Geneabloggers Winter Games: Workout!

I feel like I've done a real physical Olympic competition!

First of all, yesterday, an opportunity to perform a genealogical act of kindness dropped into my lap. An individual who had seen my post about Asking the Right Question sent me an e-mail in which he said he was looking for a photo of the historian I discussed, who turns out to have boarded in his great-grandma's house in 1920! What a small world! I said I did not have a photo, but I gave him the contact information for a special library collection which holds many of his manuscripts, and may just have such a photo.

Today I organized 20 hard documents into their proper binders, in archival document sleeves. These ranged from my father-in-law's original World War II draft registration and draft classification (he was 4-F), and a 1945 Florida state census sheet to notes, official letters, funeral documents, and tombstone transcriptions. I keep binders by individual or by married couple. I also keep binders by family surname for those dribs and drabs I accumulate on a variety of people, but which are not of such volume that they need their own binder yet. But someday I know I will have to have another bookcase.

I also created at least 10 source citations, and decided that I am not going to migrate from The Master Genealogist to Family Tree Maker 2010 after all. Yes, FTM 2010 is using Elizabeth Shown Mills's sourcing templates, but it is using them too rigidly, and does not take into account original documents privately held in my own collection -- such as the aforementioned draft registration and classification cards. The template for "National Government documents," I think it was called, demanded to have me select from among National Archives or Library of Congress or other government agencies as repositories, with no way to put in that I am the repository for these documents! The Master Genealogist is still much more flexible and forgiving on that score, and was very happy to have me say that these documents are part of the "Rhodes Private Papers." No problem.

So the tally so far: 20 hard-copy documents organized, 10 source citations created, and one act of genealogical kindness performed.

Tomorrow is a class day, and I will be on campus all day, but I hope tomorrow night at the very least to backup my data to my portable hard drive with HandyBackup.
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