I live in Northern California. Our geographic area has seen several disastrous fires in the last year. The land my husband’s family has in Hopland had a near miss this past summer. The entire other side of the valley burned as part of the Mendocino Complex Fire. The western side of the valley has burned before and it will again sometime in the future.
One of the biggest lessons in the last year is urban/suburban areas are not immune to fire. Both Santa Rosa and Redding saw how fire does not discriminate cities from rural areas. My family has created a fire evacuation plan. We have boxes ready to load and go with supplies. I also have a list inside one of my kitchen cabinets of other items to grab if I have time when evacuating.
While I would love my genealogy archive to be at the top of that list -realistically my kids, dogs, and husband need to come first. Within my genealogy treasures I have a mental list of how to prioritize what to take. Physical items need to be cataloged and kept in one area so they are easy to grab. Paper items will be at the bottom of the list.
The good news is there is a way to lower my risk of losing my genealogy treasures. I can digitize all of my paper records and keep them in the cloud. I can also photograph all the physical items.
Over the years I have talked about getting this project accomplished. Sadly, I always started and never finished. Instead the pile has slowly grown.
I have been listening to Janine Adams, The Organized Genealogist, new podcast, Getting To Good Enough. I have identified with sooo (yes, all the o’s are needed) many of the episodes. I feel that having a better understanding of why my attempts at my digitization project have not worked will hopefully help me to complete the project this time. My personal favorite episode is about rewarding yourself as you go. I will definitely be implementing this concept!
I will be using a “Treasure” tag at the front of my digitizing blog post names to identify what I am trying to accomplish. I am also using the ClearScanner app on my Android phone to speed up the process. It allows you to identify the edges of a document before you save. Also, I am creating citations but will not be focusing on perfection for each one. Instead my goal is to get enough information included so someone else can follow my research. The punctuation may not be perfect but again, not my goal.
So please, sit back and enjoy all the digitized images coming your way!
