Making Progress on the Dachtera Immigration Story

I've plunged ahead with the immigration story of my paternal Great Grandparents, Joseph and Magdalena Dachtera. The first draft of the narration is 99% complete. Still thinking about how to end the story. It’s been “resting” for a couple of days so that I’ll start editing with a fresh eye.

Spent a couple of days researching and finding images to flesh out what began as a GoogleEarth tour. Went back to the BaSIA  database to try to clarify and add information.

There are two wonderful Wielpolski databases – both built by volunteers.

The Poznan Project http://poznan-project.psnc.pl/ works to transcribe all 19^th century marriages in the province. Information given includes film numbers for the appropriate microfilms at Family Search.

BaSIA http://www.basia.famula.pl/en/ is a much broader project to transcribe all vital records from the province. Images from records may be from church or synagogue records or from civil records. Available records may be from the 13^th century to the 19^th century.

For now, it’s time to get started with the editing.

In addition, I’ve also spent some time looking at DNA info, making sure that I’m up to date on matches from various sites. It’s time to get up to speed on the tools at GEDMatch

Couple Things

Writer’s Block:

Maybe it’s the phase of the moon. I have started 3 writing projects and all seem to have stalled.  One is on hold while I try to gather material. Another is on hold because there’s too much material and I can’t figure out how to prune it to make it manageable.  The third one is just stuck in limbo for some reason I haven’t figured out yet. 

Stalled Research (brother to writer’s block)

But here are some suggestions for jump starting stalled research.  Lorine McGinnis Schulze writes a wonderful blog called Olive Tree Genealogy. Her latest post is exactly what I need just now.

 

5 Ways to Jumpstart Your Genealogy When it has Stalled

I think I’ll start by creating a timeline for someone who does not yet have one. Got to get those juices flowing again!

Story Interrupted.

My favored family story platform, StoryPress.com seems to have gone belly-up. It was VERY user friendly and FREE. Easy to upload videos or photos and add narration. I discovered it when Thomas MacEntee announced he’d done a story about his mother.   This was shortly after I’d struggled to produce my first YouTube video.

I was amazed at the simplicity of StoryPress. It is disappointing that the site will be shut down at the end of September.  Apparently the venture was not profitable. They say they’ll review their business model to see if they can come up with revisions that will make it work for them.  I hope they are successful.

The good news is that I was able to download backup copies of my stories; and that the backup consists of separate image and audio files. I won’t have to start from scratch.

The goal is to create a history in an appealing contemporary format. What is the likelihood that my kids and grandkids would read it in a book?  Small. So multimedia is my choice.

A year ago my impatience led me to give up on Microsoft’s Movie Maker because it is not intuitive – at least to me. But I’m going to try it again after watching a couple of tutorials. (When all else fails, read the instructions.) It’s always a bit frustrating trying to learn new software but I’ll give it a go.

I’ll be redoing the stories I had on StoryPress and posting them on YouTube.  They are “War Baby” and “The Shipp Family in Prussian Poland”.  Then I’ll resume work on the next story about crossing the Atlantic as a passenger in steerage in the 1880s.

Back to the drawing board.

I have the data - now to add the information.

My ancestor search (for my own ancestors) is slowly coming to a halt approaching a big brick wall.  Well, actually it’s not brick but I’m not sure I have what it takes to penetrate it.

Polish Roman Catholic church records before the 18^th century – and in some cases into the 18^th century are paragraphs of handwritten text in Latin. Later records generally have the data entered into labeled columns in the record books like this:

Language isn’t the problem with the early records, the problem is mostly the handwriting. Add to that the fact that many of the pages are faded or damaged by time. Ancient European handwriting is my (not exactly) brick wall.  Here’s a sample of one of more legible record books.

While it would be nice to know the names of my 3^rd 4^th and 5^th great grandparents, I’m not sure that it is worth the effort to try to decipher these earliest records.

Why not?

My goal has been to understand my family history. I believe that I now know enough about that history to be able to add context to the names and dates.  My ancestors were peasants in a part of the world where civil records were not kept until 1874. They were farmers and laborers who were pretty much invisible in their times except to one another.

I can extrapolate from the known names and dates to guess when earlier generations lived. So even if I don’t know their names, history tells me much about their circumstances.  Were their leaders tyrants or magnanimous? What wars were going on?  Were there famines or floods?  I can go far back in time even without being able to name individuals.

I won’t stop searching. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m at the point of getting diminishing returns from poring over the available records.  

New projects for my ancestors will involve trying to depict my ancestors and their lives in words and images and share those with my extended family.  That’s a daunting challenge.  Maybe it would be easier just trying to decode the ancient scribbles.

I’m a Producer!

I’m a producer – and a legend in my own mind.

I finally finished my first attempt at my first family history video.  It was a challenge. The subject is one set of my great grandparents while they lived in Poland.

Challenge:

Visual content.  There are no photographs of them from that time and, of course, no moving pictures.  I chose images of them that I’d cropped from a later family portrait.  They’re fuzzy, but they’re all I have.  I captured Google Earth images of their home towns  I used photos of the ships on which they arrived in the US.

Challenge:

Script.  I never knew these ancestors so my knowledge comes from oral family history and from documents found during my research.  I also wanted to include a bit of history to put their lives in Poland in context. I ended up modifying the script as I recorded it.

Challenge:

Video software. I’d heard of free software called Movie Maker from Microsoft.  My expectation was that it would be very basic and pretty user friendly. Not for this user.  The download includes no documentation and I could find no “help” button. It was extremely frustrating.

So I dug out my 10 year old Adobe Premier Elements hoping that it would run on Windows 7. It does. It is very user friendly, and it has excellent help and tutorials.

Challenge:

Timing.  I’d learned that 6 minutes is a good upper limit for time.  It turned out that I had so little visual content that it came in at 3 minutes.

Challenge:

Audio software.  Here I was very lucky.  I found free software called Audacity.  It is very highly rated and although it has features needed by professionals, it is extremely easy to use for those of us who know nothing about the intricacies of sound recording.  It comes with excellent documentation.

Challenge:

Recording:  Do I speak clearly enough?  How’s my voice modulation and pacing?  Etc. etc. etc.  I recorded in segments and for reasons I don't yet understand,  the sound level is not equal across them all.  I'll have to learn more about using the software to ensure uniform sound levels.

In the end, I actually came up with a 3 minute video that I’m willing to show to a few other people, but not the whole world.  I’ll show it to those who, I believe, will give it a fair evaluation so that I can make improvements.

I’ll definitely do more like this.  I’m a producer!!

Video Project Progress

What an education this has been.  I backed off of my original concept and instead am working on a short video about one set of my great grandparents.  I'd originally thought that it would be easiest to use as subjects, the family I know least about.  Couldn't get past square 1.5.

Movie Maker is free from Microsoft.  It is relatively new and I thought that MS would provide very user friendly basic video software.  Wrong. Not for me. I struggled trying to figure it out and finally gave up.  Instead I reloaded my 10 year old Adobe Premier Elements. It was written for Windows XP so I kept my fingers crossed that it would work on Windows 7. It does.  I don't even know if Adobe makes an "Elements" version of Premier anymore.

I also learned just how important it is to do a storyboard - something I'd had no experience with. Some internet research helped a lot and I found a free storyboard template that uses MS Word.

This is a Ken Burns kind of project. I have no actual video footage,  It will be a series of graphics and still pictures with my narration.

This project will cover only the time from 1850 when my great grandfather was born, to 1887 when the family emigrated from Poland to the United States. And I really know nothing about their lives in Poland.  It should be less than 5 minutes long.

It has taken much longer than I expected to select the visuals.  If time wasn't an issue, it might have been easier to just include everything I've found, but I don't like videos longer than 5 minutes so that's my limit..

Script writing has also been a challenge.  How to I tell a reasonable short story?  What is important information and what isn't.  Can I make it interesting? Probably not.

Next step is to record the narration. That scares me.  How is my voice quality?  Can I speak clearly enough and naturally enough?

When I finish, will I have the guts to let anyone else  see it?

Time will tell.

This is more complex than I thought

I’ve started on the YouTube project I mentioned in a previous post. Lured by the ease of use of Microsoft Movie Maker, I dived right in.  Problem is that planning the video is the hard part.  My first effort will be for my eyes only – just an experiment, but that doesn’t mean that it’s simple.

First, decide which line to start with.  I picked the one for which I have the least information because I thought that would make for easier decisions on content – not too much to choose from.  I’m rethinking that decision.

Starting with a mind map using XMind (free software), I laid out the kind of content to include.  Very simple for my first project.

I have no old photos because this is not my family – its my children’s paternal heritage.  So I went off looking for old photos of Prague. Not very many that don’t have full copyright restrictions.  Then I looked for old photos of late 19^th century Chicago which was much easier.  I’ll use images of census documents to show the families.

The next step would be a script, or so I thought.  Actually the next step is a storyboard.  I just use an outline for planning the flow of the video.  It’s not complex enough to need a true storyboard.

Then I started a script.  This is not as simple as just writing.  I tend to be pretty wordy, and I have a time constraint so scripting is a challenge.  I wonder how many versions will be created before I get one that will work.  I’m using Marlis Humphrey’s guidelines for a video which means it should run no longer than 6 minutes.  Mine will be much shorter than that partly because I’m having trouble coming up with the right narration content; and partly because I don’t like watching videos that are more than 3 or 4 minutes long.

Getting my mind around this has been a challenge.

So I’m thinking of shelving this project and doing my first attempt using one of my own lines.  Maybe it will be more comfortable working with the ancestors I know the most about.  Will having more material make it more difficult?  Hope not.

So I’m off to start another mind map.

Going off on a tangent

I am starting a publishing project – that is “modern” publishing - and taking a break from serious researching.

Marlis Humphrey  www.myAncestories.com was the speaker at the September meeting of Indian River Genealogy Society. Marlis is nationally recognized as an expert on publishing family histories. She presented at the most recent RootsTech and has been invited to present again at the next one.

Marlis defines publishing in a broad context with the emphasis on getting the target audience to pay attention and actually enjoy the content.  This means that books are pretty much at the bottom of her list of how to communicate our research results to our families, including the youngest members of the family.

Like many family historians, I’ve embarked on a few very wordy narrations of what I’ve discovered.  Even if I added photos, it would be rather dull reading for most people.

Marlis’ presentation was on using electronic media to tell our family stories. Our grandchildren, nieces and nephews are more attuned to the visual.

Probably the most straight forward of these would be a PowerPoint presentation with voice-over audio added. 

The most complex would be an electronic magazine using software such as Issuu or Flipboard.

I’m going to try creating a movie for YouTube. That doesn’t necessarily mean using a video camera to produce content.  Marlis asks us to think of the wonderful work of Ken Burns.  Some of his documentaries easily contain more still photos than actual video footage.  What a concept!  She showed us a few examples of what others have done with this idea.

Movie Maker is free software from Microsoft.  It looks very easy to use so that’s my choice, not to mention the “free”part.

It’s going to be a challenge, but it should be fun.

Wish I could remember

I’m feeling a little sad today because I have so few cohesive memories of my early childhood.  Much as I’d like to be able to construct a story from my early years, my mind seems to hold only snapshots.  I’m hoping that as I write things, I’ll begin to remember more.

Family History Writing Challenge

I’ve joined the Family History Writing Challenge in hopes that it will get me to actually begin writing.

 

http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/2013/01/the-family-history-writing-challenge.html

The challenge covers the month of February. Each person joining the challenge pledges to write a certain number of words per day for the 28 day span. My goal is very modest: only 250 words a day. I hope I’ll do more than that.

Where to begin????  I’m thinking of starting with history; explaining the social and economic conditions that led my great grandparents and so many others to leave their homeland. 

It is far too easy to get stuck in research mode.  It’s a great excuse to use for not writing:  “I haven’t got enough information yet”.  Well, I don’t have enough information, but by beginning to write I’m hoping to more clearly see the gaps in my research.

I don’t have to show anyone what I’ve written so why do I feel so much trepidation about starting???

Put it in writing

Like most family historians my intention is to write it all down. How will I approach that?

I’ve become a fan of Marlis Humphrey’s approach: “Next Generation Family History Publishing”.  She reminds us of something that should be a prime focus: our audience.

Who are we writing for?  What will make them want to read what we write?

If we’re writing for other family historians, we’ll want to make sure that every i is dotted and t crossed when it comes to documents and source citations. They’ll appreciate our diligence and thoroughness.  But if we’re writing for future generations, such a comprehensive and scholarly tome will just sit on bookshelves for a while before it is stored in the attic or basement.

My goal is to produce a two tier family story: a different version for each of two kinds of readers. The foundation document will include the details and photos and tree diagrams and documents with citations. From that I will derive a short version that will be as compelling and interactive as I can make it.

 My first priority is to engage my children and grandchildren and those who come after them.  These are people who’ve grown up in the information age; who have been bombarded with snippets and recaps, audio and video clips, sound bites, Facebook, texting and tweets.  I want to be able to grab their attention in such a way that they’ll want to delve deeper in their own history; and provide a place for them to go to when they do. Ms. Humphrey provides examples in her presentations including her own interactive family history book and the wonderfully creative Ology books as seen at www.ologyworld.com. Today’s technology tools give us so much more opportunity to make something that will be appealing to people of all ages.

Wow!  What an ambitious project.  I’d better get started.