Archive for the ‘documents’ Category

Sorting Saturday ~ The Sloppy Genealogist

Posted: August 18, 2012 in archive, data, documents
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USS Missouri (Ship Desk)
Photo Credit: Kelly Vial via kellyvial.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2011, Kelly Vial

As a genealogist and family history researcher, you would think I’d be a little more organized! I am overwhelmed with emails of new information and document attachments! Now, what is the best way for me to sort through these? I think I need another filing cabinet! A filing cabinet just for my genealogy research! When I started my research I didn’t really need but just a little space in the back of my filing cabinet. Since I really didn’t have much as far as documents, except for the packets of information that I received from a family member oh so many years ago! Now it looks like my research is going to have to take up residence in another location 🙂

My handy, dandy printer just decided that it needs new ink cartridges! So what’s a girl to do with her digital documents when she can’t print them out right away? No CD’s either! What has my office world come to? Looks like I’m running out of everything, doesn’t it? I guess I need to make a trip to Costco and Office Max!

So I guess since I’m out of ink and I have no CD/DVD’s to make a genealogy back up disc, that I will have to resort to Evernote and then export all my documents into my Family Tree Maker 2012 software. There is so much that needs to be done! Did I mention how much I hate clutter? I can’t stand it when my computer files are all out of whack and not in their proper folders! Yes I did do that! It’s all my fault, just being lazy I guess!

MY TO-DO LIST

Re-stock my office supplies (make a list)

Organize my hierarchy mess of file folders on my laptop

Scan more photos (Oh so tedious; I think I have over 2000!)

Organize my file folders in my real world office (which happens to be my bedroom currently, in this tiny apartment)

Organize my file folders in my email account (Ugh..that should be tons of fun!)

Create a filing system that works wonders! (Is there a program out there for that?)

When I said organization is key in another blog post, I really meant it! It would have saved me so much time if I had accomplished everything like I was telling you how to be more organized! Ha! You remember that saying your mom may have told you at least once in your life? “Do as I say and not as I do!” That’s the way I at this moment! Here I am  writing about organization tips and not even doing it myself! All I can say is I’ll try to do better and not be such a sloppy genealogist 🙂

Through The Looking Glass

Posted: July 25, 2011 in ancestor, brick wall, documents, Facebook, family historian, generations, historical maps, Oahu, old newspapers, past, technological advances, technology
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Our ancestors of past generations would probably think that living in today’s digital world of computers, the iPad, and even our smart phones, as alien. In their days, they were lucky if they even had a land line! Knowing what I know now, depending on Internet and my iPhone on a daily basis, I would be lost without them; I couldn’t imagine living life day to day without these items which have become so common in our world today. 

Image Source
My Smartphone



Taking you back in time, imagine life without any technology whatsoever. You don’t have electric or gas stoves, but wood burning stoves instead, you don’t have computers to write your family and friends an email or the ability to share photos, but you have to hand write everything down to the last letter, there was no such thing as a washer and dryer, you had to use an old washboard for every article of clothing you wore. Which by the way, had to be taken to the nearest lake or creek to be washed and you can just forget your handy dryer with your lavender scented fabric softener sheets! And what…no FaceBook? My husband’s grandmother, Evelyn is still in awe, when I show her pictures on my iPhone and she doesn’t understand how they got there! I have tried many times to explain to her what FaceBook really is and how you can share photos of family and comment on them. My favorite part of this is the way she says, “You can do this on the computer? It does that? Oh, how nice!” (Laughing) Oh the possibilities! We haven’t even really started to break the mold as far as what technology can do for us today.

Image Source
Time To Do Your Laundry!



So with this great thing called technology, I am searching and scouring the various websites and resources in search of my family. Making contact with relatives I never even knew I had, all through the use of the Internet and my laptop! Ha! Who knew?? But being out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, living on Oahu, I find that I am forever grateful for the high tech world I live in, and being able to re-connect with family I haven’t seen since I was probably six years old! 


The digital world has turned my laptop into a great tool. I now have the power to see through the looking glass (my laptop screen) to the world that was once my ancestors, and see not only photos of them, but also see the homes where they lived, the town where they grew up, the ability to see historical maps as they were back in the 1700-1800’s, searching old newspapers and census records, and so on. 


Today, my research is at a standstill somewhat, as I am waiting to receive documents from a family member that will give me something solid and concrete as far as actual data and birth records. Having contacted several members of my family, who I might add, are gathering photos and documents for me as I type this article. I hope to read and go over these very soon!


Hopefully I will be able to tear down one or more of the brick walls that seem to have stopped me in my tracks. 


Happy Hunting!!

My Experience With the Family History Quick Start Mini-Course (Series) DAY 2

Posted: June 20, 2011 in challenge, documents, Family History Quick Start, hierarchy, photos, scans
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The Family History Quick Start course that I started on Saturday continues. So basically, the course is just a newsletter that tells you how to do certain things, or at least it has been so far. Today, I have pretty much been asked to create a hierarchy of folders (which I already know) how to create the file names and so on. But anyone can create a folder on their computer right? Well, that’s not exactly what I am trying to get at here. It’s the way you create your structure and what you name it that counts in today’s lesson. It’s all about organizing your ancestry files for easier accessibility. 


So if I follow this assignment correctly, I’ll have a folder with my name (Kelly) and I’ll put any documents that pertain to me in that folder, but I can also create a sub-folder with some photos if I like. My next folder will have two additional folders- one for my father and another for my mother, last name first and so on. (Example: Smith_John_1737)  Inside their respective folders they will have two folders for their parents. I’m pretty sure you understand where I am going with this, or at least I hope you do. But going back further into your ancestry’s lineage, you will most likely have names that are alike, so you will probably want to include the year they were born to keep everything separate from the other person with the same name. Every folder created so far will have all documents that pertain to that person inside. For example, marriage certificates, death certificates, census reports, war draft cards, photos or whatever you you may come across in your research that pertains to that individual.
Pretty easy, huh? I’m really waiting to gain knowledge here, something I don’t already know how to do. Hopefully tomorrows lesson will be more challenging!

Naming your files depends upon your own research and what you need to name them in which to remember what file goes with a particular document. As we research our genealogy, we end up with a large amount of different files, documents, scans, and photos and we want to include these to further document any findings we have; so naming your saved documents and putting them in the right folder will only help you later!











Lessons Learned

Posted: June 16, 2011 in DNA, DNA Testing, documents, family tree, heritage, immigration list, library, obituary, online family tree sites
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Animation of the structure of a section of DNA...

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA. The bases lie horizontally between the two spiraling strands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since I started researching my heritage, I’ve learned a few lessons. The first and most important being, not to trust or make assumptions about the quality of research done by others. You will see family trees posted on the web, names that may be familiar to you, but check it out on your own. You will need to search for the documents yourself. I was always told by my husband, Michael to check, double check, and triple check! Okay. I get it, finally. People are bound to make mistakes. So how do you find these documents? Check out the links on my page, that should lead you in the right direction, at least for starters. Vital records offices are located around the globe, so I would most likely start with what you already know; i.e., full name, date of birth, place of birth and who the person’s parents are. You may even have this information saved somewhere, funeral notices such as the “In Remembrance” cards you receive for a family member who had passed away. This will give you a lot of information as well.
It is possible that while researching a family member, that you may never find information on them, for whatever reason. Say for instance, I was searching for one particular person recently, and I came up with nothing, no matter where I searched. It was like this person ceased to exist! 
Sometimes you just hit a brick wall and cannot go any further, at least on that particular branch. But your family tree has many ancestors, some with unique names and others that are so similar that even the parents have the same name as their own child! This makes your search even more difficult. When you start creating your family tree, the possibility of finding more ancestors to add becomes endless, or so it seems. As you keep going farther back, you have double the ancestors to search. Parents, grandparents, great great grandparents times how ever many! I think I have 13th Great Grandparents and that goes back to probably mid 1600’s or so. I will never cease to find more relatives to add, my family is huge and you end up with cousins upon cousins and their marriages, and their parents and so on. I’m sure you get my point already. 

If you are seeking true source documents to back up your research, try Social Security Indexes, archives, military draft cards, census records, obituaries, libraries that offer microfilmed documents, passenger lists, or even immigration lists etc. This should help get you going in the right direction, so don’t take one persons family tree website as confirmation that the data is set in stone! 

Has anyone ever tried the DNA testing that the Ancestry web site has been offering? If so, what do you think of it?