Numbers- Saturday Challenge

Your mission this week from Randy Seaver, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database (hint:  the Help button is your friend!)

2)  Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream comment.

There are over 100,000 people in my database. Well over. I use the database program to store research in progress. I also collect any and all collateral that I come across that I can easily throw in there for future reference or research.

The database shows 1809 places listed. Some of them aren’t actually places, but rather phrases that have been plopped into that space. A frequent one is “young” for a person that we don’t know when they died, but that it was as a youngster. Occasionally a marriage has a designation of what number of marriage is for that couple- whether second wife or third husband or such.

Sources total 1674 of which three quarters is probably decent sources. Others are temporary sources that either haven’t been properly wrote up yet or they are rather generic, such as “found on an Ancestry database, needs verification.” These latter ones are definitely a work in progress.

Glad this is short! My morning class is about to start! 

I'm in the library next door learning about legal resources!

Cheat Sheets

Today I received 3 legal “cheat sheets” in the mail from Amazon. They’re laminated sheets with information printed on them in a convenient 8 ½” by 11” size and hole punched ready to slip into a loose-leaf notebook. Many companies put them out on various subjects. Legacy Family Trees and New England Historical Genealogical Society among other places sell ones on various genealogy topics. Some are called “Quick Sheets”, these I see are entitled “America’s #1 Legal Reference Chart.” Whatever they’re officially called, I refer to them as cheat sheets.

They are much like those pages that you made in high school or college before a test that listed key points on them for you to reference and study. Perhaps an index card that you were allowed to take into a test with you. I still create these from time to time for myself. I have one with models of common citations that I keep handy for doing research. The chart that somebody (The New York State Library?) put out many years ago with the New York State censuses and which counties were included is floating around somewhere as is the one that shows the year each county was formed and from which other counties. All of these various types of cheat sheets are helpful to reference.

The ones I got today are not intended for genealogy, but rather to help law students or paralegals in their studies. One is on terminology, another on research and the third on legal writing. I will be referencing all of these; I’m sure, while taking the Legal Research course at IGHR at Samford University next month. Reading over the research one this afternoon, I was glad to see they have a listing of primary and secondary authority publications. Something that having not worked with them, I often confuse. It is the difference between which are the laws and which are more like interpretations of what the laws mean. The titles are all familiar to me and I smiled to see that some of them are listed by the color of their covers. Having worked in Technical Services in a Law Library for a little over a decade, I immediately recognize those colors along with the titles and can picture exactly where they were on the shelves. After all, not only did I check them in upon arrival, but I often had occasion to shelve or retrieve them as well!

I am sure I will have reason to refer to these cheat sheets often during that week of class. I learned just enough while working in the library to have a beginner’s background in the subject, but will be delving far deeper into the research end now. These are where such forms shine. No matter the subject, if you have a basic grounding in it, but need help on the details either because you haven’t learned them yet or don’t use them often enough, a little help goes a long way. I have found over the years that such cheat sheets are great for quick reference. This is why I either make my own or search them out already created for me by others.

Create a binder of such pieces of information for the location and time period that you are researching. With this, you don’t need to remember all the seemingly trivial facts or where to find that one piece of information. Also, you can remind yourself of sources to look at that might lead to the clue to solve a problem.

I actually have two different types of “notebooks” for these. One set I keep in a binder that can set on my desk or the bookshelf where it is handy. If you’re leaving home, just take out the one or two you need if there is too big a collection. These are very easy to rearrange. The other isn’t a notebook, but rather a digital collection. In a folder on the computer amongst my genealogy is one entitled “Cheat Sheets.” This contains ones that I either haven’t printed out, or that I want to keep a digital version even if it has been printed. If I’m using it often, it is good to be able to print a fresh page when that one begins to get tattered or if it is lost. Also, ones like the citation cheat sheet is handy to have that way as I can copy and paste a sample citation directly into a document or my family tree database and then insert the specific information in place of the generic place holders.

So, even though I fondly refer to these as cheat sheets like we did back in high school, they are actually useful documents for serious research. I use these to quickly reference information that I need to be able to move forward without a lot of diving into books or other records to find that information that I know I read and can’t quite remember.

IGHR 2016 Registered!

It’s that time of year again. Registration for IGHR opened at 11:00 am today. It is the last time it will be on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Next year it will be at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Samford University

My husband and I will be going again this year. I’m registered for Course 9. Advanced Library Research: Law Libraries & Government Documents course and Rich is registered for Course 3. Advanced Methodology & Evidence Analysis. We are certainly looking forward to our trip in June! It will be a great week of fun and learning. I've heard that Course 3 was full about half an hour after it's registration opened!

I’ve got our trip mapped out already. Although it’s a day and half of hard driving both to and from, we’d rather do that than spend a day flying there. I have a hatred of flying and trying to negotiate large, crowded airports and Rich isn’t far behind in his dislike. First all the hassles of packing to get everything on a plane and then there is no direct flight to anywhere we’d want to go from Syracuse. It’s either a run from one end of the airport to another to barely catch the connecting flight or hours upon hours in sitting in uncomfortable seats. Yes, we are definitely driving. I take after my father in that miles on the highway are perfectly fine.

I’m glad that I’ve got everything mapped out and ready to go already. Over the weekend I called the hotels to make reservations. We’re not staying in the one on the way home that I had originally planned; they were already booked up when I called! I was very surprised as it is a few miles off the interstate in an area with not much around it. There must be a festival or something going on in that town- we found a different one at the next exit.

All the planning and logistics that go into a trip... I learned some of this from my parents when we traveled when I was a kid. However, it was very different for us back in the 70s and early 80s. Then, we planned our route, but didn’t ever worry, or really need to about overnight accommodations. A long day on the road like these would start coming to an end when my Dad would say from behind the wheel, “Kiddo, I’m getting tired, find me a campground.” I’d grab the camping book and start looking to see what campgrounds were available for a reasonable price at the next exit or two and then read out the information to my parents. We’d pull in and there would be no problem getting a site for the night. Soon Mom was preparing a supper in the camper and later we climbed into our own beds for the night. Now, from what I’ve heard, you’ve got to book a campsite weeks or even months in advance and they’re a lot more expensive accordingly. As we don’t own a camper or have one available to borrow, I have not looked into what this would involve today.

A Florida campsite February 1975

Instead, I have our maps ready-- we do it the old-fashioned way, no GPS. Make a reservation for a hotel along the way; pile everything into the car and go. A cooler for some snacks and stop to eat along the way. So, we’re ready and in June our car will be once again Alabama bound.