Sunday Search: Digital Digging And Rediscovering

Toward the beginning of the year I was finally able to start sorting through many of the items that I tossed in my desk in an initial effort to get everything put away shortly after we moved into our new home. While there were countless pens that needed to be organized and old power cords and technology that needed to be tossed, there were also a number of digital storage devices that piqued my attention as I rescued them from the grips of the office clutter.

Once I consolidated everything into a couple of plastic sealable bags (one for SD cards and the other for flash drives), I shoved them into a pocket in my work bag with the plan of scanning the contents later in the week. A few days and then a week passed without even a single look. Then, having accidentally pulled one of the bags out by the corner while retrieving my laptop, I unsealed both bags and slid the first of about a dozen SD cards into my computer.

I was actually quite surprised when I found absolutely nothing. However, that was the only empty card as each of the others contained the photos from all of our summer trips from the past several years. Great items to hold on to for the current twigs of the family tree but nothing much more than that. Thankfully when I plugged in the first, and the oldest, flash drive into my computer, there were a multitude of documents that I hadn’t seen in at least a decade (not really a surprise given that I remember this 256kb card being the first I ever used). And as I loaded more and more into my computer, I was able to pull older photos, documents, and the entire digitized genealogy binder that my great aunt put together.

Not satisfied with these rediscoveries I tried to think of all the other means of digital storage that I have utilized over the years… this lead me to pulling out my wife’s old external hard drive as we both used this 1TB monster for many years and it primarily served as our joint computer backup in the past. Well, on this I found even more photos and documents that I had long since forgotten about including the random pieces that I had come across years ago… items that I still don’t know if they are relevant to our family tree.

The digging was almost done as there was still a group of pictures that I had yet to find. Well, actually, I had found them some time ago stored on Shutterfly but only in low resolution. I wanted the originals, I wanted to see the memories from our wedding and honeymoon the way that I remember them… as clear as the moment they happened. A few boxes and CDs later and these too where added to our story, our small leaves in our ever-growing tree. It’s nice to have most of the pieces together for at least one generation.

Sunday Search: Paper Or Plastic

Over the past couple of weeks I have been scrambling to find documents and pictures both on my computer and in my files. It seems as though whenever I needed a physical copy I only had it digitally and whenever I needed a digital copy I could only find the physical one. It have just been one of those streaks but it also reminded me of the importance of the need to have family pictures and documents stored both physically and digitally. Simply put, you never know what might happen in the future and you don’t want to be in a position where you find yourself without all the research that you worked so hard to compile.

In my search for certain records and in the stories passed down the family, there are numerous examples of physical photos and files being destroyed by fire, water, or things that have simply vanished. All of these instances happened at a time when the digitization of these records was not possible making their loss permanent. There isn’t a week that goes by when I wonder what information could have been found in those records and the details that we will never have again.

On the other side of the equation. I have gotten to know a number of people in the genealogy community over the past few years and there have been moments when I have spoken to someone who had amassed a massive database of family history which they stored on their computer. Unfortunately, they had not gotten around to printing out all the documents and pictures when their computer crashed. While most of the time it is possible to retrieve the data from the hard drive, in this instance all the records were lost. All they were left with was a few physical pictures and documents here and there… they hadn’t even gotten up to loading everything on Ancestry. It was basically a return to the beginning.

While I am admittedly behind in this endeavor, I am slowly chipping away at syncing my research so that I have digital and physical copies of everything. Note that this includes storage on my computer and on an external hard drive. Once this has been achieved I will begin loading everything onto Ancestry. That’s not to say that I don’t load things to my tree from time to time but there is much more to be shared, more than most people in the family realize. Maybe I will be able to relax once this first big project is done and the ongoing maintenance becomes manageable. However, just stick to remembering the important thing… when someone asks you whether you prefer paper or plastic always pick both.

Sunday Search: Moving Our Archives

As we are slowly getting settled into our new house, all the boxes that I spent packing long into the night are starting to get cut open and the contents roughly organized. Not only are we having to put clothes away, line the books neatly on the shelves, organize the boxes of toys, and get the kitchen put together, we are also having to get all of our binder and boxes of photos and figuring out a system for storing as well as a place to put all of them. Of course, now that we have a home and we are not anticipating any further moves, we are taking things a bit slower this time around and really figuring out a system that works for each of us.

Thankfully, we have enough room in our house that we each have an office to go along with an abundance of storage options. However, with options and wanting to take things slowly this time around, we are falling a bit behind in getting things to a place where we can readily pull out images or information. And with things previously so scattered it was a bit overwhelming when we realized just how much we have… we knew we had a lot but we didn’t fully grasp the sheer volume of research and images that we have collected over the past several years.

With a few more storage options, and more boxes, my wife has figured out her own system. While I have a few less places where I can hide the disarray, I have figured out a way to get organized and have started putting thing in an order that will allow me to pull out information I want fairly easily. Of course, this is only half of it as much of my information is still in a digital format. While there are certain advantages to this I still prefer to have hard copies and many times find it easier to pull up information rather than rummaging through files on my computer.

While there have been many attempts in the past to get all the family information and history organized, we are finally in a place when we can get it done and not worry about what would happen if we had to pack it all up and move it into a completely different space. So, for now, we are going to take a quick break from researching and focusing on the archiving of our legacies. In the end, this can be just as important as finding that next new piece of information.

Firearms Friday: House Hunting Edition

One of the things that I have enjoyed about our current rental is the fact that I have room for my desk and my work bench. It allows me to escape a bit and go somewhere quiet so that I can either get work done, research a few leaves on the tree, or build/upgrade a few firearms. It has been nice having this space and something that I hope to have in a new home.

While it is common for home buyers to include an office space on their wish list, my request takes it a few steps further. While I need the space for a desk, bookshelves, and filing cabinets it also has to have additional storage and space for both my work bench (I will be bringing the current one with us) and a rather large safe (I plan on upgrading once we move). And when I say large safe I am not kidding around. Best guess is that we will need to have a floor that can support at least a couple thousand pounds (empty).

If we are going to find a place where we can stay for a long time (we hope to never have to move again), this is one of the things that I would like to have. Some may see this as an expensive and somewhat selfish item and to a certain extent they would be right. It is something I want. However, it is also something that we need in our home as I want everything to be as secure as possible. This is also why I am going to take things a step further and have a full security system… something that we both agree on.  

Basically, what it comes down to is that this is a hobby and a passion of mine. Something that relaxes me and something that I enjoy in my free time. I hope to one day share this passion with my son while also teaching him about the importance of safety both in proper handing at the range and, as in this case, proper storage at home. I would much rather him grow up thinking that this level of security is the norm as opposed to the contrary.

In the end, there are many things on our wish list for a new home. The majority of those items are things that both my wife and I want to find while other things are on the list that we have each added. It just goes to show that it is both our similarities and our differences that bring us together and what make up the perfect (and safe) home for our family.

Wet And Stinky

It is safe to say that we did not have a relaxing start to the week. When my wife and I finally finished sorting and packing all the things that we wanted to store on Sunday night I made a big pile in front of the basement door. I was hoping that I could simply make a few trips up and down the stairs while sliding the boxes onto the shelves. There isn’t much room left but there was enough to accommodate our recent cleaning. This was the quick and easy plan when I first balanced those boxes and bins atop the stairs… sometimes plans just don’t work out.

It all got derailed during my first trip to the unfinished storage room. I opened the door, turned on the light, and squinted a bit as the glint reflected off the wet floor. Something was obviously wrong and I soon found the culprit in a leaking pipe coming out of the HVAC unit. After taking a quick picture and sending it to the maintenance guy for our house, I quickly stacked the shelves before calling to report what I had found. Thankfully, he was up at midnight and quickly got a plan together which had everything taken care of in a couple of days.

Stuff happens and things were taken care of quickly so no complaining on this one (unlike in the past). However, our fun didn’t stop there as when I got home from work on Monday I was welcomed with fumes filling the house and my wife, with a rather pissed look on her face, greeting me at the front door. As it turns out, our neighbor decided to refinish all of his hardwood floors next door and didn’t even think to let us know. By the time I got home they had just finished stripping the floors and the stink was permeating the walls.

While we can’t stop him from improving his property, it would have been nice to have had a heads up. After all, we spend a couple of hours going back and forth and double checking that our son would be okay sleeping in his own bed. This frustration could have easily been avoided.

The following days was met with more stink as the finish was applied. It wasn’t until I left for work this morning when the smell finally somewhat dissipated and the noxious wall finally fell (it still stinks but it isn't as bad as when it started). So hopefully this is the last of the leaks and soon to be the last of the smells for a while but one thing that this reinforced for us is the fact that we are definitely going to look for our own free standing home with a little bit of a buffer of land around us. Thankfully, that was already part of our list.

Office Excavation

After my shift yesterday I decided to head into the office and attempt to do some cleaning. As you may remember, we did a significant reorganization and a little bit of cleaning about a month ago but there were some things that we have kept putting off. As much as I hate doing it, it was time to get things cleaned off my desk and organized.

Much of the cleaning and organizing had to do with all the papers and files that have been slowly accumulating over the past several months. I must have had an entire tree blanketing all the surfaces in the small room. In my opinion, is the worst kind of cleaning because you have to go through every document, sort them, and shred anything with sensitive information on it.

The truly astounding part of this endeavor is just how much stuff there is strewn about. For me, paper seems to epitomize the 10 in 5 mystery in that you wonder how ten pounds of crap can fit into a space that should only be able to hold five. It was a seemingly never ending task that had me, time and again, asking why I had kept all this stuff.

At the same time, I did come across a lot of things that I had long since forgotten about. Acceptance letters, testing scores, old flyers from readings, photographs I had taken, and endorsements. However, what were of greatest value to me were the papers that I had misplaced before I could add them to my genealogy binders. Namely copies of a few obituaries, a couple of family photos, and my conversion documents.

My conversion file in particular reminded me of an important part and commonly overlooked aspect of family tree building. All too often, amateur genealogists such as myself get tunnel vision and focus solely on the past. One of the worst things we can do is fail to color the leaf which we occupy on the tree. We have to remember that we are both story tellers and part of the story.

This omission is bad enough but what is infinitely worse is the failure to simply look around. Talk to the family that you have not just for what they can provide with regard to previous generations but for their stories as well. The work that you are doing now is great for the present but infinitely more important for the future generations of the family.

Lastly, the overarching reminder that yesterday provided me with was that whether you are researching your family or some other topic be organized. You are always going to be collecting more documents, more photographs, more books, and more stories and you need to have a place to put them where they can be retrieved easily. It was hard enough to find it once, don’t make yourself have to find it again.