Month: December 2010

New Year, New Deadline

Posted on by Kathleen

I’m moving my deadline for the new site design. I know I’ve been working on it forever, but I just didn’t take into account that November and December were to busy to code a new website. I thought I could get it finished in the week after Christmas, but that just didn’t happen either! I don’t know what it is about this year, but I’m busier then I ever have been and yet I feel like nothing I’ve wanted to accomplish got done!

So there’s a new deadline for the site design. The new deadline is when I get it finished. It’s almost done. By almost I mean the nuts and the bolts. The genealogy database section is done and tested. The blog portion is the part I’m working on. Really I’m just fine tuning and testing it now. The only hangup being that I don’t have enough hours left to fine tune and test between now and January 1st.

New Site Design Preview

As you can see, the right sidebar needs a little work, as does some of the blog entry coding. It’ll be worth it in the end because this design was 100% coded by me!

The reason I chose January 1st was because I’m rolling out my new series titled, “The Diary of Llewellyn”. This is the transcription project I’ve been wanting to accomplish for years now. I’ve tried it in various forms even a blog, but now I think I have the settings all right. When the new design is done, you’ll have an easier way of accessing it from a tab in the top menu bar. Until then you can find the category or tag in the sidebar at anytime.

Each entry will have the above image at the top to distinguish it. These posts aren’t going to come everyday, unless Llewellyn wrote everyday. For example, she started the journal on January 1st, 1923 but her second entry wasn’t until January 19th. So there will be gaps where she left gaps. The diary goes on for 3 years, and it became more of a habit as the first year goes by. Eventually, you will start to see mentions of Bill. Bill would be William Lawrence Moore, who Llewellyn would marry in June of 1926.

Stay Tuned for the first Llewellyn entry tomorrow!

Organizing my Chaos: Part 1

Posted on by Kathleen

So here we go, I’m starting to actually get serious about this genealogy thing. I recently purchased a copy of Elyse Doerflinger‘s ebook, Organizing the Paper Monster Once and For All. Since I’m the queen of oversharing, I decided why not chronicle my attempts on this here blog. Obviously I can’t keep talking about what a mess the Mays family makes me (At least not everyday). So now that I’ve got the holidays behind me and a new outlook on my life, why not just plunge in!

One of the first things Elyse tells us is to admit we have a problem. No matter how big or small our paper monster is. Trust me that’s not going to be a problem. I HAVE A PROBLEM. A BIG ONE!

The photo boxes are under my desk. BIG PROBLEM. The new file crates are my paper problems. ANOTHER BIG PROBLEM. I think I’ve decided I don’t like having the hanging file folders, though they are easy access. Luckily I filched them from my family’s office supply stash. Now I won’t feel bad about wasting money on a ton of file folders. The only loss of money would be the crates I got at WalMart during Back to School sales, so really I didn’t lose much on the deal because I’ll find another use for those.

Another step is to establish how you think of your ancestors. That is easy for me. Everything I have is divided into two sections, my father’s Moore side and my mother’s Mays side. So I would like my records to be divided in that way also.

The next step is to start sorting. That’ll have to wait for now. I’m going to have to do some more planning. Like where these organized papers are going to go. In the meantime, I have a confession to make. On September 26th, I posted about a replica Ellis Island that I got at a clearance sale. It was my hope that having a little inspiration would keep me concentrated and keep the clutter off that part of my desk.

I’m sorry to say that I failed. Oops!

Tech Tuesday: Slide Updates

Posted on by Kathleen

I hope everyone reading this had a very, merry Christmas! I’ve been enjoying a few new gadgets. The first gadget I got was a slide viewer that I mentioned earlier this month. I found a few slides that I really wish I could get prints of. They were of my Aunt Diane and some of their family photos. The problem was, I didn’t know what to do. So I went to Google and it brought me up a few options. One of them didn’t cost me a penny!

It turned out that my mother’s scanner has a slide scanner template built into the top. All I had to do was slide the placeholder off and slide my slides in. Then hit the button for film scan. This method will also work for negatives! So if you have a scanner, take a second to study the inside of it’s lid. You might have this feature too! Pressing the film scan button brought up the software that came with the scanner where I could choose between a negative or positive/slide.

Now I can share these photos with my family on Facebook, and I can print them out and frame them for individuals!

I really can’t wait to dig in and see what other treasures I find. It’s really difficult to find pictures of my aunts and dad when they were younger. It’s even more difficult to find pictures of their brother Stevie, who is no longer with us.

By the way, for my regular readers, the house Dad’s family is posing in is in fact the Park Avenue house. There are a bunch of inside shots among the slides!

Genealogy Goals for 2011

Posted on by Kathleen

I’m making some genealogy goals for 2011. It’ll be fun to come back next Christmas Eve and see how many I stuck to!

Personal Genealogy Files Goals

  • I want to finally finish re-organizing my ‘To Be Sorted’ folders on my second hard drive. Right now I have a folder of Mays photos, a folder of Moore photos, a folder of scanned photos and a folder of tombstones to be sorted into my 2010 filing system. (Hopefully it’s my final filing system!)
  • I want to have the whole Mays side of my family entered into my website and both FTM and RootsMagic. This is a big feat, since I’m behind on my RootsMagic work and there are a lot of Mays family members.

Online Genealogy Goals

  • Order at least 4 microfilm from the Family History Center. I’m hoping for one a quarter. I keep talking myself out of it because I want to get the most bang for my buck, so to speak. Enough of that! Time to get on with it!

Record Ordering Goals

  • I want to obtain the marriage certificate for William and Llewellyn. (I have notations of the date in Llewellyn’s records and a newspaper announcement, but I would like a copy of the actual certificate)
  • I would like to find the death certificate of Robert J Moore. (Brooklyn has no record of his death in 1925, so my next search would be Caldwell, NJ)
  • I have a copy of Llewellyn‘s birth certificate but it might be in New York at my Aunt Diane’s house. I’ll have to ask Uncle Chris about it in July.
  • Order death certificates for Lewis and Jennie Thorward.

General Goals

  • BE MORE ORGANIZED! I ordered a copy of Elyse Doerflinger‘s Conquering the Paper Monster ebook and I plan to put it to use in the new year! With all that’s been going on in the last few months, I just haven’t had the time to touch my archives. I’m usually very good about starting and finishing big projects, it’s just I need a guideline sometimes.

Website Goals

  • Don’t break the site! I’ve had a horrible habit of breaking the genealogy software on my website. Usually because I mess around with it too much. I think I’ve learned enough through trial and horrible errors to successfully keep this goal!

Can’t wait to get busy after the holidays! Merry Christmas Everyone!

Those Places Thursday: Park Avenue House

Posted on by Kathleen

One of the places that I often think about is the house on Park Avenue. Anytime we have a family get together, this house always comes up. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family has memories of this house. Whether it be the layout of the house, the renovations done, or the way the porch was screened in during the winter. Unfortunately, I don’t have any memories of the house. So I soak up any information that people give to me about the house. Now I just have to remember to type it all up and keep it in my files for later.

Park Avenue house, October 2010.

We even drove by the house when we were in Caldwell in October for my cousin’s wedding. Though it looks different, I can recognize much of the original house just by looking at it. (Thanks to my sister for getting the picture!)

Park Avenue house.

Even when people contact me about the family tree, they ask me about this house. I don’t think people love this house because of it’s floor plan or windows. I think people loved the people who lived in this house.

Park Avenue house.

The more I research William and Llewellyn, the more I see that they were well loved by everyone around them. When I first started researching genealogy, I was just soaking up the facts and collecting dates. It’s different now. Now I’m learning about the people. I’m seeing the full scope of things. I’m learning why I am the way I am. Not only that, but I’m learning why my ancestors where the way they were.

July 1931, Park Avenue house.

I have a lot of pictures and documents that pertain to this house. Including all the documents from when William and Llewellyn bought the house. I’ll share those with you another day though.

Park Avenue house.

Would it be weird to knock on the door and ask to come in for a looksie?

Those Places Thursday is a blogging theme being used by GeneaBloggers, it was originally started by Cheryl Palmer at Heritage Happens!