Archiving – Page 3 – GenealogyAtHeart.com

Lighting A Fire

A former client informed me today that she thought about me all night long. I could be flattered by that but the reason why was unsettling. It’s summer in Florida and during this time we experience torrential storms. Last evening was over the top with lightning and thunder and subsequently, one of my client’s neighbors home was hit and caught fire. Thankfully, the fire department was able to extinguish the flames but the home sustained much damage.

Why my client thought of me at that time was due to my insistence a few months ago that her family documents be scanned and saved in several places. She never got around to it. Typical excuses – work, family, vacation, and it’s not fun to scan. I’m not saying that those excuses aren’t valid but last evening she realized how quickly everything can be instantly destroyed.

First thing this morning she contacted me asking for help in cataloguing and scanning her documents and photos.

Please, readers, no more excuses! Make the time now to save these valuable heirlooms today.

No Headstone? Here’s Some Ideas

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Jul 2016.

“Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” Elie Weisel

Hubby and I went to the cemetery last week – not to check a record, take a picture for a memorial request or to honor an ancestor. Instead, we went to check on space availability for what would become our final real estate purchase. It was a very weird experience.

We grew up with the Jackson 5, literally. There are some historical moments that most Boomers claim to remember for the impact that it made on the world and to them personally – where they were when the Kennedys and MLK was shot, the moon landing, and 9-11, for example, but one of the most pivotal moments to me was the death of Michael Jackson. Seriously. I grew up about a mile away from the Jackson family household in Gary, Indiana. As a student council representative as a freshman in high school I was placed on a committee to select a band for an upcoming dance the organization would be sponsoring. That was how I first became involved with the Jacksons…

I am tone deaf – most people say they can’t carry a tune but for me it’s so bad that people ask my to stop singing I can dance, though, and quite well. So keep this in mind as I tell the tale….

The committee met one day after school to listen to 3 bands that had been narrowed down, I guess, from others that had expressed interest in playing the upcoming dance. The Jacksons were one of those bands. It was before they were famous. I’m not sure if Dianna Ross was dating Mayor Hatcher then. Likely she hadn’t yet arranged for all those talented people to transform the Jackson family into – The Jacksons. Michael was still too little, as was Janet, when the band auditioned. I’m older then both of them. The song they played was not danceable. Very weird beat.

I was not impressed with the Jackson’s performance and neither was the others on my committee. Which says a lot about our ability to recognize talent or about how much practice (and the right coaching) makes perfect. Either way, we selected another band. Can’t remember their name, can’t even remember the dance very well but I remember the Jacksons because within a very short time after this they were everywhere.

Gary’s previous favorite sons were Karl Malden (who had gone to high school with my uncle) and George Karras, who’s brother owned the house next door to us and who I price gouged once but that’s another story. Oh, Gary was also famous for the dumb song from the Music Man that repeats “Gary, Indiana.” Gary was not known for music so your can imagine the city’s pride in the Jackson 5. They performed a concert at Gleason Park, just 3 blocks from our home. They sounded great that night.

Like the Jacksons, my husband and I left Gary to follow our dreams elsewhere. I haven’t been back there since 2001 when my mom passed.

When Michael Jackson died I was on a bus with fellow educators on I 75 south of Tampa coming back from visiting a then brand new state of the art community college that had been built out in the sticks. It had been a tiring day and we were being driven back to where we had all parked our cars so we could go home. A counselor who was sitting a few rows up had gotten a phone call and I heard her exclaim, “Oh, no. That’s …” and her words trailed off. I knew she had an elderly mom and assumed something had happened to her. The woman ended the conversation, rose from her seat and half standing, announced, “Michael Jackson is dead.”

I couldn’t process this sentence. How could he be dead? He was younger than me. Certainly my lifestyle was not as stressful nor did I make the life choices that he had but….. he was younger than me. Certainly I had experienced in my lifetime the passing of those that were young – several fellow students, friends of the family, colleagues and neighbors’ children. But Michael, well, he was bigger than life. In my mind, he was permanently young and invincible. My memory wasn’t of him after the numerous plastic surgeries. I still remembered the little kid and I was stunned.

I told my husband as soon as I returned home that afternoon. I reached the conclusion, on the drive home that day, that our preparation for death needed to occur. So we scheduled an appointment with our attorney the following day and had our wills updated. That was as far as we got – didn’t think further than that.

A few weeks ago I received a thick packet in the mail from a rural Indiana county. I was delighted to examine the probate file of a couple I was writing about. My delight soon turned to sadness as I read that the grown children had to come up with the money for the burial, repay the man’s debts and take in their mom, all due to the lack of planning on the couple’s part. When the mom died several years later the kids again had to put their money together to make sure the burial was paid.

I don’t want that to be me. Hubby and I discussed it and decided that he, too, was going to donate his body to science. I’ve previously written about that so check out my blog Death and the Genealogist from 23 June. He wants his cremains returned so that’s how we ended up at the cemetery last week.

Burial is big business and expensive. I am thrifty. We reached our decision of where to be buried based on

where we live – we wanted it close to this area that we’ve called home for many years,
what the place will be like in the future – have experienced too many forgotten cemeteries so we wanted assurance there would be some level of maintenance
reasonably priced

That led us to a local city owned cemetery. On the way there the song, Stairway to Heaven, played on the radio. Had to snicker about “and she’s buying a stairway to heaven…”

When we arrived we learned there was a problem (why is there always a problem?!). The cemetery was running out of space. We looked at the limited options and Hubby jokingly said it was kind of noisy, being right off the main street. I laughed and reminded him we both grew up on main streets so it would be coming full circle.

In our community we can no longer be buried in ground. Looking across the expanse I saw lots of empty space so I didn’t understand how there wasn’t much space left. I was informed that many people didn’t have markers. Lots of reasons for that – the cost, lack of planning, couldn’t decide, it aged and fell apart, and so on.

That made me really sad! I recently did some client work and that was the case with the woman’s great grandma. Buried between two of her children she was the only one with no marker. The client was upset and said she was going to see that a marker was put up. So I really wanted a marker

The cemetery employee said we could order the brass plaque now and they’d put the final dates, included in the price, on it later. We sat in an office and looked at insignias to add to personalize the plaque and wasn’t real impressed. Discovered my real first name, with my maiden and last name, is too long for the plaque so had to go with initial of my maiden name. Can only put the year of birth and death and no relationship to each other. Wow, so much for helping out a genealogist in the future. I will be leaving in the cemetery file copies of our birth and marriage certificates and the obits for our parents so at the very least, if requested, the future inquirer will have a start of a paper trail. Check to see if that’s available when you do your planning.

Yesterday, hubby and son were building a brick bbq grill in our backyard. He had laid the cement foundation a long while ago but had never gotten around to finishing the project. Last night, he remarked about an idea that came to him when he was building. I have to admit this is quite humorous to see how one’s mind works but here is the trail…. Building the bbq grill reminded him of my family stories about my grandmother’s house that had a bbq grill just like the one he was working on. That led to him thinking about my mom who loved helping us with around the house projects and who would have loved to know that the crematorium had sent us a rebate after death because she had over paid. That made him think about the cemetery we had just selected and the people who had no stones and why couldn’t inexpensive “stones” be used. He recalled laying the cement for the bbq and he figured, if he could do it, anyone could and a cemetery base could be prefab and easy to install, too. Always looking to recycle, why can’t someone use excess countertops, like Corian, and engrave the deceased’s name and dates, then affix it to the cement base? I dunno! Why can’t they? Probably because there’s no money in it! All I know is that as difficult and strange is the experience to select one’s final resting place for us, it’s done and we can happily live the rest of our lives knowing we planned til the end.

Death and the Genealogist

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 23 June 2016.

My friends and colleagues like to kid me about my genealogy passion and my organizational skills by asking if I’ve already written my own obituary. My reply is always, “I haven’t – yet!” I really will, though, and just might get a start on it this summer. Although I wish my kids would write one like the son of a recently deceased woman’s did: “Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday,” the obituary read, which was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday, May 17.”[1] I’ll spare my children having to come up with something clever and will do it myself. I plan on keeping it short but definitely not like this obituary, the shortest ever published: “Doug died.”[2] Perhaps a genealogists nightmare as there is so little information provided but it is telling about the gentleman’s personality.

I think it’s important to be prepared so that my living loved ones don’t have an added burden. My mom had her will drawn and paid for her cremation more than 20 years before she passed. I greatly appreciated that; her death was not unexpected as she had suffered with Alzheimers for many years but her loss was difficult for me, none the less. Her planning ahead made it much easier.
My mom was a product of the Great Depression and would have been very pleased when a small check was sent to me several weeks after her cremation – she had earned a rebate. Perfect last business transaction!

Following in my mom’s lead, hubby and I have our wills done and our financials all up-to-date with our children able to pick up immediately when we’re gone. What we haven’t done, however, is make a choice of a final resting place. I want my body donated to science as I’ve spent my entire life in the educational realm and figure it’s a good way to end it . The process is called “silent teaching” which would be a first for me – teaching without opening my mouth. I’d be happy to enhance a medical student’s education. Hubby has decided he wants to do that, too, but still wants our remains together after the students are done.

Unfortunately, some states have little to no standards regarding cadaver “donations” so if you’re thinking about it, make sure you’ve thoroughly investigated the laws where you reside.

When I write “donations” I need to clarify, too, that the donor is paying for some of the costs. This is not a free burial. In fact, some organizations will only take embalmed bodies with that cost incurred as a responsibility of the donor. The (c)remains may or may not be returned to the family. If they are, there is a cost involved there, as well.

Since hubby wants a standard burial I figure we’ll get one plot and do a two for one! We have set up a meeting next week with our city cemetery to get additional information.
Then we have to decide on the marker. Wow, designing a tombstone is a whole other area where I get to be creative! Click to view some genealogist epitaphs I came across this week.

Thinking about tombstones led me to ponder about the discoveries we make on Find-A-Grave and Billion Graves. For example, I know I have a distant cousin buried in a cemetery but the family couldn’t afford a stone so there is no visible sign of the interment. The individual has a memorial on Find-A-Grave but no place of burial is listed. That will be problematic for future genealogists!

I have also found a family member who has two stones in two different cemeteries. Since obviously one cannot be buried in two places at one time there’s a problem here! Turns out that the first stone was inscribed with the name and birthdate of the individual while married to wife 1. Individual decided after marrying wife 2 to be buried elsewhere. Without checking the cemetery records you don’t know for sure where the individual was buried. Yet another reason to seek more than online sources!

Do your descendants a favor and leave no genealogy mysteries about your life!

[1] http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/this-woman-chose-death-over-voting-for-trump-or-clinton-in-funny-obit-w207281

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/obituary-two-words-doug-died_n_7710444.html

Random Genealogy News

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 9 June 2016.

Maybe due to the recent passing of Tropical Storm Colin through my area my thoughts are fairly random today! Several days of heavy rain and wind is pushing me to get outside and do some cleanup yard work so this will be brief!

First up – did you know that Family Tree Maker is back. They have a newsletter that will keep you updated as to when they are going to start synching again with Ancestry.com. If you’re a faithful reader you know I gave up on them about two years ago but now I’m thinking that maybe the problem was that I had the 2012 version and when they moved to the 2014 version it interfered with the synch. Neither FTM or Ancestry ever asked me what version I was using when I repeatedly called which says a lot about their customer support. Anyway, the software is now owned by mackiev which used to make really good products, like Kidspics that my own children loved back in the day. For $29.95 they’ll sell you their latest version of FTM at a discount if you had a previous one and I may do that as another backup. To sign up for their newsletter click here.

Update to my last three blogs about frugality in genealogy – Should have definitely mentioned Linkedin and Facebook. I use both and they are free! Did you know that there are over 8,000 genealogy sites on Facebook?! To view the list of them click here.

Two more reason to DO IT NOW! – Had a colleague from my educational job thank me for giving her the “Mean Momma” look when she told me two weeks ago that she had 14 boxes of family documents stored in an unair conditioned shed near a major river that floods. I told her to move them in her house pronto but she insisted that she was going to spend the summer going through the boxes, one a week. She had gone through 3 of the boxes when the flood advisory hit the area and she wasted no time in getting the boxes relocated in her home. With the storm, she had time to go through them and found some wonderful genealogical stories that I’m encouraging her to write about and publish. She’s an awesome writer so in the near future, look for a guest blog from her.

Another colleague asked me about how to go about collecting family history information. I pointed her to my website that houses all of my blogs (www.genealogyatheart.com) and strongly encouraged her to talk with her parents when she went home for Memorial Day weekend. When she returned the following Tuesday she told me that she relaxed all weekend and never got around to talking to her parents about the past. Five days later one of her parents had a stroke and has lost the ability to speak. Understandably, she is devastated on so many levels. If that isn’t a wake up call for all of us, I don’t know what is! Don’t delay – send that email, make that phone call, take the older relative to lunch and get the info today!

Those are my three random thoughts for the day – got to go get on the garden gloves and start picking up Spanish moss.

Heirlooms and Hand Me Downs – Who Cares?!

A FABULOUS FIND of 13 May 2016

Originally published on 11 May 2016.

I read recently an online article about the glazed over look that family members often get when we genealogists start talking about the past. The author mentioned that he was frustrated that his family doesn’t seem to care while the actors featured on tv shows are always so excited about their genealogy finds.

I understand why our family members often don’t get it. Here’s my top 5 reasons for the disconnect and a way to get around it:

1. The past is done and it’s not relevant to me. Geez, I even had that philosophy when I was young. Think about the 1960’s mantra of not trusting anyone over 30! It’s rare that young people can connect the dots of how several times great grandpa’s life could be meaningful today. It’s not just young folks. Some people never out grow this belief so don’t get me wrong and think this view only applies to youth. The solution is simple – tell or write engaging family stories that are applicable to life today. Write the story as a cliffhanger and I bet your relatives will want to learn more about their past.

Concrete tactile learners – there are many learners that have to SEE the picture, TOUCH the artifact, or LISTEN to the voice in order to process the information so show that photo taken at the 1920 family reunion and point out the resemblance to Great Uncle Fred. Caution is needed, though. Don’t overload them with a lot of photos or items as they’ll disconnect from sensory overload. A little goes a long way and what you’re aiming for is to pique interest.

Money, Money, Money! Of course the television actors are excited about their family history finds. Your relatives would be, too, if they were being paid for appearing on tv. This is not a suggestion to pay our family members to listen to us but it does explain why there may be a lack of enthusiasm. D. Joshua Taylor, of Ancestry Roadshow, mentioned at the National Genealogical Society Conference that his grandma updated the family history annually and every one expected to receive a copy gift wrapped under the Christmas tree each year. That tradition, coupled with the $20. bills she hid in the pages, did help family members look forward to the gift. (And he’s interested in the family genealogy so clearly this approach worked. Thank you, Josh’s Grandma!)
Individual Attention. Another reason tv actors are enthusiastic is because they are exclusively meeting one on one with noted researchers who sweetly answer their every question and have the documents all nicely transcribed for them. I tend to talk family genealogy when everyone is together and that may be counter intuitive. Instead, mention some tidbit that can easily blend in with the conversation when you are with only one of your family members. A few weeks ago, while cleaning out a closet, I wondered what happened to a collection of needles I once had – darning, knitting, embroidery, tapestry, etc. that originally belonged to various females in my lines. When I was into arts and crafts, I used them and always thought about the original owners. Daughter said, “Oh, I have those.” She brought them over on Mother’s Day and I pulled out a few and said, “I remember when your great grandma used these to embroider a kitchen towel” and “Grandma Duck used to use these when she repaired the hallway stairs carpet, the one I told you about that I used to slide down on my derriere when I was five.” Will daughter remember and cherish? I don’t know but I gave it my best shot! She is quite artistic so I suspect she will make the connection and remember it.
Road trip needed! When you think of “Who Do You Think You Are?” or “Long Lost Family” you know the participants get to travel. Most family members would just love it if they got to go somewhere, all expenses paid. I always sneak in a side trip whenever we used to vacation and my family still talks about the house on Long Island that several times great grandpa John Hicks Williams had built that just happened to be for sale so we got to see the inside (online – couldn’t find an agent who was available to give us a tour). Walking in your ancestor’s foot steps is a powerful experience and with summer coming, perhaps you can take the most interested of the family on an excursion.

Hope these suggestions help get your family interested in your findings – Happy Hunting!

Life is Short, Do it Now!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 8 May 2016.

Just back from the National Genealogical Society conference in Ft. Lauderdale and it was awesome. Wonderful to meet face-to-face with folks I have only interacted with online and some I haven’t seen in person in awhile.

The only downer was that a colleague of mine from my primary job had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency. She is working towards a PhD in creative writing and was looking forward to attending the writing workshops that were offered. Additionally, she is interested in family history and is the keeper of her family’s records so the conference was a great fit for her.

As genealogists, we typically place our family’s first so her disappointment in missing the conference was minimized by her right on priorities. This got me thinking of the lost opportunities that we often miss with our own family members. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just have one hour with that brick wall ancestor (and maybe a translator included!)? Don’t you wish you could ask dearly departed Great Aunt Alice a couple of questions? Recording her answers would be icing on the cake.

Do yourself and the generations to come a favor and ASK TODAY your mom, grandma, and if you’re really lucky, great grandma, what you’re dying to know. Make sure you write it down (and seriously, cite it). It’ll be a Mother’s Day gift that will be appreciated long into the future. Enjoy your day!

The Importance of Recording Your History

A FABULOUS FIND of 22 April 2016.

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 21 Apr 2016

As genealogists, we search high and low for records left from the past. After recently reading an article from National Geographic about what is considered “historical” for the purpose of digging up someone’s grave, I began to think about what historical means to me. I’m with the dictionary on this one – historical is belonging in the past. The past is what happened, it’s done and over. The past can be as recent as a few minutes ago when I began writing this blog or several millennium.

I have a milestone birthday coming up and that probably further influenced these thoughts. Coupled with the recent hurricane forecast from Colorado State University, I usually start thinking at this time of year about the “what ifs” regarding a severe storm coming my way. I’m a tad paranoid having experienced several hurricanes and losing just about everything in one back in the 1980’s.

Another layer regarding my thoughts is that I recently acquired a diary written by a woman in the late 1800’s about her life in a rural community. What I love most about her writing is that it was so succinct yet so telling. I’m making up this example to demonstrate the style:

15 – Fri.- Cloudy and warm. Rose early to set a hen in shed. Tilled garden. John to town to trade eggs. Mary Madden poorly, doc Bailey called. Jim and Liz – a girl.

There are 30+ years of entries and a wealth of genealogical gems in two lines! She always recorded the weather, which was a critical factor in successful farming, the family’s jobs of the day, and bits and pieces about the social life of the community. Sometimes she included major news, such as strikes in a far off city, the country’s election results and train wrecks.

What impressed me the most was how nonjudgmental were the writer’s entries. When a store clerk shot a farmer she recorded the event but not the why or the sides of the story. She was a “just the facts” kind of girl. I like that – let others form their own opinions of the events through their historical lens.

I decided I am going to start a diary on the day of my birthday in this format. Why? Simply because we don’t take the age in which we’re living as someday being considered worth remembering. Since we’re living the events they are commonplace to us and thus, not important. That’s wrong!

We’re also not vain so we tend to think that our lives don’t need recording. Don’t you do a happy dance when you find a tidbit about your great great grandma? I was so excited when I found one of mine had won a county fair award when she was 8 for sewing. If I hadn’t found the newspaper clipping that listed all the blue ribbon winners I would have never known. It told me a lot about her – that she sewed and did that well, her parents encouraged her to compete and be a part of the larger community at a young age, and that she was at the fair event.

Don’t neglect telling your tale! You are important and one day, one of your descendants will appreciate that you recorded your life. You don’t have to do it in the way I’ve selected. You can write a mini-autobiography or use a letter format. If you’re artistic, a collage of events in your life that were important to you can be depicted. You might want to record and videotape yourself if you’re more of an oral story teller. It doesn’t matter how you record your life, what matters is that you do!

Not sure where to start? Interview yourself! Here are some resources to get you started:

You can see that many of the questions are redundant. I really like FamilySearch.org’s approach, 52 questions – one a week. You can do this! Take the challenge!

Donations

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 27 March 2016.

Had an interesting genealogical experience last week that I want to caution you about! I’m all over the web – you can find my blog, website, email, public tree on Ancestry, FamilySearch, Find-A-Grave, etc. and I’m visible for several reasons:

I strongly believe my ancestors’ information and stories should be shared with anyone who cares to learn about them.
I LOVE genealogy, history and family stories so I joyfully research and investigate the past.
I’m more interested in preserving what I discover than gaining monetary compensation for my efforts.
Collaboration works for me! I like connecting with others who are interested in the same lines that I am; if I’m not visible how are they going to find me?
I understand if you don’t share these views; I’m not going to try to convince you to change your mind so don’t try to do that to me.

With that said, here’s what happened – I received an email message that someone was trying to contact me via a public posting forum. I went to the site and the individual was requesting contact information for the deceased’s living relatives, though it didn’t say why. I responded publicly to contact me via my email to discuss as I don’t give out living people information, other than my own, in a public manner.

I soon received an email from a small museum who wanted to know who the next of kin was as the deceased had donated an item that the organization no longer could display. The museum needed to know if the family wanted the item returned or if they could sell it and keep the proceeds.

I responded what my relationship was to the deceased but they wanted a blood relative. Using the tools of the genealogy trade, I found a living adult child who didn’t want the item and emailed the organization that they could sell it.

So, now you have the background of the bigger issue here – what happens to items that you or your loved ones’ donate. This experience jarred me because I never really thought about a museum discarding items. I donated a lot of old sheet music to a local museum about 15 years ago because they were trying to grow their collection and we didn’t have the room for it. If they decided to sell it I’d be fine with that. Although ancestors owned the sheet music I wouldn’t consider it an heirloom. When I gave it away I didn’t think about asking for it back if they couldn’t house it any more. In my head, you give it away and you have no rights to it any longer. Apparently, the deceased thought differently!

If you plan on donating items you need to educate yourself before you give. Check out these links: http://www2.archivists.org/publications/brochures/donating-familyrecs

http://web.library.yale.edu/mssa/collections/donating-materials

http://dos.myflorida.com/library-archives/about-us/about-the-state-archives-of-florida/how-do-i-donate-to-the-archives/

and definitely check out the organization you’ve planned to give to BEFORE you make that donation. Ask

Does the organizations short and long term goals mesh with the items being given? If not, they may not want to keep them long term.
Do you understand the documents you’re going to sign? Check with your lawyer and accountant before you make the donation.
Is it clear what will happen to your items in the event the museum no longer wants them?
If there is a provision to return items, how will the organization get in contact with you or your descendants?

Definitely food for thought while your devouring your chocolate bunny today!

Your Tree Posthumously

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 Oct 2015.

Being that it’s Geneanet’s A Cemetery for Posterity Weekend, I’ve been thinking about ways to have me tree live on after I do. Geneanet had an interesting blog on the 5 October 1915 by Jean-Yves regarding your genealogical tree after you’ve died. I don’t have a tree on Geneanet but I may want to investigate doing so. You can read the blog here: What Happens To Your Data…

And then there was this interesting post in Myrt’s blog about ancestry’s disappearing records. It happened to me trying to retrieve my husband’s 3 times great grandfather’s obit info. I recently blogged about John and Mary “Mollie” O’Brien Cooke (A New Genealogy Society – What Fun! 11 October 2015). When I was checking my saved sources on ancestry.com for the couple I couldn’t retrieve the info for John’s obit. On the bottom right hand corner on the old ancestry version I could see the link under Source Info but when I clicked nothing appeared. I tried to do a search through the card catalog for Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 using John Cooke but there were no hits. I had a hard copy so I dug through my records and found it.

I’m not sure if ancestry reactivated all the records they had blocked a few weeks ago because I tried it again yesterday and I was able to access it. Very weird! Having records here one day and gone the next is frustrating. That makes me want to save what I find in multiple locations to insure that the data isn’t lost.

If you’re a member of the National Genealogical Society one of the new benefits is obtaining access to the United States and Canada records FREE on Find My Past. I tried last week to upload my tree as a gedcom to the site but I kept receiving an error message. Although my tree is large it’s well within the limits of the Find My Past site. Going to try it again today. If you’re interested in getting Find My Past, the first crack at registering for the upcoming Family History Conference to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida the first week of May, 2016, and very useful periodicals, you can join here,

Another though I had was the idea of creating ebooks on my lines once I’ve obtained genealogical certification. I could then download the ebook and print a hardcopy. I would include snips of the pertinent records in the text so if the original disappears there would still be a picture available.

So many ideas – so little time!

Poof Be Gone-How Quickly Records Can Disappear

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Jun 2015.

It’s officially Hurricane Season (June 1st-November 30th) and I’m predicting several storms. My rationale for the prediction is from observation and experience. May was hotter than usual and the summer rain pattern began early this year. By rain pattern, I mean the afternoon thunderstorms that drench the Tampa Bay region between noon and four daily, followed by a gentle Gulf breeze and sunshine for the rest of the day. The Gulf’s temperature is already hotter than in years when we didn’t have much hurricane activity, thus supporting my prediction. My husband hates hearing my last reason for a bad season but I stand by this – our daughter is moving back to the area. Every time she had signed up to take a medical school exam (MCAT, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3) there has been a hurricane – even when she had relocated to New Jersey. I can’t explain why she hits the hurricane jackpot every time she has to take an exam but she has two more coming up – mid August and early October so I’m preparing for the worst!

About a month ago, Genealogy Ninja Thomas MacEntee sent an email about a new Kindle E-Book he had just released called Preserving Your Family’s Oral History and Stories. He proposed the question, “How Safe is Your Family History?” and used the term “future proof” meaning making sure that your records will be available in the future. When I read this I immediately got a smug feeling – my family records and photos are all digitized. Most are public on Ancestry and privately held in Picassa. I have given copies on DVDs to several relatives around the US. The originals are kept in acid free sleeves in plastic storage bins on the highest shelf in the middle of my climate controlled home to insure against flood, wind, mold and water damage.

My smugness didn’t last long. Soon after reading the email I got a call from both my sister-in-law and daughter. Neither could find the DVD I had given them and they needed a picture. Turns out my son can’t find his copy, either. Sure, I could give them all another copy but what would happen if they again lose it or it malfunctions and something happens to me?

The next week I was sitting in my favorite chair, blogging away on my old laptop. A mosquito landed on my leg and I immediately slapped it. Not only did I miss the mosquito I had shifted in the chair and knocked the thumb drive into the armrest. I didn’t think much about it until several hours later when I tried to eject it. The device could not be found. I could find it – it was right in front of me sticking out of the laptop. Unfortunately, my computer could no longer read it because somehow it had snapped a connection inside the drive. I tried to remain calm thinking that I have most everything backed up to Dropbox except one file. Surely, it must still be somewhere on my hard drive. Nope, I hadn’t saved it because my laptop is old and I don’t trust it. I tried to go to recent documents but I guess I hadn’t opened it on the laptop recently so it wasn’t there. The next day my husband found the Excel document in my temp files. It wasn’t the most up-to-date version but it was much better than not having it all.

Okay, so DVDs get lost and thumb drives break, there are still clouds, right?! Well, only when they work. In mid-May a coworker asked to see a picture of the hydroponic garden that my son had built. I open my (not so) smart phone and couldn’t access the picture. Seems I had used up all my memory space somehow. I went from camera to gallery but still couldn’t access it. No worries, I thought, I have my photos sent to Picassa so I’ll just log on and find it. That’s when I discovered that you can’t view your photo in Picassa if your phone doesn’t upload it which mine didn’t do. Granted, this was not a major loss but it further lessened my smugness about my “future proofing” a tad more.

In the 3rd week of May I was visiting the Tampa Bay History Center to research Jose Marti’s visit to Tampa (see blog 14 May 2015 Marker Mistakes-Historical Plaque Inaccuracies) when I learned the center doesn’t have a printer or scanner for researchers’ use. I didn’t bring my digital camera, I wasn’t going to trust my new thumb drive, I couldn’t use my phone so I thought I was absolutely brilliant by taking photos of the pages with my Kindle. Well, I wasn’t so brilliant.

I got home late from work that night and was preparing for all day field trips with my students for the next two days so I didn’t take a look at the photos. I assumed they were going to go directly to Picassa. I know, I know, never assume in genealogy; someday I will get that lesson down. Three days after I had taken the photos I was holding my Kindle, purse, clipboards, travel mug, beach towel, and while getting out of the car, the Kindle slipped out of it’s sleeve and hit the garage floor. I noticed several hours later the Kindle screen was cracked. I also learned that my photos hadn’t been sent to Picassa because I had signed on to my Kindle with a different email address that Picassa didn’t recognize. I was able to keep rotating the device until I had the pics emailed from one address to another but it was a major pain in the neck after a long hot tiring day (and kudos to Amazon staff who were so nice about helping me save the photos AND sending me out a replacement Kindle 2 days later!) Well, by now I was no longer feeling secure about by ability to future proof my records.

To make me even further concerned, Eric Jelle, of Genedocs Templates on Facebook, posted this on Memorial Day Weekend: ” I would also like to take a moment to inform/remind members that both my grandfather and his father (Grandpa Richard) had their discharge paperwork burned and lost forever in the horrible fire in 1973 in St Louis at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). Before I even knew the fire happened or its 16 – 18 million military service document destroying impact, I had inherited the member copies of both Rays and Richards service info and then made color copies and sent them to NPRC after learning they had nothing on file. Of course, I went the extra mile and included service portraits of each too! IF you have these documents or end up with them – please send copies to NARA/NPRC which has a new fireproof facility in St Louis so you can rest easy they likely will not be easily burned again.” Fire! Don’t even want to think about that. I live in an area with lots of lightning which causes lots of fires. I got that nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach reading his post.

I don’t want to sound paranoid but I’ve had too many tech issues in the past month not to be worried.

I guess it’s a miracle we find any documents today given all the things that can cause destruction. I’m hoping I’m wrong about the upcoming hurricane season and I’m hoping my work will be preserved.

The only solutions I can come up with is to make sure that our work is shared as much as possible and that both electronic and hard copies are made. I am making a point of saving my Ancestry tree to Legacy monthly and a copy is kept on my hard drive and in Dropbox. I have tried the Wiki Tree on Familysearch.org but I have some concerns about relying on it. First, its a Wiki and anyone can change what you input. That could be a positive if someone is correcting an incorrect entry but it can also be disastrous if someone is deleting your correct information. Second, maybe it’s me but I have a difficult time maneuvering on the site’s tree. Third, I have a large tree and don’t have time to input or click and select from the site’s choices to build. I spoke with a tech person when I was at the Family History Library in March and there is no option to upload a gedcom, old PAF or any other genealogical management program. So, Familysearch.org is not a viable alternative for me.

And now there’s the Ancestry rumors circulating again. I’m not overly concerned with their upcoming auction but one never knows what a new buyer will do. I never thought PAF would go away or Rootsweb would not have continued to grow.

I do absolutely love Ancestry’s new format (though I hate the drab background colors) that permits turning your ancestor’s timeline into a story. I’ve noticed some minor glitches but the edit feature allowed me to make corrections quickly and easily. I’m thinking of taking the stories and printing a family book for an additional safeguard against losing data. A hard copy could even be donated to a library or historical society even further insuring your hard work isn’t lost.

My last fail safe method to preserving our family tree is to further motivate family members who have shown an interest in genealogy as I would like them to continue on with the work that I began when I can no longer do so.

I’d appreciate hearing any preservation ideas you may have!