WANDERINGS FROM YOUR PRESIDENT
BY GAYLE STUART
I finally got it all together – now where did I put it?
When we are doing our research, we get excited when we find something new. Now, did you put it in your notebook where it comes in line with the rest of your findings or did you just lay it on top of one of your piles? We probably all do this type of thing at some time.
In the past when my mess has gotten really bad I do spend some time sorting and filing into folders that I have made up on some of my relatives. Why I didn’t do this in the first place is beyond me.
Today, when the sun is shining and we are finally to have some warmer weather, I am starting to have thoughts on sorting and cleaning out closets and drawers. When I am done, it always is a good feeling. But, if I moved something, am I going to remember where I thought a better place for it was?
This is the case when we work on family, unless we take care of it at the time we find something new, does it get lost in the shuffle?
In my family, on my father’s side, we are trying to put together a reunion for this summer. We are after some of the cousins’ children that we don’t really know. Some are on facebook together, but that has been the only connection. Getting addresses has been a challenge.
At this time, when I have been going over information on the family, so that anyone wanting this information will get a copy, I have discovered that some information is among the missing. Looking at records that I copied off film years ago (2-3 pages printed) I now have a way to condense it into one page. This extra effort has made some of my notebooks smaller and easier to handle. In this day and age, the internet is a valuable source to use and sites are always adding more information.
In your research, how do you keep material found sorted and filed? How many families are you working on? It is recommended that you work on one line at a time, but when you have brothers that married sisters, which I have in my family in two generations, how do you do this?
If anyone has a good way to file information until you can take care of it properly, please let us know.
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