Where is everybody?

[fudge stripe cookays]

And what is everyone up to? I've had to shelve my stuff for a few weeks as reprehensor and I complete home renovations. I HATE it when real life gets in the way!

But I have made a few more phone calls to cousins the last few weeks, and stuff is gradually starting to filter its way back to me-- pictures, data from phone conversations, etc.

It's just little stuff, but it all eventually comes in handy when I'm ready to use it. Hopefully there are many more pictures headed my way, and another cousin has made a tape recording of memories of her band days traveling around the country playing piano, and some of her family memories. I can't WAIT to hear it.

Come on ya'll. Progress report!
:hi: fsc

[CBHagman]

1. I've got nothing but the collective unconscious here.

Okay, okay, I exaggerate, but really I haven't found anything new since I printed out a few passenger lists from the Ancestry freebie back before the new year. I'm pretty sure I now have the correct passenger list for one of my great-great-grandfathers, possibly his future wife as well, and my uncle. Those last two are as yet unproven.

But sometimes I feel very close to that particular great-great-grandfather. I've never seen a picture of him, only photocopies of documents with his signature. I've been to his grave site and explored the street where he lived.

Does anyone else ever feel that way about a relative they've never met?

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Most of my Smiths.

I dig up facts that no one had known since the beginning of the century, and I'm SO TICKLED when I can finally see a picture of each of them.

One of our ladies married three times (the first time at 15, in 1853) and lived to be 94 years old. She outlived all her children but one, and had quite a hard life. One husband died only 18 months after they were married, another deserted her when she was in her early thirties with two boys to raise. She became a practical nurse and had to lie about her age later.

I feel a special closeness to her because she was such an amazing woman, and her kindness and thoughtfulness affected so many people.

I hope you can prove your new great great grandfather stuff! :hi:

[CBHagman]

5. Yes, I feel love extends down through the centuries.

No matter how austere, undemonstrative, or dysfunctional our relatives were, we're here because they lived, because they did what they did, because they set us on the road to life. If great-great-grandpa hadn't survived the famine years (I don't know how yet), gotten on the boat to America, and brought up a family here, there's this mob of people who wouldn't get to roam the Earth, and I'm one of them!

I hope I can break through the brick walls and find the real man behind the documents and death notice.

[sybylla]

3. After having to shelve my genealogy for almost two years, I'm starting to get back to it

And now I realize part of the reason I dropped it - I have so much stuff on certain families that I was trying to organize it and eventually gave up. The way I had been doing things worked great for a starter research project. But after 19 years of doing this, I need something more streamlined and definitely easy to access, annotated but not cumbersome. Problem is, I don't have much room and I don't want it all on computer. I like having hard copies for backup and those days when I can't get at the computer. I'm using Master Genealogist which is great for noting sources so I can see where I've been but I don't like any of the printouts available.

Any advice or a strategy you'd like to share, FSC? You've clearly been doing this awhile... :7

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. You've been at this longer than me!

Believe it or not. I started as a newbie in 1999, and have only gotten hardcore since December of 2004. I just got up to speed REALLY FAST because I was lucky enough to have a cousin who became a certified genealogist, and shared lots of tips with me.

I finally had to shelve all my other lines and concentrate on my Smiths full time for the book. I guess I would maybe recommend an area of concentration, concentrate on it for awhile, then maybe switch it out after a time?

There's a Dollarhide method of organization that a lot of genealogists use and recommend. I bought the book but never read it! I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants gal. Whatever the mood strikes me to work on, that's what I do.

I have a 2 drawer filing cabinet full of Smiths. I have pendaflex folders that I've used for my 10 main lines, with file folders for each person's family that I'm searching for, sometimes divided into individuals. But those I don't have organized very well. I wish I had a sub-filing method, but I don't really.

Sorry I'm not much help in that area! I just kind of do what works for me.