/next page button ~ sometimes it will help you understand your page better!
• Check in with DearMyrtle's webinars (the first week's webinars were really helpful and DearMyrtle plans to continue the process on a regular basis).
• Score some points not only for yourself but also your favorite participating society or organization. Thomas MacEntee explains how to do it on his most recent post. I signed up and designated the Seattle Genealogical Association.  Check out which associations and organizations are involved and join one.

I signed up to be a 1940 Census Ambassador ~ so I am going to keep providing updates and encouragement.  Why not join with the rest of us and index the 1940 US Census. There are weekly contests and posts to keep us all motivated ~ so let's all get to it!

You Think My Software Is Ugly and Unfriendly!

I enjoy reading reviews of genealogy products ~ software, websites, applications, subscription services, books, archives and libraries, tools and gadgets ~ anything that will assist me in learning how to "do genealogy" more efficiently with best practices and great results.  This morning Dick Eastman re-posted a press release from PCMag.com (in the Google+ Stream) of a review of Legacy Family Tree Deluxe 7.5 by Jill Duffy. As is often the case with these press releases, Mr. Eastman had no accompanying comment so I don't know if he read the review, agreed with it, disagreed with it, or had any thoughts on the matter. Within moments, Tamura Jones re-posted the review on Google+ and included his thoughts which were interesting and program-related.

Disclosure ~ I am a current Legacy Family Tree user. I have purchased and used two other programs: RootsMagic4 which has several features I like but does not feel as intuitive to me as Legacy, and Family Tree Maker which I stopped using because I got tired of the constant paid updates, freezing, and too close interaction with Ancestry.com ~ a subscription service I use but do not want syncing with my database. That said, I read the reviews and comparisons of all the major genealogy database software and add-ons and work with them for different purposes. Armed with my morning coffee, I went over to PCMag.com to read the Legacy review.  The full review can be found at Legacy Family Tree Deluxe 7.5 Review.

Following are some of Ms. Duffy's comments and my reactions:

• bottom line ~ Legacy has all the tools you'll need to record personal history, but the user experience could be better.
• how so ~ what did you find difficult and what steps did you take to learn
• pros ~ well structured and feature rich
• cons ~ ugly interface, has a learning curve
• user experience can be daunting, particularly if you are new to genealogy
• isn't most software daunting if you are unfamiliar with it
• "fine option if you are well versed in genealogy and/or you're looking for a piece of software to use for a long time"
• this is definitely a good selling point in my view
• not the most attractive design, ..."well organized beneath a layer of mustard green backgrounds and extra large sized tab fonts, with no proselytizing to be found"
• did you check out the customization tab which includes colors, sizes, wording, and backgrounds ~ if not, you should have if you were going to judge the program 
• proselytizing ~ really, that comment is a bit odd ~ does she normally find software contains proselytizing? I found this comment insulting and it was not directed at me. I have never met a genealogist who proselytized and I have been to the Family History Library on several occasions - I have found the LDS representatives at the FHL to be respectful of all researchers' beliefs, professional and super helpful.   
• "isn't an ideal piece of software to use if you're only looking to dabble in your family history"
• dabblers probably aren't going to purchase software ~ who are these reviews for?
• does have some powerful features that might pay off 
• she spent time working with Research Guidance
• interestingly this is the feature I use least
• she spent time working with events/facts
• good choice but I don't get the impression she really played with this feature
• upset that upon entering her name, Legacy "immediately opened up a slot for my non-existent husband" 
• this has never happened to me and when entering a person I usually get a prompt for parents (and we all have those)
• had trouble figuring out how to enter her mother's two marriages and assign children correctly
• this is where the help section and tutorials come in handy
• charting appears to be a program within a program and more modern appearance 
• "feature rich (myriad field for recording details, as well as suggestions for sources, enables you to do real and long-term research in a highly organized matter)"
• and this is a good thing!
• not particularly user friendly
• ah this hurt my feelings ~ I think Legacy is plenty friendly  
• seven screen captures highlighting her points 
• really odd choices 
• the chronology color bar ~ how about showing customization tab with several choices 
• how about showing a chart 

At the outset I always wonder if a reviewer is familiar with the subject matter of the review (i.e., beginner, intermediate, advanced user) and how much time the reviewer spends putting the software through its paces. Specifically as to this review, does the reviewer have any experience in genealogy, does s/he use a database management program for genealogy? Does the same person review all the products in the same category (here all the genealogy software)? What skill-set does the reviewer bring to the review? Does the reviewer make use of tutorials and/or help sections included with the software?

I do wonder if reviewers play around with the software ~ perhaps in this instance checking out the customize tab and working through setting up the software to fit a user's needs and wants. Ms. Duffy did show a customization screen but it was for heading colors in the chronology report ~ not a very good or representative example of customization in Legacy (or in any other program). I was surprised to read that she did not find Legacy user-friendly because I chose Legacy as my database software primarily because I found it so intuitive and user-friendly. This just goes to show that you have to test software yourself to find what works best for you. I was especially impressed with Legacy's well-designed help section available at every step of data entry. 

I freely admit that I am a reader and am willing to play around with software. I played around with the free version of Legacy, read through the help section and watched the introductory tutorial. After I purchased the software, I downloaded the Legacy User Manual, read it and highlighted areas of importance to me. I also made a point of playing around with software, clicking on every tab to see what it would do ~ I am not afraid that I will break something. I was not worried about the changes I made because I knew I could hit the reset to default button (no harm no foul). 

My approach to learning new things is to read, watch and do. In order to get the most and best use out of anything I either purchase or check books out from the library (i.e., Microsoft Access, Excel, and Publisher, genealogy research methodology, etc.).  I do not expect that I will learn everything about a software program or application in one sitting. I hope that a program will have enough features that it will grow with me and be capable of expanding to fit my increased needs over time. I realize that we live in a world where things are "dumbed down" for us, but I don't think genealogy is or should be one of those things. Do I expect my television remote to work without much thought on my part? Do I expect my washer and dryer to work without reading complicated user manuals? ~ Yes to both questions! Do I expect that my genealogy software should work with little or no thought? The answer is a resounding No! 

Genealogy is a process and it requires at least a question, some research and thought, analysis, data entry, source citations, report writing, and perhaps photos, charts and/or stories published in some format. In all aspects of this process I need to think about what I am doing, why I am doing it, how I am supporting my conclusions, and how I want to present my findings. In this regard, I think Legacy (and several other software programs) do a very good job. Like many things in life, effort is required to get the best possible outcome.  Take the time to play around with software yourself, find what is intuitive, and then spend the time to learn the ins and outs of your software and make it work for you. Ms Duffy's two main criticisms of Legacy can be easily resolved ~ customize your software program and take the time to learn how to use it. 

I decided to take a look at the comparison chart and found that Ms. Duffy reviewed Legacy, Ancestry.com, Ancestral Quest and Family Tree Maker 2012. Definitely take the time to check out those reviews and if you use those programs you might add a user review. I was surprised and disappointed that RootsMagic5 was not included and there might be other programs that should have been included. I don't really consider that Ancestry.com should have been in this grouping, perhaps it should be with online database programs. What do you think?

Perhaps for other genealogists (as well as myself) Ms. Duffy's top selling point for FTM is something that gives me serious pause ~ "There's no need to dig around libraries and county halls anymore because Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com puts centuries of documents at your fingertips."  Oh no, another version of "you don't need to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking." Another of her top selling points for FTM relates to the tight relationship between FTM and Ancestry.com. However, by doing this she skews her review of stand alone software (in terms of product and cost) and her review and editor's choice amounts to a comparison of apples and oranges. FTM earned the editor's choice with 4 of 5 points while Legacy earned 3.5 of 5 points. I could not find a review of RootsMagic5 which I expected if an editor's choice award was going to be given. There are only three user reviews on the site ~ I would love for more genealogists to weigh in with their reviews of the software.

So, what do you think of the recent software reviews in PCMag.com? What genealogy software do you use and love (or use and hate) and why?

Tuesday's Tip - Volunteer to Index the 1940 Census

What a week it has been. On April 2, the 1940 U.S. Census was released amid great excitement! I found the entire process amazing ~ I watched the opening ceremony streamed live from the National Archives.  I thought each of the speakers did an excellent job of describing the importance of the census and placing it in the context of our recent history. I especially loved the comment that when the census was taken "we were in the grip of the Great Depression and on the cusp of World War II."

Prior to the release of the census images, the genealogy community was awash in webinars, seminars, blog posts, newspaper articles, and television spots that described the process undertaken to:

• digitize the census from the original microfilm rolls (all I can say from my prior experience with microfilm is thank you so very much),
• provide those images to the companies that would upload it on day one,
• acquire the 3.9 scanned image pages and upload them to host company servers,
• put together photographs, historical timelines, location summaries, migration patterns, and search functions all in interactive on-site displays for the public, 
• draft programs to encourage volunteers to sign up to index the census, and 
• in another truly amazing example of generosity and brilliance by Professors Steve Morse and Joel Weintraub (and their unsung band of volunteers) come up the one-step tools to locate enumeration districts to find people in the census both before and after the indexes have been completed. 

It seems that on April 2 everyone and their brother went online through the National Archives and its partners (the 1940 US Census Community Project sponsored by Archives, FamilySearch and FindMyPast, together with several Society sponsors including the NGS, FGS and APG) or to the unaffiliated sites, Ancestry and MyHeritage, in order to find their families on the 1940 Census. The various sites were understandably overloaded with many of us "chomping at the bit" to explore the census images. From the outset I decided to check out a census image or two just "to be part of history," and then index whatever was in the que until the census images became available. I saw some images from Delaware and that gave me my 1940 Census fix. To tell you the truth, it never occurred to me that census indexing would be up and running that first day. I spent an hour indexing World War I Draft Registration Cards from New Jersey and then, to my surprise, in the evening I indexed my first batch of Delaware images.

I had signed up for DearMyrtle's 1940 U.S. Census Images and Indexing Updates hosted by RootsMagic. I attended four of the five evenings ~ what a great experience that was! DearMyrtle had all of the players on her webinar each night. If you did not attend you can play catch-up by checking out the link to the webinars. We received lots of tips and tricks, best practices, and hints for using the census tools and incorporating the census results with our genealogy database programs. We also got to hear from those who found family members and shared their stories.

In my opinion it was all good and it was a great week for genealogy! However, I was absolutely amazed at some of comments that were posted on the various websites the first few days. Specifically:

• where is the index for these images?
• why can't I find my family in the census?
• why do the pages load so slowly?
• why wasn't my state uploaded until [fill in the date]?
• when will my state be indexed? 
• how I am supposed to find the address for my family in 1940?
• why does the one-step program require so much information?
• where are the citations to the census?, and the ever popular 
• why didn't those companies plan better [together with helpful tips on how they would have done it faster]?

What do all of those comments have in common? Well, I think they all sound ungrateful and entitled! I was embarrassed and disappointed in the genealogical community and the general public for jumping on the blamestorming bandwagon. My response to all those comments is ~ let's all adopt an attitude of gratitude. 

Do you realize what an amazing accomplishment it was to digitize, release, upload, and make available the 1940 U.S. Census on the day of its official release? Do you realize that you can view these census images for free in the comfort of your own home (if you have Internet access) or from the comfort of you local library or community center? Do you realize that because the National Archives partnered with Archives, FamilySearch and FindMyPast, the U.S. Census Community Project will host the census images and, when it is completed, provide an every name index all for free to you and me?  

So, how are you going to express your attitude of gratitude? I suggest you join with me and index the 1940 U.S. Census. I am a volunteer with the 1940 U.S. Census Community Project and you can be one too! Just follow the link, sign up,watch the tutorial, download the program, and start indexing! You can see the list of participating societies (since most of my family was in Washington in 1940 I signed up and designated the Seattle Genealogical Society). Most societies have blogs and through the Community Project there are contests each week for indexers. It is easy, fun and a nice way to give back or "pay it forward" to all of those who indexed the earlier censuses that so many of us have relied upon. Why not give it a go?

April is National Volunteer Month and I think this is a great opportunity for those of us in the genealogy community to join this volunteer effort. As of this morning there are 21 states available for indexing. I have been indexing through the Community Project for 10 days and index for about an hour early each morning.   I have indexed a total of 1200 names on population schedules from Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Virginia. So far I have a 98% agreement rate! Why not join the rest of us and the every name index will be finished in record time!

Motivation Monday ~ A Recap for March & April

February and March were crazy busy as far as my genealogy research went. After watching a Legacy-hosted webinar on newspaper research with Thomas Kemp of GenealogyBank, I decided to check it out. I had really good luck and was able to back my way into solving one of my Irish family's brickwalls. On a second research front, a terrific Irish records site came on-line and was mentioned in a blog post that directed me to church records for Counties Cork and Kerry. A bit of reverse sleuthing and comparisons with previously found but unproven census records and another of my Irish family's brickwalls finally came down. Both finds need some more work, but I am light years ahead of where I was two months ago. A nice bonus is that I now have additional family members (siblings of my direct ancestors who are “new to me”) to research and connect with. Both of those finds will be the subject of their own posts in the near future. All I can say in my own defense (for my February and March blogging slump) is that I was so busy researching and working through the connections that I just let my blogging slide.

Spring has sprung, Easter brought with it that reminder of new life and rebirth so ~ I am wiping the slate clean, jumping back into the monthly genealogy goal meme, and posting my March Accomplishments & April Goals (thanks to Stephanie at Corn & Cotton for keeping me and many others motivated).

Research

• The 1940 Census
• March ~ I prepared my 1940 Census To-Do Lists using the Legacy Census Tool. I broke down the to-do lists by county and state. Knowing that some of my family remained in the same towns and counties in Nebraska and Illinois I decided to focus on these areas as well as my grandparents (both located in Seattle, Washington and for whom I had their 1940 addresses).
• April ~ I found and downloaded the various census pages and as of today I have found 105 members of my extended family on the 1940 Census. I could not have done this without the following:
• I cleaned up my Legacy database and standardized all my census entries so I had 1930 census information for my extended family. This was an excellent exercise to prepare for the 1940 Census and also to review my earlier census entries and clean up my sources.
• Steve Morse, Joel Weintraub and the volunteers who worked on the OneStep 1940 Census program – thank you for such great programs and tutorials – I learned so much from using these programs and was able to drill down to the correct enumeration districts. You are all The Best!
• The various websites that uploaded the digital images of the 1940 Census – it was an embarrassment of riches ~ The National Archives, FamilySearch, Archives, MyHeritage, and Ancestry  ~ all worked hard to make so much available from day 1 ~ just brilliant! I used several of the sites and was able to noodle my way to finding the census pages.
• DearMyrtle ~ every evening Monday through Friday she hosted a webinar roundup that entertained, explained, shared stories, answered questions and kept the genealogy community involved in the hoopla that was the 1940 Census release. I was thrilled to listen to and watch the presentations by Joel Weintraub, the representatives from Archives, the National Archives, and Ancestry, the examples provided by Russ Worthington, the finds shared by attendees, and the discussion among the attendees on Twitter. There was a lot going on and it was clearly a labor of love ~ thanks DearMyrtle and RootsMagic for hosting the webinars.
• Kiley Family
• March ~ In response to my request and a small fee, I received my great great grandmother’s obituary from Obits of Nebraska. Ellen's obituary mentioned two sisters who attended her funeral as well as two nephews who officiated. I found the priests in the federal censuses and worked my way back to their families with Ancestry.com and GenalogyBank.com.  The nephews’ surname was Cannell and I found the Cannell family in Rockford and Burritt, Illinois.  From a combination of newspaper articles and obituaries, I determined that my great great grandmother Ellen Kiley came to America from Ireland with her widowed mother and (at least) two siblings, Jane Kiley (who married John Cannell, settled in Burritt, had seven sons, and later died and was buried in Rockford) and Catherine Kiley (who remained single, moved to, and later died and was buried in St. Louis). Of course the surname is spelled Kiley, Kiely, Kieley, and Keeley depending on the article or document!
• April ~ I need to follow up on the Kiley and Cannell families and transcribe and source all the material I found in March. I am in the process of adding it (with appropriate sources) to my Legacy database. I am also contacting current Cannells to hopefully find out more information about both the Kiley and Cannell families. 
• Murphy Family
• I need to follow up with extended family members in Nebraska and Washington both for family records and 1940 Census research. To any Murphys in Johnson County, Nebraska ~ let’s work on filling in some blanks. My email is over at the right so please get in touch. John ~ thanks for your comment I emailed you directly and would love to hear from you!

Organization

• March & April ~ I am continuing to organize my digital materials (photographs, census images, images saved in my Ancestry Shoebox, images saved from Genline of Sweden, images from DigitalArchives of Norway, and county and town research and images downloaded from Irish websites as well as all my Newfoundland research). Now that I have a system in place it is a process of working on this a bit each day ~ this is an ongoing project but I do see light at the end of the organization tunnel!

Blogging

• April ~ I need to get back on board with Amy Coffin’s 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy. I need to finish my blog post about my grandfather Ernest William Lidman. I need to blog on a weekly basis ~ remember the Nike mantra ~ just do it!

Education

• March ~ There were lots of webinars to choose from in March and I attended the following:
• Introduction to Irish American Catholic Records with Michael Brophy on March 3 ~ This was a interesting presentation, with lots of insights and some tips to help me get farther with my Irish American research.
• 1940 Census with Thomas MacEntee on March 7 ~ A nice preparation webinar and he answered many questions to help us prepare for the census release.
• Using the Census Tool in Legacy with Geoff Rasmussen on March 9 ~ Thank you for this great tool and for the quick and responsive updates, you made my preparation so much easier!
• Using US Federal Records to Locate the Towns of Your Irish Ancestors with Donna Moughty on March 12 ~ An excellent presentation and I got lots of helpful tips to help me dig a little deeper with my brickwall Irish families.
• How to Use a Blog for a Research Log with Drew Smith on Mar 19 ~ This was a disappointing webinar from a usually reliable presenter. Drew discussed blogs in detail but it was clearly for beginners. There was no serious discussion of the research log aspect listed in the webinar title and which is why I (and others) attended the webinar. 
• Tips & Tricks for Webinar Presenters with Thomas MacEntee on Mar 21 ~ Thomas does a good job and this webinar was helpful to understanding how the process works (or rather should work) and is a real must watch for anyone planning on giving presentations.
• Digital Writing & Genealogy with Lisa Alzo on March 30 ~ Lisa always does a great job and this webinar was no exception. Some really helpful tips and plenty of great examples.
• April ~ It has all been about the 1940 Census Release but there are also some additional subjects out there for webinars.
• I attended 4 of 5 days of DearMyrtle’s roundup of all things Census (missed Thursday’s webinar but listened to it after the fact).  These were all-around great and very useful. We received some terrific best practices tips from all the major players.
• I plan to attend the following webinars during the remainder of April:
• Going Digital with Josh Taylor on April 10
• Genealogy on the Go – the Families App with Malcolm Green on April 11 (through Legacy)
• Using Legacy Family Tree to Support Family Groups/Associations with Geoff Rasmussen on April 14 (through Legacy)
• Reverse Genealogy: Finding the Living with Megan Smolenyak (through Legacy)

Giving Back

• I signed up as a 1940 Ambassador.
• March ~ I signed up to index the 1940 census when available, indexed the practice census sheet and watched the FamilySearch presentations so I would be ready to go when the census pages were uploaded and available.
• April ~ During the past week, I indexed census pages from Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota and Oregon (I have indexed 1120 names and have a 98% accuracy rating ~ thanks to those enumerators who printed or had good penmanship). It is interesting and fun. More importantly, if we all volunteer we will have an index up and available for researchers and genealogists. It is a nice way to give back and thank those who indexed the previous censuses I have relied upon to find my families! I plan to index 3 batches each day (120 names) first thing in the morning. Are you signed up and indexing? If not, why not give it a try.

Onward and upward ~ I need to stay on track to reach my 2012 goals. If the first week is any indication, April is going to be a big and busy genealogy month!  What have you been up to? Any great finds? If you recognize any of the surnames and/or locations mentioned here, please contact me. Cheers!

Thankful Thursday ~ My Winter Slump Is Over

February and March were busy months ~ so busy in fact that while I focused on some of my goals (research, organization, and education) I completely let others slide (writing and blogging). The funny thing is I commented on several genealogy posts on Google+ and attended several Google+ Hangouts so I was "interacting" a great deal, just not on my blog. I need to work on that.

Something that was really heartening to see was that several other bloggers were also going through a "winter slump" (it is always nice to know you are not alone). After giving it some thought I decided that I really overloaded on RootsTech in February, what with the livestreamed and recorded lectures, the blogs, the bloggers' comments, the interviews, and all the other "goodness" that was RootsTech 2012. Don't get me wrong ~ it was great and I learned so much, but it was a busy couple of months for webinars, conferences, and social media.

I am addicted to Google+ but wish that there was smoother incorporation of Google+ with Blogger. That is tops on my wish list and I hope that the Google engineers are reading this as this is a wish of many of us using both Google+ and Blogger. What do I like so much about Google+?  The Stream is great ~ all my interests are in one place and I can easily read posts and leave my comments in Google+. Others who read the posts and the comments add to the conversation and it makes for a great real-time conversation. I do hope that the Google engineers can figure out a way to have the comments published both at Google+ and also on at the individual Blog (I find that oftentimes it is a real pain to sign in and jump through the various hoops in comment moderation ~ so much so that I have pretty much given up posting at the Blogs).

I am also a big fan of Google+ Hangouts and I am using them with both a Virtual Legacy Family Tree Users Group and the Guild of One Name Studies. It is terrific to interact with people "face to face," get answers to your questions, and brainstorm together. The ability to share screens and see how other people do things (especially how they customize and use Legacy) is a real treat.

Along with everyone else (or maybe it just seemed that way) I spent a good part of March busily preparing for the release of the 1940 US Census by cleaning up my database and using the Census Search Tool that Legacy introduced in March (many thanks to the Legacy programmers for making my genealogy life easier). I was up bright and early on April 2 and watched the livestream of opening day for the Census. I thought the speeches were great and it was fun to be a part of history ~ the first digital release of the US Census. Thank you to all the employees of the US Census Bureau, the National Archives, Archives, FamilySearch, and FindMyPast, as well as all the member Societies and Associations who banded together to provide such a terrific experience (the census images, the indexing program and the 1940 Census website) and a real community service to/for the rest of us. Kudos to Ancestry for putting together a great website to showcase the 1940s by way of photographs and stories, as well as putting the census images online.

I am indexing through the Community Indexing Project ~ it is interesting and really easy to do. The Family Search Indexing Program is well thought out and a breeze to use.  I encourage everyone to get on board and give back to the genealogy community by indexing.  Next week ~ back on track with Motivation Monday!