Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

What would you like to read about?

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Apologies for my spotty blogging of late. My computer dying made last week challenging and this week I got a booster shot and needed a day two to recover. So my productivity has been hampered! But my computer and I are now healthy and I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of more regular blogging.

As I ponder the ideas I have for posts, I figured it would be smart to ask my readers what they’re curious to read. Are there genealogy organizing topics that you’d like to see me write about? Any struggles with your organization efforts that you think I might be able to help with by blogging?

Please tell me in the comments. And please don’t censor yourself. I welcome as many suggestions as you’d like to make!

 

 

Back up to the rescue!

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I’ve blogged before about the importance of backing up your data. Since I organize all my genealogy files (as well as almost all of my business and personal files) digitally, a back up is essential. In this post from earlier this year, I detailed how I back up my hard drive to the cloud and to an external hard drive.

My back up was put to the test last Friday when my MacBook Pro stopped working. While I was using it, it turned itself off and refused to come back on. I called AppleCare (thankfully, it’s still under warranty) then went to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store where they spent two fruitless hours trying to revive it. So now it’s on its way to the Apple repair shop. Unless I decide to purchase a new MacBook with the intention of returning it (something I might end up doing), I will be without a computer for at least a week.

My husband has an iPad Pro that he’s letting me use. It has a keyboard case and I can also connect my Bluetooth mouse to it. I’m grateful for that, but the iPad has limitations. The whole thing is a hassle. But it’s nothing like the panic I would be experiencing if I did not have an automatic backup routine in place.

Since I back up to the cloud via BackBlaze, I am able to cherry pick files to download to the iPad. So I’m able to use key spreadsheets and documents to keep my business going. I have Reunion Touch on my iPhone so I can easily access my genealogy database and source documents. (The truth is that I’m not doing much research, though. Since everything else is taking me so much time to do I have no spare time.)

My backup routine has turned a potential calamity into an inconvenience. If you’re not backing up regularly, I hope this cautionary tale is enough to get you to start!

Edited to add: I received my computer back from Apple on Thursday (only two days after I originally wrote this post). The logic board was replaced and an updated operating system installed, which meant that I had to restore all files from my back up. My Time Machine back up on my external hard drive made that so easy. I was able to initiate the transfer of those files with one click and they were installed overnight. I was happily surprised to learn that the back up had been updated during the hour that my computer was plugged into the hard drive before it crashed. So I had an up-to-date backup.

My takeaway: Having both the Time Machine back up on an external hard drive and a cloud backup on BackBlaze is what allowed me to weather this situation without too much trauma or inconvenience.

Photo by Dallas Reedy on Unsplash

 

October 2021 30 x 30 wrap up!

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It’s the end of another 30 x 30 challenge and it’s time to share how you did. I’m sorry to say that I did not have a good month. As I mentioned in the mid-month check in, I had trouble remembering in the first half of the month. Things got worse in the second half because I was in Walla Walla visiting my family from October 18 to 28. I had some nice reminiscing time with my father and my aunt, but mostly I was kept so busy with various tasks for them (and my brother) that I did virtually no research. I was able to process a few documents from my backlog on the airplane, but overall, the last half of the month feels like a wash.

But you know what? I’m cutting myself a lot of slack. I was not able to prioritize genealogy research and that’s okay. I know better months are in my future!

If you participated in the challenge, please let us know in the comments how it went. I’m hopeful it went well for you, but there’s no shame in admitting you didn’t have a great month.

I plan to do another challenge in December or in January, depending on how my December looks.

Quick Tip #27: Read the instructions to enumerators

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This one can be very helpful for census research.

Read the instructions to enumerators

When you’re processing a U.S. census record, it’s tempting to record the big information, like birth year and place and occupation, and leave it at that. But there are lots of other pieces of information that you can capture, which can vary by census year. Sometimes it’s not easy to understand exactly what the word or code written in a column refers to, and that’s where the instructions to enumerators come in.

Whenever I take the time to read the instructions, I benefit. They’re easy to find on the historical instructions page on  U.S. Census website or a simple google search like “instructions to enumerators 1910 census” will take you right there. In my experience, the quality of the work of enumerators is variable, so we don’t know for a fact that the enumerator followed the instructions precisely. But at least we can find out what the answer is supposed to mean!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.