The Turning of Generations

21COFH - The Inventory - Week 5

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:04:00 +0000

Well, I am running a wee bit behind with last week's project due to SLIG and RootsTech. The inventory I conducted is really an update since there have been at least two done previously. Here's what I did.

1. I decided to consolidate everything by using OneNote and setting up a notebook called Goodrum Family Archive.

2, Next I set up a tab called Inventories. Here is where the updated inventory went (along with the old inventories)

and the new inventory form that will be slowly but continuously updated as the project progresses.

3. I also set up some tabs for item level descriptions that have been done on a few boxes previously.

4. Finally, I set up an Overview tab with a brief description of our entire photo collection:

Now onto this week's project!

Link for this post: http://turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/2012/02/21cofh-inventory-week-5.html

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

RootsTech 2

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Continuing with my RootsTech experience from the other day, the remaining sessions I attended were:

The "Galaxy Girls" - Three Genealogists and Their Android Tablets - Jill Ball. Jill, who is from Australia, reported on a project she participated in with two other Aussies. They each purchased Samsung Galaxy Android Tabs and explored apps that could be used by genealogists. Since I'm trying to decide whether I want to purchase a similar device, I decided to attend. While I still haven't made any decisions, I did learn about the enormous number of apps out there, some of which I am guessing could be used on my Android phone. The syllabus for this talk is well worth looking at.

The remaining sessions I attended were workshops you had to sign up for in advance. I understand many people were disappointed to find the workshops had filled by the time they attempted to sign up. However, I got lucky as I was sitting at my computer when the announcement came out that sign ups were open!

Snagit for Genealogists - Barbara Rennick
Snagit is an image capture program that I've had for a while now but knew I wasn't using it very well. It was a hands on session in the computer lab. WOW! Barbara, who is an excellent presenter, walked us through a number of features of Snagit and showed us how to use Snagit to create a research log for our online searches. I left this session feeling much more comfortable using the program.

Bonus: I ran into Barbara in the exhibit hall the following morning and was asked to assist in the impromptu lunchtime session. So not only did I get to listen and pick up on some things I missed the first time around, but I had the opportunity to run around the classroom and assist attendees who were having difficulties. It reminded me of helping in the kids school computer lab several years ago.

The 19 page syllabus is online if you are interested. Did I mention it's 19 pages?

Word Processing Tricks for Genealogical Publishing - Jeri Steele
Jeri covered working with images, table of contents and indexes in Word 2010. It was an extremely helpful session, although now I want to upgrade from Word 2007. Sigh. There's a nice syllabus online for this session too.

How to Do a Webinar - Geoff Rasmussen
In this session, we went behind the scenes to see just how Geoff puts on his awesome Legacy webinars. Will I be doing one anytime soon? Mmmm. Probably not but I left feeling like I certainly could!

There you have it. My classroom experiences at RootsTech. It was a great 3 days and definitely a different experience from the genealogy conferences we are used to attending.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

RootsTech

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Well, I'm still recovering from a busy couple of weeks at SLIG and RootsTech but I do want to share what I learned. There is such a wide variety of sessions to attend, I decided to focus on those that could help progress family history here and now.

One-step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse: A Hodgepodge of Lesser Known Unrelated Problems

Part of the reason I chose this talk was because of the presenter. Stephen Morse made a significant impact on the lives of millions of people with the 8086 processor and now with his One-step Webpages he continues to have an impact. I was curious. What is he like? Well, he is brilliant and funny. I left feeling more comfortable using his website which I admit I have used very little up to now.

E-learning Software and Authoring Tools for Genealogical Education– Mark Lowe
Initially I wasn't sure whether to attend this session or not. Boy am I glad I did. Mark alluded to this session in his 2 hour presentation, at the APG conference on Wednesday, titled “Developing Advanced Research Plans While Staying on Track in a Modern World,” so I decided to go. One of the tools I learned about is Screencast-O-Matic, an online screen recorder. I see a future YouTube channel or even including video in this blog, if I can figure out how...

The Powers of Evernote: Photos, URL’s, Censuses, Geo-location, and Stories - Tevya Washburn and Kurt Francom

Being a huge Evernote fan, I was definitely looking forward to this presentation. While it was oriented toward beginners, I came away with a better understanding of several aps that work with Evernote such as:

Skitch - a drawing tool.
If This Then That (ifttt.com) - a rule setting ap that can be plugged into Evernote, Facebook, gmail and other. It's used to create rules so for example, you could set up a rule if you post to your blog, then ifttt saves into Evernote.
Shoeboxed.com allows you to send shoeboxes of photos and documents. They scan and push to your Evernote acct. Then you can tag, etc. if you want.

By the way, did you know the syllabi are available at the RootsTech website for anyone to download, whether you attended or not?

I'll have more in the next day or two. Right now it's time for some rest and NCIS.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

RootsTech - The Pictoral Version

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:13:00 +0000

Since I'm still recovering from two weeks of intensive and exhausting genealogy learning, here's the photo version of RootsTech. The wordy version is still to come.

The first person I ran into in the exhibit hall was none other than Becky Wiseman of Kinnexions. We had lunch together and ran into each other in one of the sessions. I felt fortunate to be able to spend time with Becky and get to know her better. She's one of my genealogy, travelling, photography heros!

Next along came the author of Stardust 'n' Roots, aka GeneaPopPop. We also ran into each other in a session and had some time to visit.

Tim Firkowski, The Genealogy Assistant, was regularly seen out and about in his costumes.

Thomas MacEntee, Mr. GeneaBlogger himself, was wearing his mardi gras beads on Saturday. Those things are truly world travellers by now!

It was a joy to meet Down Under blogger, Jill Ball, of the Geniaus blog. It was her contest that I won which gave me free RootsTech registration. She is a doll and I loved her presentation. More on that later.

Then there was the media hub. If you wanted to meet up with a blogger, it was definitely the place to be.

21COFH - To the Rescue! - Week 6

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:24:00 +0000

Now that you've had an opportunity to take inventory of your photos, you may have identified some things needing to be rescued from less than desirable circumstances. Your mission this week is to do just that.

1. Use your inventory from last week to select an album or group of photos (more if you have the time).

Some projects you might consider:

Rescue photos from a "magnetic" album. You know the ones with the sticky pages covered by plastic - aka- the "chemical sandwich of doom." You can scan pictures or not depending on your desire and available time. Just getting those pictures into another album, box or other storage will help lengthen their life. If you decide to put them into a box, please interleave the photos with acid free paper. You don't want any residual glue on the back of one photo to transfer to the face of another.
If you have some older albums with photos pasted or otherwise attached to black construction paper, you might consider a project similar to what I did with my mother's old album.
Also, it's perfectly OK to decide to leave an old album, like Mom's, alone and simply interleave the pages with acid free tissue paper to slow down any degredation that is occurring.
Don't forget about loose, brittle pictures that are wandering around in old boxes.

2. Decide what your approach is.

Do you want to simply put the pictures in a safer storage environment?
Do you want to scan them?

If you do be sure and use the organizational and file naming schemes you developed in Week 2.

3. Obtain the necessary (permanent or temporary) storage supplies.

4. Execute your plan (remember to use your work area).

5. Update your inventory.

6. Tell us about your project either in the comments or a post of your own. Be sure to leave the url in the comments section.

Remember to keep your project(s) to what you can complete this week. Have fun and good luck!

RootsTech Keynote

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Just some quick thoughts regarding Jay Verkler's engaging keynote this morning.

Bringing users and developers together to develop exchange mechanisms for genealogical information
Demonstrated ways of linking information together and embedding media in an engaging, user friendly way.
Updating GEDCOM to transfer all of your information.
Developing in a way to be able to add changes in the future
Google Software Engineers demonstrated changes they have made in searches friendlier to those searching for historical information. Apparently we can do this now.
Including the souce authority to allow users to judge the reliability of information. Jay even quoted Elizabeth Shown Mills.
Then they did some fun demonstrations that us, our children and grandchildren might use information in the future.

Just quick thoughts. This is a need to view presentation if you have the opportunity to watch a recording. Gotta see it to appreciate it.

On to the vendor hall.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

The Eve of RootsTech

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow is the big day! RootsTech.
Salt Lake City is crawling with genealogists. Today after attending the Association of Professional Genealogists Professional Management Conference, I headed down to the lobby of the Radisson where it was held and lo and behold, it was full of GeneaBloggers I actually "knew." At least virtually. Now I know them personally. Linda McCauley, Elise Doerflinger, Footnote Maven, Russ Worthington, Denise Levenick, Tim Firkowski had lots of laughs trying to "Bump" our smart phones with varying degrees of success.

It seems like everywhere I turn there's someone I know and everyone is extremely friendly. Can't wait for tomorrow!

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Take Inventory - Week 6

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:30:00 +0000

Note: This is really week 5. Sorry about the mix up!

We will be working with our photographs for several weeks. Before beginning that adventure, we need to get our arms around what we have by conducting an inventory. Unless your photo collection is very small, this will be a broad based inventory not an item by item inventory.

The level of detail for this activity should depend upon the time you have available this week and the extent of your physical collection of pictures. If this week is busy, it’s better to have a very general, short inventory than none at all! You will be referring to your inventory as you work with your collection each week.

Suggested steps to follow:

1. Move in an organized, methodical fashion. One suggestion is to go room by room, moving clockwise around the room.

2. Note each box, album (or groups of), pile or other unit of storage. You could describe the box (red shoe box) or you could number your boxes.

3. When looking at the contents, make note of:

a. General provenance – who’s photos were they, how did they come to be in your possession? If there is any additional background, this is a good time to note it.

b. Surname(s) included in the box or album.

c. General time frame and subject matter.

d. Format, size ranges and quantity. This will be helpful if you need to order archival storage supplies.

e. Note concerns and items needing attention, rescue, or other triage. Here you could note those “magnetic” albums, particularly old or brittle items, an old album with pictures that are loose or falling out, etc.

f. Other non-photographic items such as letters, address books, heirloom items, etc. Often when someone’s home gets packed up, different types of objects get tossed together in the same box.

g. Anything else you consider important.

4. If you have many photographs, you might want to move boxes to your work area as you inventory and then return them to their original location.

5. Please remember, if you remove items from boxes, it’s important to keep things in their original order.

After completing the inventory, you will be more familiar with your collection. Write a paragraph generally describing your photograph collection and keep it with the inventory. Consider including:

· When and who you received the photos from (or if you were the photographer say so).

· If there were previous owners or other history, mention it.

· Where the collection is located now.

· Size of the collection.

· Mini collections within your overall collection.

Tell us about your inventory experience, the format you used and, if you want, share your paragraph. You can do so either in the comments or a post of your own (be sure to leave the url in the comments).

Good luck and remember to keep this project to what you can complete this week. Rome wasn't built in a day and your photo archive won't be either.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

SLIG 2012 Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:45:00 +0000

When you were a kid, did you ever play the game where you throw an object into the deep end of a swimming pool and dive down to retrieve it? At first it’s pretty difficult to swim all the way to the bottom while holding your breath and then you can’t get back to the surface fast enough to get some air. Do you remember the elation when, with the prize in your hands, your head broke the surface of the water and you were able to breathe air into your bursting lungs? Completing Tom Jones’s "Advanced Genealogical Methods" course at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy was a similar experience.

After a full week of immersion into Dr. Jones’ course, I was elated, yet exhausted. My head was bursting with the wonderful information learned from him, Claire Bettag, Rick Sayre, and my wonderful classmates. I was constantly humbled by the realization of how much I didn’t know. We had homework assignments nearly every evening which were completed with varying degrees of success but something was learned from each. In fact, one I will be reworking from home because I believe I can learn more from it.

Dr. Jones's class was very interactive with practice problems, discussion and plenty of opportunities to ask questions. Not at all like attending one of his lectures at a national conference. The homework assignments were optional but I believe every one of his students attempted the problems and showed up early the next morning for the "debriefings." The assignments were yet another opportunity to see how genealogical problems are solved by one of the best in the business.

Part of the SLIG experience was the opportunity to meet and get to know other genealogists. It’s not like a conference. It’s a much more intimate environment because you are with the same group of people all day for an entire week. Classmates included several bloggers including Kathryn Doyle of California Genealogical Society & Library, Kim von Aspern-Parker of Le Maison Duchamp and Susan Bankhead of Susan's Genealogy Blog. Susan kept up a wonderful running commentary about our daily sessions and I encourage you to read them:

I’m sure the others will have comments as well.

If you are considering attending SLIG in 2013, I encourage you to do so. It was a fabulous learning and networking experience. The course list for next year is out and already I am trying to decide which one to take.

Happy Second Blogiversary to The Turning of Generations

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Artwork from clker.com

That's right two years ago today The Turning of Generations was born. Little did I know how much it would take over my life or how many wonderful people I would meet both virtually and in person.

Since we are entering our third year at The Turning of Generations, I would like to give a special thank you to the Wonderful Readers of this blog. Next week I will randomly select (using random.org) 3 people from the comments and highlight their blog. If you are not a blogger, don't worry I will be thanking you too!

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Family History Expo - Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:32:00 +0000

Here are the Saturday classes I attended. I will have one final post in the next few days.

Inspiring Ways to Captivate the Non-Genealogists in Your Life with Lisa Louise Cooke
I am starting to feel like a Lisa Louise Cooke groupie. Well actually I am! I've said before, Lisa has changed my genealogy life.

In this presentation, Lisa discussed some fun projects to suck your family members in to genealogy and much more. Many of them I remembered from her early podcasts but now they have visuals, listener input, and audience participation to go with them.

I walked out of this presentation with a list of projects to potentially do (especially for the holidays) but the ideas weren't just from Lisa. Members of the audience piped in with suggestions too, proving that if you are trying to do family history at home, in isolation, on the internet only, you are missing out on many wonderful opportunities.

Let's YAP About Your Ancestors in Pictures - Colleen McHugh
Colleen covered a great deal of ground in this introductory presentation beginning with the history and progression of photography. She also covered proper storage of your photographic treasures and scanning.

Did you know that after the Joplin tornado in 2011, people found family photos lying around among the rubble and posted them on Facebook in order to reunite them with their proper owners?

How Did My Ancestors Get Into & Out of Pennsylvania, and How Can I Document Them? - Arlene Eakle

Arlene is such a wealth of information! I don't know how she does it. If you haven't heard her speak, I encourage you to do so. Not only did Arlene give us information directly related to the title of her talk but she also presented some tools to help us in our searches in any locality.

For instance, have you prepared a Summary of Contact People for the subject of your search listing the name connection to your person, place and date. Doing this will allow you to spot cross overs from one locality to another.

Colleen McHugh had a lightbulb moment when Arlene mentioned if your are working with a German surname and it starts with J, substitute the J for Tsch and look inthe indexes under T. Colleen, I hope you find your person! This is what I mean when I say you need to listen to Arlene speak. You never know when something Arlene says might apply to you!

I have a couple of loose ends to cover before ending my coverage of this year's Arizona Family History Expo. Watch for that post here in the next couple of days.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Week 4 - Set up a Work Area

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Much of what we will be doing from here forward will involve handling photos of all types, slides, documents, and heirlooms so we will need an area where we can work and return to.

This week's project is to set up or designate such an area.

For those of you who don't have a space to dedicate for these projects, due to small living area or living the mobile lifestyle, you will have to get a bit more creative. Perhaps designating a space where you will work and then having a box or tote for supplies that you can take out each time you work on your projects.

Tell us about your work space or how you plan to utilize one either in the comments or a post of your own (be sure to leave the url in the comments).

Since I will be at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy this week, I will not be leaving a separate post. I have designated our dining room table as my work area, since we probably won't be using it to dine again until Thanksgiving. It's almost ready to go.

Good luck!

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Friday Classes at the Mesa Family History Expo

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:21:00 +0000

The afternoon began with Arlene Eakle's keynote address. As always she is a wealth of information and I was reminded to check the National Uncion Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) at the Library of Congress for ancestral clues.

The classes I attended through out the afternoon and evening are as follows:

How the Genealogist Can Remember Everything with Evernote! presented by Lisa Louise Cooke
This was Lisa's first time presenting this outstanding session. It was oriented to the beginner but as always Lisa had ideas for the beginner to advanced user. Many audience members piped up with excellent questions and suggestions as well.

Did you know Lisa practically wrote her new book on newspapers in Evernote? Wow!

Common Surname Google Search Strategies - Lisa Louise Cooke
This presentation can apply to many things besides common surnames. After going through many excellent strategies for conducting searches, Lisa reminded us that once we have constructed a great search to save it as a Google Alert.

U.S. Migration - Migration Routes of Our Ancestors - Leland K. Meitzler
I listed to an audio recording of the talk from 2011 Genealogy Jamboree and was enthralled with it. The only problem was I felt like the visuals would be extremely helpful. That's how I landed in this presentation and once again was drawn in not only by the words but the maps and other visuals Leland had for us. Looking at those maps of old highways, river routes, railroads, etc. caused more than a couple of lightbulbs to go off in my head regarding how my ancestors probably travelled from point A to point B. Leland gives this talk often and I highly recommend it.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

S-C-O-R-E at the Family History Expo Today!

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:10:00 +0000

It's been a long day and I am very tired but not too tired to share some exciting news. Lisa Louise Cooke, of Genealogy Gems Podcast fame has written a new book titled, Everything You Need to Know About...How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers. She made it available for the first time today and since I headed straight for her booth upon my arrival, I was able to purchase a copy!

Here are today's pictures. I'll have more tomorrow about the sessions. Oh, and to see some of the other goodies I found at the Family Roots Publishing booth, see my Day 20 post over at my photo blog, Shutterbug Generations.

The line of people is for the Family Roots Publishing booth. It's always busy!

Family Search has several fun goodies they are giving away.

Packing for the Family History Expo

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:42:00 +0000

It starts tomorrow afternoon! Amy Urman of The Genealogy Search has a great list of things to bring along. To her list, I add the following:

List of genealogy books already owned. I wouldn't want to buy any duplicates!
Bag I can roll up and stick in my purse to later fill with all the goodies I find.
Fully charged camera.

21COFH - Flip Pal & Magic Wand Files

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:48:00 +0000

This week's project is to get your files off at least one of your digital gadgets. Since the Salt Lake Institute and RootsTech ares rapidly approaching, I selected my VuPoint Magic Wand and also the Flip Pal.

As it turned out, almost all of the files on the Flip Pal had already been transferred to the laptop. I just needed to delete the files from the card on the Flip Pal. Easy.

Next I turned to the Magic Wand. This is embarassing. I won't say how long those files had been on the Magic Wand but it was from a previous research trip in 2011. That's all I'm sayin.

The scans were from several different publications. So I set up a file folder for each of the publications in the appropriate locality folder on the laptop, named the files according to my naming scheme and transferred them. Then after making sure the files had safely transferred, they were deleted from the card.

Here is where I wish Photoshop Elements could add metadata to batches of files. I do have a template set up with information that will go into every single file I add metadata too. Unfortunately, I had to individually put the citation information into each file using the Description field. UGH!

Investigating Lightroom is becoming a higher priority.

I didn't tackle the pictures from my camera this week. That is a major project that I just keep chipping away at. However, Santa did bring an Eye-Fi card so going forward all photos are automatically uploaded to the laptop. Woohoo! I still have processing to do but the uploading is done and since part of my backup plan includes automatically backing up to a cloud service, those photos are pretty safe.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Disclaimer: The usual, I was in no way compensated, blah, blah, blah. Every product mentioned was purchased by my family, blah, blah, blah.

Mesa Family History Expo Starts Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:38:00 +0000

That's right the Mesa Family History Expo starts Friday afternoon! I plan on getting there plenty early to take in the Exhibit Hall (which is free by the way) before listening to Arlene Eakle's Keynote.

Exhibitors include FamilySearch and the Mesa Regional Family History Center (both sponsors) as well as the following (for a list with links you can go to the Family History Expos Exhibitors page) :

AGES-online

Ask-the-Pros

Creative Continuum

Daughters of the American Revolution, Saguaro Chapter

Digital Scrapbook Memories

DNA Consultants

EasyFamilyHistory.com

Family ChartMasters

Family History Expos, Inc.

Family History Society of Arizona

Family Roots Publishing

FamilySearch

FamilySearch Scanning

Gene Tree

Genealogy Presentations

Guild of One Name Studies

International Organization of Story Keepers

Legacy Family Tree

LifeStory Productions, Inc, Heritage Collector Software & 'How To' Books

Genealogy Gems Podcast

Mesa Regional Family History Center

My Vintage Roots

Pacific Monarch Resorts

Richardson Design

RootsMagic

Stories To Tell

The Family Tree of Boise, Idaho

The Genealogical Institute

West Valley Genealogical Society

Personally, I'm going to make it a point to visit with the Saguaro Chapter of the DAR since completing my application is one of many goals for this year. More on goals later.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Process Photos & Files-Week 3

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:46:00 +0000

Confession time. I am notorious for taking pictures, scanning items with the Flip Pal or Magic Wand hand held scanner and then getting busy and forgetting to transfer them to my laptop. Since the holidays have passed so recently, I'm betting that some of you did picture taking or scanning and still need to transfer those files to your computer.

This week's project is to select at least one (more if you have time) of your digital gadgets and do the following:

Transfer the files to your computer (or wherever it is you store such digital items).
Remember to use your organizational and file naming scheme from last week.
If you have decided to utilize metadata for citations, tags and other information, be sure and include that into your workflow.
If some of your items need further processing or analyzing, add it to your to do list (unless you have time to take care of it this week).
Make sure this work is backed up. Always make sure your work is backed up! If you don't have a backup plan, there are numerous resources at GeneaBloggers.

Remember, the main objective here is to get your files organized in such a way so that you can easily and quickly locate them.

Good luck! As always, you can complete this week's mission by leaving a comment or writing your own post and leaving the url to your post in the comments section. If you don't have a blog, keep your own journal!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

First Airplane Ride - Sharing Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Compliments of airplaneclipart.com

This week's prompt for Sharing Memories over at The Olive Tree Genealogy Blog is First Airplane Ride. While mine wasn't nearly as memorable as Lorine's, at least it's memorable in a good way.

It was the mid 1960's and for some reason which to this day, I don't understand, my parents decided we would fly from Seattle to Spokane to visit my grandparents. We always drove and it was only a half day trip so why we flew is anybody's best guess.

While uneventful, the trip was very fun for this little girl. Back in those days, there were no security concerns so we just arrived at the airport and boarded the plan. Also, at that time, when people flew, they dressed up in their very best clothes, like going to church or a wedding or important party. So there was much preparation involved in the way of getting dressed up in some fancy clothes.

The flight itself was very short. Basically up over the Cascades and then right back down. We were served free food and drinks (back then the food and beverage service was free-always) which of course is always fun for a little kid. The best part - being greeted by Grandma and Grandpa when we arrived!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Digital Organization Scheme Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:22:00 +0000

Okaaaay, I think I'm ready to talk about the metadata/tags portion of this week's project. Had to think about it for a bit.

In my post, "Metadata, Image Files and Migration," I did some experimenting to see what metadata would transfer between Photoshop Elements and Windows Live Photo Gallery. Then I read, "Labelling Digital Photos," over at All About Digital Photos as recommended by Nira Porter Chambliss of The Door Keepers blog.

It all boils down to this. When it comes to digital images, I will use the Document Title or Title field (equivalent of Description in IPTC) as much as possible as that information seems to transfer to other applications. This seems like an appropriate place to include a citation as well, when one is appropriate.

Tags and Keywords are also really helpful but I'm not convinced they always transfer between programs so I'll use them, especially in Photoshop's Organizer, but I'm not holding my breath.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. For now.

If you missed Part 1 you can read it here.
This post is part of 21COFH-Develop a Digital Organizational Scheme-Week 2.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Digital Organization Scheme - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Our project this week is as follows:

We need to have an organizational plan for our hard drive.
Develop a naming format for our digital files.
In order to make it easier to find files, we should consider the use of "tags" or metadata.

I’ll be addressing the use of tags/metadata in a separate post as it is an area I’m working to improve upon.

Hard drive organizational scheme

Here is a basic outline of my hard drive organization as it relates to genealogy:

· Dropbox

o Genealogy

§ 1Research to Process

§ Admin – contains conference syllabi, newsletters, magazines, citation info, templates and other files not directly related to my family. In other words, stuff important to me but probably not so much to descendants.

§ Census worksheets all families

§ Heirloom Book - This is where the digital copy of my Heirloom Book is stored along with many other photos of family heirlooms.

§ Locations

§ Michelles Tree – Organized by surname and then record types Tip: Don’t include punctuation other than a dash or underscore in your folder or file names as it can cause problems. That’s why there’s no apostrophe in “Michelles Tree”.

Photos – organized by surname and a few by cemeteries

Programs – Data files for genealogy programs

File Naming Format

Surname_FirstName_YYYY-MM-DD_DocumentType_

Sometimes after Document Type, I include locality or short description depending on the situation and length of the file name. We don’t want to let those file names become too long!
For photos, after the year, I might include short description or location depending on the situation and length of the file name.
By keeping as consistent as possible with the name and date format, I can pretty much get the documents or photos relating to a particular person or family in order by year.

21COFH-Develop a Digital Organizational Scheme-Week 2

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:08:00 +0000

This week's project will lay the foundation for much of what we will be doing as 21st century organized family historians. There are 3 things we need to consider for this week's project. Your mission is to choose 1 or more tasks below as appropriate for your interest, situation, and available time:

We need to have an organizational plan for our hard drive.
Develop a naming format for our digital files.
In order to make it easier to find files, we should consider the use of "tags" or metadata.

I am not saying we should actually reorganize, rename and tag all of our files on our computer this week. Although if you wish to do so, go right ahead. There's no time like the present!

What I am saying is you should put some thought into how you are going to do these things going forward and develop a plan. If you write your plan down, that is even better because you will be more likely to remember and follow your plan.

Just remember, you need to come up with a plan that will work for you and that you will follow consistently! Keep it as simple as possible. It doesn't do any good to come up with a plan and then not follow it.

This is where our list of resources begins to come in handy:

Number 19 - Dear Myrtle's Organizing Checklist for February under week 3 describes her file naming scheme.
Number 20 will help you with your hard drive organization. In addition, Lisa Louise Cooke's article, "Organizing Your Hard Drive," in the May 2010 issue of Family Tree Magazine provides a written account of her podcast and UTube videos in listed in Number 20.

Additional resources:

For photographs see Organizing Your Hard Drive: Photo Filing Tips.
One of my all time favorite blog posts on naming files is a series at Ancestories:

On the topic of tags and metadata, Moultrie Creek Gazette recently had a post titled, Let's talk tags which is informative.

You can complete this week's mission by leaving a comment or writing your own post and leaving the url to your post in the comments section. If you don't have a blog, keep your own journal!

Good luck!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - In Which I Totally Embarass Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:39:00 +0000

Artwork from Bing.com

Last week I promised a Bonus Post. It was written and scheduled. Only I forgot to push the Publish button. After the hubub of getting kids on their respective flights to college yesterday (with luggage under the allowed weight limit. Yeah, that was a challenge. LOL), it dawned on me that there had been no comments on said Bonus Post. Nothing. So this morning I started to wonder...and when I sat down to write up this week's posts, discovered it was still sitting there under Drafts. Sigh... I hate it when I forget to push the Publish button. Please forgive me.

So if you haven't already seen it, here's 21 Resources for Organizing the Family Archive.

How's that for organization? Sarcasm intended.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - 21 Resources for Organizing the Family Archive

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:25:00 +0000

For our bonus discussion this week, I've prepared a list of 21 of my favorite resources for organizing the family archive. This was really hard because there's way more than 21 resources that are my favorites!

Hardware

FlipPal
Fujitsu ScanSnap
Magic Wand hand scanner
Flatbed scanner
Digital Camera

Software & Apps

Evernote
Microsoft Word (or your favorite word processor)
Microsoft Excel (or your favorite spreadsheet)
Microsoft OneNote
Android - CamScanner

Courses

Denise Levenick's Family Tree University Webinar, Organize Your Family Archive. Denise is also writing a book on the same topic so watch for it around June 2012.
Sally Jacobs is the Practical Archivist. Her classes, Joy of Organizing Photos and Photo Savers were excellent.

Books

Taylor, Maureen A. Preserving Your Family Photographs. Cincinatti, Ohio: Betterway Books, 2001.
Sturdevant, Katherine Scott . Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents. Cincinatti, Ohio: Betterway Books, 2002.
David W. Carmicheal, Organizing Archival Records: A Practical Method of Arrangement & Description for Small Archives, Second Edition. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2004.
Mannon, Melissa. The Unofficial Family Archivist: A Guide for Creating and Maintaining Family Papers, Photographs, and Memorabilia. 2011.

Blogs, Podcasts and Videos

Sassy Jane Genealogy blog regularly has helpful advice and points me to very helpful resources including #18...
Library of Congress, Personal Archiving.
Dear Myrtle's Organizing Checklists are very helpful.
Genealogy Gems Podcast and Youtube video, Organize Your Hard Drive. Also her two part podcast Family History Episode 32: Genealogical Hard Drive Organization and Part 2.

Archival Suppliers: Gaylord is my favorite right now but there are a number of good ones out there. Having had a bad experiences with one supplier (Light Impressions) in the past, I don't want to name any that I haven't used.

Bonus Resource: You, my Wonderful Readers! What tools and resources do you recommend?

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated or associated in any way with the above listed products. They were all purchased with my hard earned money or were free to begin with (in the case of the blogs). Also, I linked some of the above products to Amazon.com for simplicity. I am not affiliated with Amazon and there are plenty of other places to obtain those products.

21COFH - Badge

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Goodrum) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:21:00 +0000

Here it is. Our 21st Century Organized Family Historian Badge for participants to include on their blogs.

You can copy this image for use on your blog by right clicking your mouse, select "save image as" and select where on your hard drive to save it. These are Windows instructions but Mac should be pretty much the same.

Credits:
Original scribe image is from freeclipartnow.com
Original laptop image is from bing.com/images
Background is from MyMemories.com Basic Old Papers Pack

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum