Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest

Continuing the weekly thread organised by Michelle at The Turning of Generations

Being of slightly obsessive disposition, I do keep numerous backups and updates. The reason for this obsession is that I learn’t the hard way!

As soon as I have taken a series of photos they are backed up to my external hard drive, each with a clear named folder. They are then added to Flickr, with again clear titles. Any photos that I want to remain private are flagged accordingly. I also make a CD of specific photographs – such as holidays or trips away.
Photos taken with my iPhone are imported into my laptop and the folder marked with the date and a one word description for example – 2011-13-07 – Jersey. At the end of every month I back up the months files to my external hard drive and then start the whole process again.

Going forward, I plan to remain making a back up via external hard drive, CD and Flickr. What I do need to do is to start going back through the external hard drive moving the genealogical photos into the surname folders. I do have a master folder on the external hard drive of all our old family photos.

I also need to continue digitalising the photographs we have. We currently have three huge plastic crates in the loft area. Each paper envelope is named (either my initials or hubby) and a date, especially the ones that relate to our lives before we married. For example I have loads of my time in Australia in the early 1990s and hubby has lots from his time in the Navy. I also have rather a lot of cemetery photographs. Some for individuals that are known to be related, others taken because they might be!

I do have a scanner, but am seriously considering purchasing a Flip Pal Scanner, which is not readily available here in the UK. Even Amazon directs the search to their US site.

Continuing the weekly thread organised by Michelle at The Turning of Generations.

I knew last week that this was going to be a bit of an ordeal. My Maternal ancestry had lived in the area of the Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire borders for around 300 years. It is therefore hardly surprising that I have a duplications of surnames. Not surprising, but very frustrating. In some cases the lines are not know to be connected and in other cases there is an overlap of families. My own Grandparents were 6th Cousins, although they did not know it during there lifetimes. I often wonder what they would have made of that fact. 

My rather ageing genealogical programme is Family Origins 10. There will be an upgrade later this year I am sure. The name of my database MainFile. It starts with me and works back across my own ancestry and then goes sideways into my marriage and then heads back through my husband’s ancestry.

I have a series of ring binders that reflect the computer database of MainFile. In theory, if the details exist in my database then a paper copy exists in my paper file. My filing cabinet has a file for each of my surnames running A-Z. If there is a great deal on a particular individual they have their own file inside that.

Meanwhile, my external hard drive is in deep, deep need of being organised. The plan that I have thought about over the last week is hopefully going to work. It will look like this:

External Hard Drive
– Genealogy
–JDG (me)
—Surnames (showing a few examples)
—-Ayling
—-Butcher
——John Hunt Butcher
—-Budd
—-Bellasis
—-Bowring


Within each surname folder is a series of folders like this – 
–Butcher
—Census
—Migration
—Photographs (all named and dated)


This structure, repeated for my husband’s ancestry.

That is my vision for the project. Fingers crossed it will work and will make a huge difference to the current organisation.