Week 3: Assess yourself! You’re great at researching everyone else’s history, but how much of your own have you recorded? Do an assessment of your personal records and timeline events to ensure your own life is as well-documented as that of your ancestors. If you have a genealogy blog, write about the status of your own research and steps you may take to fill gaps and document your own life.
Lets start with timelines. I don’t do them. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are great, lots of fun, interesting as all get out, but, I don’t do them. If you have one, I really enjoy looking at them, so, don’t be shy, share!
Personal records: Actually, I am doing pretty good here. Years back, because Man and I love to travel and RV and due to the lack of space in any RV, when linking multimedia events became available in RootsMagic, I started scanning, and linking and scanning and linking. I set as long term goals the following:
1.) A photo or image for everyone in my data base. Now, this is not really gonna happen, but, I sure try!
2.) Scan every document I have. Yep, every last single one. This allows me to take my documents along with me when we travel. This is still a project in progress, there are a LOT of documents.
3.) Tell our stories, the life stories of Man, the kids, grandkids, Carol, parents, grandparents via images and text.
Number 3 fits this challenge, so, how am I doing? Well, not bad overall. But, specifically as far as records of Man and Moi, the vital records are scanned. Of course, there are lots of photos, from infancy to now.
As far as images that tell our stories, pretty good here as well. Diploma’s - yep, military documents - yep, I have even scanned Man’s high school letter for tennis.
I think maybe the most unusual document I have scanned for myself would be my flight log when I was a student pilot a few (errr, a LOT) of years ago. See, it is right there on the 5th line from the top, my first SOLO flight!! (And, no, I never got the full license.)
I have included in our life story photos of the houses we have lived in, I even found that I still had some of the deeds, so, I scanned those. I have gone to Google maps or Bing maps and retrieved satellite images of those homes, using the image that is the closest available.
I have photos of our camping gear/rigs/tents/trailers.
I have photos of our pets, current and those that have gone to the Rainbow Bridge.
I have photographed my antiques, my dolls, my most treasured items. I have recorded those items in two places on my database, with the person who the item originally belonged to and with the person who now owns that item (usually me). Having these photos on my computer also allows me to write blog posts when I am not home, such as this post about my great-grandmother, Lorena.
I have even scanned greeting cards sent to Man and I for birthdays or anniversaries. These are linked in my data base in custom fact called "Greeting Cards".
Our stories are found in the text files. A year or so ago, I wrote down my memories of where I was during important historical events, like 9 - 11, or the day Kennedy was shot, or the first man walked on the moon. I have been recording memories and stories of my family. Blogging is a form of memory recording.
Left to do, there are more photos and slides to scan, that project is ongoing, I work it in spurts. I need to record more of our stories. I discovered that I have never photographed all the Christmas ornaments I stitched, and have made a to do note to accomplish that. When we return to the stick built, I will once again walk around the house, examining my treasures, have they been satisfactorily included in my data base.
The Wild Ones all call this adding color to our data bases, for now, I shall say that I am about 80% on the color for Man and Moi. The images area I am pleased with, but those text files/memories still need some work.
Color me Carol
Hope you picked up an idea or two to improve YOUR data base and family history color.
*Linking of multimedia events may have been available in Family Origins, pre-RootsMagic, my memory is cloudy on this.
Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.
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3 comments:
Holy Toledo - I am in awe of you - both for being incredibly on top of the task of recording your life and for all the interesting things you have done. Outstanding!
This was such a great post. I love reading about everything you've done, and it's so well documented! That flight log is a wonderful treasure and now it's preserved for your ancestors. Thank you for sharing this part of your life.
Thank you Greta and Amy for you kind comments. Don't cha just LOVE multipedia events on family history programs?? How cool is it to record videos and voice of your family??
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