Sunday, January 29, 2012

21COFH - Take Inventory - Week 6

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.

The Inventory is my summary of this project.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

SLIG 2012 Experience

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.


© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Happy Second Blogiversary to The Turning of Generations

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

Monday, January 23, 2012

Family History Expo - Saturday

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

Sunday, January 22, 2012

21COFH - Week 4 - Set up a Work Area

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

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

Friday, January 20, 2012

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

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.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Packing for the Family History Expo

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.

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Flip Pal & Magic Wand Files

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.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Mesa Family History Expo Starts Friday

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

Sunday, January 15, 2012

21COFH - Process Photos & Files-Week 3

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:
  1. Transfer the files to your computer (or wherever it is you store such digital items).
  2. Remember to use your organizational and file naming scheme from last week.
  3. If you have decided to utilize metadata for citations, tags and other information, be sure and include that into your workflow.
  4. 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).
  5. 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

Saturday, January 14, 2012

First Airplane Ride - Sharing Memories


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

Thursday, January 12, 2012

21COFH - Digital Organization Scheme Part 2

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

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

21COFH - Digital Organization Scheme - Part 1

Our project this week is as follows:
  1. We need to have an organizational plan for our hard drive.
  2. Develop a naming format for our digital files.
  3. 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.
You can read Part 2 here.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sunday, January 8, 2012

21COFH-Develop a Digital Organizational Scheme-Week 2

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:

  1. We need to have an organizational plan for our hard drive.
  2. Develop a naming format for our digital files.
  3. 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:
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!

Here are links to my project:

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - In Which I Totally Embarass Myself

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

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

  1. FlipPal
  2. Fujitsu ScanSnap
  3. Magic Wand hand scanner
  4. Flatbed scanner
  5. Digital Camera

Software & Apps

  1. Evernote
  2. Microsoft Word (or your favorite word processor)
  3. Microsoft Excel (or your favorite spreadsheet)
  4. Microsoft OneNote
  5. Android - CamScanner

Courses

  1. 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.
  2. Sally Jacobs is the Practical Archivist. Her classes, Joy of Organizing Photos and Photo Savers were excellent.

Books

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

Blogs, Podcasts and Videos

  1. Sassy Jane Genealogy blog regularly has helpful advice and points me to very helpful resources including #18...
  2. Library of Congress, Personal Archiving.
  3. Dear Myrtle's Organizing Checklists are very helpful.
  4. 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.


  1. 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.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Thursday, January 5, 2012

21COFH - Badge

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

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Blogger of Honor for Arizona Family History Expo



The email came last night. I have been selected as a Blogger of Honor for the upcoming Arizona Family History Expo at the Mesa Convention Center on January 20 and 21!

Where:
Mesa Convention Center
263 N. Center Street
Mesa, AZ


When:
Friday, Jan. 20
Saturday, Jan. 21

Registration (at the door):
Friday: 1 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m.

Exhibits:
Friday: 1 - 9 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Cost:
Classes and Workshops
2-day Pre-Registration Fee - $69
Friday Only - $59
Saturday Only - $59
2-day at the Door - $99

Register:
Register at www.fhexpos.com to receive access to online class handouts in advance. Note: Online class handouts are available only to those who register online.

Prizes donated by exhibitors will be given away both days and Grand Prizes donated by sponsors will be given away at the closing ceremony. This event is sponsored by Family History Expos and supported by FamilySearch. The Mesa Regional Family History Center is a local sponsor.

I will have more information about speakers, topics, the exhibit hall and all that good stuff in the coming days.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Project 365 for 2012

I've been wanting to try a Project 365 for about a year and a half now. 2012 is the year to go for it. I just put the first couple of pictures at my new blog Shutterbug Generations. Hoping some of you will follow along!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

21COFH - Holiday Greeting Cards

Photo by Michelle Goodrum
This week we are sorting through and putting away our holiday greeting cards - both physical and electronic.

Last year I came up with the following criteria for becoming part of the Goodrum Greeting Card Archives:
  • It's from family.
  • There is a photo.
  • There is a note or holiday letter.
  • It's from close family friends (especially those my children know).
  • If it meets more than one of the above criteria, the item has a far better chance of being retained.
I haven't addressed the electronic issue previously, but it seems logical to file letters in the appropriate surname file under correspondence or if it's a photo that was sent, then in the Photos folder under the surname. Tagging the files with keywords (such as the surname) will help with locating the file later. That's if the electronic communication is from family. If the greeting is from a close family friend, hmmm, I'm going to have to think about it. Fortunately, this year we didn't get any of those.

For now, with the physical cards, letters and pictures, I am going to stick with the pretty holiday box where the cards, letters and photos are filed by year. The box doesn't measure up to any archival standards but hopefully, whoever opens it up down the road will enjoy what they find.

Carol (Relections from the Fence) mentioned, in the comments for this week's project, that she scans everything. What a great idea! I'm not going to tackle that now because I have a bigger mess to deal with. However, now that it's been written down in this "journal," there's a much higher probability this little project will get done within the next year or so.

Carol also suggests,"Check over for news of family, new babies, passing of elders, add all data to data base." This year we do have some of those kinds of events and I would have overlooked that step if Carol hadn't mentioned it. Thanks Carol! I did go ahead and scan those items as well since they are now sources in my data base.

Remember to check back mid week for our bonus 21COFH content .

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Sunday, January 1, 2012

21COFH - The 21st Century Organized Family Historian - Week 1

Artwork from freeclipartnow.com
with modifications.

Holiday Greeting Cards

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this year's project, let's tie up one loose end. If you haven't already sorted through 2011's holiday greeting cards, now is the time. Last January, I wrote about my criteria for saving them and several readers chimed in to tell about how they handle theirs.

These days we need to start thinking about digital greeting cards as well. What is your plan to preserve them?

This week, tell us what you do with your annual collection now that the holidays are over by leaving a comment or writing your own post and leaving the url to your post in the comments section.

Since we are just getting warmed up this week, there will be bonus content on Tuesday or Wednesday that I think will be helpful to all of us. Also, I should have our 21COFH badge finished in the next few days.

Michelle's project for this week is here.
© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum