Is Genealogy Evolving? (My thoughts on Mommy bloggers)

To some people “evolution” is a bad word, but that may be just what’s happening in the genealogy community. Today’s technology gives us the opportunity to go far beyond just recording names and dates. It is easier, today, to put our ancestors in the context of their times.

There have been some comments made online that a few of the attendees at the 2015 RootsTech conference were displeased at the presence of so many lifestyle bloggers, or “Mommy bloggers”.  I’d bet that those same complainers would, or do, cherish any diaries or journals left by their ancestors.  Yesterday’s diaries are today’s blogs.

Apparently more people like me are pursuing genealogy – not for the sake of proving lineage; but to learn and document our family history. Genealogical research gives us the information we need to try to understand our ancestors. Where and how did they live?  

How I wish my ancestors had kept journals!  What was the minutia of everyday life? What drove them to leave their homeland and extended families?  What were the conversations that led to the decision to emigrate? How did they adjust to their new homes?  How did my mother feel when her husband enlisted in the army in 1944?  My childhood memories are disjointed.  My parents and all their siblings are deceased. I’m left with historical records but none of their personal reminiscences except what I remember hearing. I scour history books in an attempt to understand my history and heritage.

Here’s a toast to lifestyle and Mommy bloggers. They’re leaving a priceless legacy.

Too Many BSOs!!!

Thomas MacEntee warns genealogists, especially those doing the Genealogy Do-Over to avoid being sidetracked by BSOs – Bright Shiny Objects.  We need to keep focused. 

I was doing ok for a couple of weeks.  I worked on my file naming strategy for documents and digitized photos. So far it seems to be working well. I have an Excel spreadsheet as an indexer of the photo files. As I prepare my scanned photos, I’ve been including metadata and a watermark of sorts - the three initials as shown in the lower left of the photo below.  I try to make the watermark fairly unobtrusive but definitely visible.

Then I was besieged with BSOs. On February 7 I attended an all day seminar put on by three Treasure Coast (Florida) genealogy societies.  This is an annual affair hosted by the Indian River Genealogical Society.  They’re always good but this one was GREAT.

Lisa Louise Cooke presented four classes from her book: The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox   I knew that Google had more features than I’ve been using, but I was blown away by her presentation and her demonstrations of the powerful Google tools that can take online research to another dimension.  If you’re not watching her website, podcasts and videos, go take a look at Genealogy Gems

How can you not go home with a treasure trove of BSOs – new tools – and not play with them all?

Then on February 10, at the monthly Indian RiverGenealogical Society meeting, Mark Fearer spoke on the topic of immigration.  He gave me some ideas that may help with my one remaining immigration brick wall.  A couple more BSOs to play with.

I love new toys.  Self discipline has never been my strong point.  There are just too darn many BSOs.

Focus! Focus! Focus.

Revised File Name Scheme

Thanks to the people on the Facebook Genealogy Do-over group, I have revised my scheme for naming my digitized photos.

On FB I posted a link to my 1/24/2015 blog that asked for feedback; and got very good response that made me reconsider both my document file name scheme and the one for photos.

Documents

After much thought, I am not revising my document naming plan. I believe it will work for me. Here it is as posted on Jan 24:

Document Files = Date_Who_What

Date	YYYY_MM_DD  A lower case x will substitute for unknown entries: 195x_xx_xx
Who	Surname-first name; or just family name
What	Type of record: Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Census, Deed, etc.

Here’s an example:  A copy of the church record of baptism from an LDS microfilm.

The file name is: 1841_11_14_Dachtera-Andreas_Baptism.jpg

The LDS film number is in the file metadata

Photos

Several people pointed out problems with my photo naming scheme. For one thing it was too complex. Even worse, it would be difficult to sort in a logical way. 

Old plan:

Date_Who_What-Description(description optional)_ Generation

Date	YYYY_MM_DD  A lower case x will substitute for unknown entries: 195x_xx_xx
Who	Surname-First name; or just Family name plus additional information where appropriate
What	Type of photo i.e. snapshot or portrait Optional description can include the event
Generation	Gx where x = the generation number.

Generation is one of the things I’ve wrestled with.  Here’s what I came up with.

Generation

Zero (Z) = me and my siblings, first cousins, etc.

1 = my parents and their siblings, etc,

2 = grandparents

3 = great grandparents

Z1 = my children

Z2 = my grandchildren

Z3 = my great grandchildren

M  = a photo with more than two generations.

A couple of examples:

File name:  191x_xx_xx_Dachtera-Stanley-kids_snap_g2-1.jpg

This tells me that it is a snapshot of my grandfather with kids, and that the primary person is generation 2 but it also includes generation 1 people.

Identifying the photo with Stanley’s name is my choice for my reasons. It could well have been “Dachtera-Johanna-sibs-dad”

File name: 1920_05_04_Dachtera-Supinski_port-wed_g1.jpg

New and Improved Photo naming scheme!!

Who_Type_Event_Generation

Who	Surname-First name; or just Family name plus additional information where appropriate
Type	Type of photo i.e. snapshot or portrait
Event	Wedding, birthday, reunion, etc. Lower case x if there’s no specific event to be noted
Generation	Gx where x = the generation number.

Generation

Zero (Z) = me and my siblings, first cousins, etc.

1 = my parents and their siblings, etc,

2 = grandparents

3 = great grandparents

Z1 = my children

Z2 = my grandchildren

Z3 = my great grandchildren

M  = a photo with more than two generations.

Again, using the photos above as examples the file names would be

Dachtera-Stanley-kids_snap_x_g2-1

Dachtera-Johanna-Supinski_port_wed_g1

Not only is this simpler, it will sort well by name. The generation designation is unchanged.  In a family with several common first names, I want the file name to tell me which Joseph, for example, is the main subject of the photo.

Women’s names

There was much discussion in the FB group about how best to identify women. Should one use the maiden name or the married name? Here’s what I’m thinking:

Use the surname that is appropriate for the photo. A photo of my mother as a teenager would identify her as Ganas-Emily; while a photo of her after marriage would identify her as Dachtera-Emily-Ganas.

It seems that no matter how you approach this issue, there will be plenty of room for confusion. I'm hopeful that the supporting information will keep confusion at a minimum

Supporting information

I will also have an Excel file – one for documents and one for photos - that will keep track of the files as I create them.   Before I get too far along, I’ll try sorting these in various ways to make sure I have the info I need.

I hope my schemes will work for me, but it is still a work in progress