Take Your Books With You

I have a copy of Evidence Explained  which I bought when it came out in pdf. I have it on my computer for instant reference. I have copies of various other publications, either purchased, free online or that I bought and then scanned. It IS handy to have some of these reference books at your fingertips.

Have you thought about one of those reading devices that allows you read a book without a book? Most allow you to download a book instantly. Say you are researching at a library and realize you really need the census guide you saw at [chose your favorite retailer]. With one of these devices you can get it right now. The device may also read pdf and other formats that you may already own.

Those devices are nice but they are also pricey and are just one more piece of equipment to carry around.

Did you know you can download the app for those devices to your computer, laptop, netbook, iPad, even your smartphone? Did I mention the apps are all free? You could download them ALL to your laptop. Whether you chose one or all you can have the books - and access to more - but save money by using equipment you already have.

What devices you can use them with and what they can do varies as do the procedures and requirements. You can generally share between devices. With Amazon's Kindle, for example, you can read the book on your netbook at the library, make notes, then pick up where you left off - including the notes - at home on your desktop, then on your smartphone later.

Here are links to the three most popular readers. 

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Sony

FamilySearch

FamilySearch is constantly adding searchable records.

I tested their records for Cook County, Illinois. I note you cannot right click and save a section but if you have Windows 7 you can use the snipping tool. If you hover over a name you get more information, perhaps spouse, parents and/or children. And if it is a vital record you can order a copy from the Cook County Clerk.

It produced assorted birth, death and immigration records for the surname. I note they have not done a bang up job with the ethnic names or the foreign birthplaces so you need to be flexible. Needless to say, the document may not have spelled things correctly to begin with.

I then tried their Wisconsin records. Hovering produces information which can be copied.

I could not find a Civil War pension index card for my 2g grandfather - there is a widow's pension application and a dependent pension record. It's a work in progress and perhaps they haven't gotten to them.

You need to check back periodically to see if they have added a database you can use. You can also volunteer to help with the transcribing.

GEDViewer

Back on February 1, 2010, I said GEDViewer, a genealogy program for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, looked promising but couldn't handle a large database. The programmer David Knight sent me an email saying yes it could, that the limit is based on your device memory. For my 3G iPod Touch 12 generations is probably the max. [GEDviewer is not to be confused with Genviewer, a useful product by Mudcreek Software.]


I loaded the program on my iPod Touch. It imported my 10,000+ name database efficiently. I was surprised at the speed. More, I was surprised that it didn't eat all my iPod memory. In fact I hardly noticed. [How do they do that?]


I find GEDViewer to be better than FamViewer not to mention quite a bit cheaper. It is faster. When I open FamViewer it wants to import my gedcom which takes awhile. When I open GEDViewer it opens to my data.


When I had a question Knight responded promptly, not with a canned response but an actual answer.


Totally aside, FamViewer comes with a Kennedy family database. GEDViewer comes with a British royals database. I'm a Ricardian so I was delighted to have the British royals database.

Spencer Turner Revisited

I have recently done more research on the Turners, not enough but more. Spencer Turner was one of the first settlers in DeWitt County, arriving in Wilson Township near Waynesville just east of Logan County in 1835. His parents had moved to Illinois in 1827 living first near Athens in Menard County, then Rocky Ford in Logan County, then to Waynesville in what became to DeWitt and eventually to Wapella.

From transcribed newspaper accounts of social goings on, which I read on the DeWitt County ILGenWeb site,  he apparently was not seriously damaged by being charged with murder and stiffing Abraham Lincoln. If I hadn't read the court record I would have strongly suspected the story was not factual or heavily embellished but no, it is true.

Spencer's stone in Sugar Grove Cemetery near Wapella does not look like that of a man who couldn't pay his legal bill. You can see the stone here. When his widow Nancy Hoblit died in 1900 she had three lots in the town of Wapella and an 80 acre farm.

Useful Tools Addendum

I have been a long time user of the Firefox browser but lately I have been using Chrome a lot. Both are free. Both have good and bad points. I think it is a personal thing. Safari, the browser from Apple, which you can use on a Windows computer, is visually interesting. It's on my iPod Touch. I have not figured out Opera. It's on my phone and I do plan to try it on my computer. I don't use Internet Explorer, mostly because it is the most prone to viruses but I think there is some rebellion there too. Some programs work better with some sites than others. If one isn't working well with a favorite site experiment with another. Yes you can use five browsers if you want. Web site managers generally have several.

Chrome has a slick add on that allows you to clip a page or part of a page and send it directly to Evernote. It integrates well with Evernote, just fill out the notebook and tags and it is gone. Firefox uses Evernote's clipper which has not worked all that well for me, not to mention it is always behind the current version. The two don't seem to be communicating. What? You are not using Evernote? You really are cheating yourself of an excellent free tool. I keep all my notes from everything in it. I don't know how people live without it.

Since I have scanned all my paper and saved it in pdf I am now looking for a program to read and manipulate pdf documents. I originally used Adobe Acrobat Pro, a good but expensive program from a less than supportive company. My version isn't working well with Windows 7 and I really don't want to buy the upgrade. I have used NitroPDF reader and PrimoPDF to print. I tried the entire suite but I had problems with it, probably more related to me than it since I insist on using WordPerfect and they use Word. [It's a bigger issue than you would imagine and seems to be getting worse. Think Corel v. Microsoft.] I'd prefer not to have six programs. If you have suggestions let me know.

Scanning Update

Ok, Ms. Smarty Pants, are your files perfect someone asked? Nope. And my system is not perfect to begin with, rather it is one that works for me and may work for you.

In my defense I have computer files dating back to 1987. Most have had had their file form changed a couple times. I used WordPerfect then - and still do - but I didn't have Windows. I don't remember if they had Windows yet at that time. Yes, hard to believe. These days when I have time I convert non photo files to pdf and try to rename them at that time.

I also have multiple lines with the same name. I have maternal and paternal Wood lines, unrelated. Ditto Harding and others. There are the Downings who were unrelated until about 1855 when they began intermarrying. Then there are common ancestors where I have multiple lines of descent. Abraham Lucas and David Clark [the mystery man who never got out of New Jersey] are two examples.

You need to make a basic plan, using logic that makes sense to you and that you can remember, and adapt it to your situation as these things arise. Consistency is the most important element.

How are the pictures coming? I have maybe - maybe - half of the boxed photos scanned. We are talking literally thousands of pictures. Only a small portion are named. I have an idea for the that when the scanning is done. I have found duplicates and pictures that there is no reason to save - I had a fine time when I first got a digital camera. Not all of the pictures are genealogically related of course.

I have found some amazing old photos I didn't even know I had. There are people I don't know who are probably related. There are people I don't know but I am certain they are not related. And there are so many photos of one cute little girl that even I am getting tired of her. At this point I feel like just scanning and naming all the pictures will keep me busy until at least 2025. And with the SnapScan the scanning is now easy.

Why name in the same order, ie, surname, first name, type, date, location? One reason is to make sure you put everything in the name. Another useful reason is to sort them. Example, if named properly the following files will sort as follows:

Downing John census 1790 Westmoreland Pennsylvania.pdf
Downing John census 1810 Madison Ohio.pdf
Downing John census 1820 Madison Ohio.pdf
Downing John census 1830 Logan Illinois.pdf
Downing John land 1803 Madison Ohio.pdf
Downing John land 1821 Logan Illinois.pdf

and so on. It makes it handy to see what you have.

Digital Organizing

You've been scanning away. Time to organize. If you follow the outlines of this flexible system you will always be able to find your digital documents. Pictures are a separate topic.

I use an external hard plugged into a USB port for my genealogy. It keeps my genealogy all in one place, can be easily removed and taken with me if needed and - this is important - it gets automatically backed up with my offsite backup procedure. It also makes it easier to create your own filing system because you don't have to fight with your operating system's idea of where things should be filed.

Name your people files in the following manner: birth surname, first name, type date location. An example: Downing William census 1860 Chester.pdf. I suggest you stick to surname then first name. If you want a different order for the other information that's fine. There is no right or wrong. You are the one who has to find the documents later. Just be consistent.

The key, at least in my experience, is to be consistent. Consistency trumps just about everything. If you use a numbering system the number should be the first word in the file name. I don't use a numbering system. It's just one more thing to organize and remember but if a numbering system works for you do it.

Make eight directories, one for each birth surname of your great grandparents. Keep in mind that if you are doing this for your children that would 16 directories. Put everything pertaining to that ancestor in that folder. If you have a lot of information on ancestors prior to your great grandparents you may chose to make a separate directory for additional surnames. It doesn't matter how many directories you make. This is digital. You have the room. Do what works for you.

I hear you. What about great grandmother Jane who was born a Smith and married a Jones? Put her in Smith. If you want to put a copy in Jones go for it. It's digital. Duplicates aren't an issue.

Also make directories for cemeteries, census, birth, marriage, death, land, etc. If you collect funeral cards make one for those. My census file has subdirectories for each federal census. A copy of all census documents I have is in that directory. Another copy of the individual page is in the appropriate surname directory. For documents in these files the name might be 1880 Census Illinois Logan Laenna.pdf. Illinois is obviously the state, Logan is the county and Laenna is the township. Using spaces between words makes it easier to find them through a digital search if needed.

Get the idea?

Now go to http://www.voidtools.com/ and download the free Search Everything. If you goofed in spelling but you included all the elements you can search on any one of the elements and find the file.If you misfiled it you can still find it. Search Everything only searches files on your computer, including the drives attached by USB. It will not search network attached storage or home servers.