Sunday, January 1, 2012

Genealogy Goals for 2012

This is probably going to be a short list—I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about goals, but here are some things that I definitely want to get done this year

2012 goals (in no particular order):

1.  Finish retyping and editing my dad’s memoirs.  I’m at Chapter 31—the longest chapter—out of 43 chapters.  Then I’ll have to reformat the first 20 or so chapters.  I decided somewhere along there to format differently.  Why?  I don’t know.  One of my first cousins and my youngest sister have said they’ll help me proofread Dad’s memoirs during and after I’ve finished retyping.

2.  Choose and add graphics to my dad’s memoirs.   Graphics may require some more help from my youngest sister until I can get back to my mom’s for my annual visit (thanks Helen!).  Someday we’d like to make this into a book.

3.  Scan my photographs.  I actually got started on this last night using my portable Flip-Pal scanner while watching TV on hulu.com and waiting for the New Year to arrive.  These are photos of family and places I’ve been since I moved to Alaska 13 years ago and were taken BDC: Before Digital Camera (prior to 2008).  These only scratch the surface.  I have tons more in storage at my son’s house in Georgia.  I’m not counting those in this goal this year, but should the chance arise, all the better.

4.  Come up with a better solution for organizing digital photographs.  I thought by having all my photographs organized by year would work, but really, I was too lazy to do otherwise.  Boy, was that a terrible mistake that needs to be dealt with.  It works for some things provided the “parent” folder has a more meaningful file name.  I get so tired of looking for that certain photograph and asking myself “what year was that?”

5.  Scan photographs at my mom’s house when I visit this year.  There are boxes and boxes of photos at my mom’s house, including some of ancestors.  She went through them all and wrote names on the back of the photos that didn’t have them.  They really should be scanned.  This time I’ll be armed with my Flip-Pal scanner.  I’ll scan as many as I can while I’m there.  Hmmmm.  Maybe someone in my family besides me needs a Flip-Pal! 

6.  Download documents that are attached to my ancestry.com tree.  This has been on my to-do list for 2 years.  I haven’t been very consistent with downloading documents and records that I have attached to my tree on ancestry.com.  I sometimes wonder, what if I didn’t pay my membership fee one year, what happens to all that?  I really should have digital copies anyway.

7.  Read reviews of family tree software programs.  I only have a free version of MyHeritage on my hard drive.  I really only use it to download the GEDCOM file from my ancestry.com tree so I can compile family group sheets once in a blue moon.  I’ve been ignoring all the reviews of the various family tree software programs.  They boggle my mind, but I need to get serious about it this year.

8.  Come up with a list of short term goals for dealing with my dad’s office/papers for my 2012 visit.  Have I complained lately about my dad’s office?  It is so overwhelming.  He didn’t really organize anything and had tons of research notes, correspondence, business records, and copies of stories, plays, and a novel he wrote—you name it—scattered about.  Labeled file folders don’t contain what the label says, etc.  The file cabinet that my mom bought for him years ago stood mostly empty until I made use of it!  His office got even messier while he was bedridden the last year or so of his life with family members going in and out of there for various reasons.  I call it the paper explosion.  I’m only able to work on his office once a year when I visit, so I haven’t gotten very far.  My youngest sister has worked on it some, too.  Have I mentioned how overwhelming it is?  I could write a whole blog post about this, and maybe I will!

Oh! thought of another one!

9.  Put my maternal grandfather’s papers, photos, etc. in archival boxes, sleeves, etc.  I need to start looking online and start ordering.  Right now all of this is in a wooden trunk at my mom’s house.  My grandfather, William Liming Redles, was a career Marine and seems to have been very meticulous about saving copies of his correspondence.  Although, I’m sure we have but a small sampling.  We’ve been trying to figure out this interesting man and his life.  He died when my mom was about 6 years old.
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Well, that’s it for goals for now.  My list ended up longer than I thought it would.  I noticed that none of this involves any genealogical research.  I need to ponder that for a while.

Catherine

2 comments:

  1. Catherine, I just ran across your blog. I am your cousin, Elaine Pendleton Howe, I am Stella Roberts Pendleton's granddaughter, Roberts' daughter. I too have been tracing my family line. I really love all that you are posting. This past weekend my husband and I made a trip to Savannah and Effingham county and found the Tebeau family cemetary and made some family contacts there. (By the way I still in waycross) I definitely would love a copy of your dads meomoirs concerning our family when you manage to go through it all. Thanks . Hope to be in touch more!

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  2. Elaine! I'm so thrilled to hear from you!! I can't wait to tell my mom. I think about my cousins a lot when I'm doing family research, and I wonder what y'all are up to and where you all are. I would definitely like to stay in touch with you. I'd love to know what you found at the cemetery. Thanks for the compliment on my posts. They are a labor of love. I will certainly share my dad's memoirs with you. My sister Helen and I plan to add photos to them, too. Please email me when you get the chance cpendleton25 at gmail dot com.

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