Stationery Supplies

I'm sure I have enough stationery supplies to stock a store :) In the past, I've stocked up on dividers, binders, page protectors, file folders, hanging folders and mechanical pencils. I was reminded of that today when I noticed the annual school supply displays in the grocery store.

If you need anything, try to stock up in August and September while the sales are on as these items are double or triple the price for the remainder of the year.

Sometimes I find really good deals at Staples in their clearance section. They used to have 50% off the clearance prices each Saturday, but I'm not sure if they still do as I have enough and have been avoiding that store :)

Now, I just need to start using my stash to get organized!

Road Trip!

Today, I'll be preparing for a trip tomorrow to West Hants Historical Society in Windsor and Kings Courthouse Museum in Kentville with my friend, Helen. I hope to visit some folks that I haven't seen in a while (with some genealogy questions!)and do a little research.

I want to leave my contact information in their family files for the surnames I am researching - Card, Carmichael, Deal, McCann, Sherman, Wile in Windsor and Benjamin, Carmichael, McCann, Sherman in Kings County. I'll work on those today at lunch time.

Genealogy Novels

Recently, I've been discovering some great reads with a genealogy flavour and I've been borrowing them from the library. We're so fortunate to have a wonderful public library in Halifax.

The other day, I finished reading The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. I really enjoyed the book and was sorry that it ended :(

I'll be looking for more of Howe's work.

I also discovered a series of genealogy/family history themed novels by Rett MacPherson. You can find a list of her books and reviews here.

I first read A Veiled Antiquity. It was a 200 page, interesting, easy to read mystery that left me anxious to read the 2nd one I had picked up at the library - A Comedy of Heirs. I'm only on page 16, but this one promises to be as good as the first. So much to read, so little time :)

Success is Sweet!

I visited Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (NSARM) after work today. I am so lucky to have access to this wonderful resource for my genealogy research.

Well, I found an obit that I had unsuccessfully searched for previously! John Thomas Sherman, son of George William and Lucy Ann (Rafuse) Sherman, died in 1936 after falling off a round-roof barn that he was shingling. I had recorded his death date as July 22, 1936 but no source, so I have no idea where I got that date. Naturally, I didn't find his obit when I looked through newspapers around that date.

On my last trip to the Old Kings Courthouse Museum, I found a reference to two newspaper obits for John. But, the newspaper dates were August 13 and August 20, 1936. At first, I didn't find the obit in the August 13 issue, so I went on to August 20 and there it was! It gave his death date as August 11, 1936. No wonder I couldn't find it before. I went back to the August 13 issue thinking that it might have a "news report" of the accident. However, what I found was another obit and it was very different from the one that I had already found. What I find absolutely amazing about John is that he was born in 1867 and he has living children in 2010. Can you believe that?

I also found a short obit for my grandmother, Ada May Smith (whose picture you see to the left), who died the same day as her uncle John. How sad for Mary, Ada's mother and my great-grandmother, to have lost her brother and her daughter on the same day.

I am anxious to get back to the Kings County Archives to look for other obits in their extensive collection.

And, I spent a little over an hour working on the GANS Vital Stats from Newspapers project...it was a successful evening.

Best Laid Plans...

Well, you can see that my plans of August 2008 didn't pan out the way I thought they would! I have continued my research but the organization is in the same state as it was two years ago.

Sigh!

Lots has happened since my first (and last) post. I have moved (and packed a lot of genealogy paper), another grandchild was born and I now have a vehicle (the better to travel to Genealogy Societies in Nova Scotia).

And still I think about organizing. So, today I bought a clear, plastic container with a lid to hold the obits that I've gathered from the paper and copied at West Hants Historical Society, the Kings County Courthouse Museum, the public library, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (NSARM) etc. I've been using one that was meant to hold cds/dvds but it's too narrow and some can't lie flat. This container is 15"LX11.5"WX6"D. Should do the trick.

Tomorrow, I'll visit NSARM after work. I have an obit to look up and then I'll continue working on a proofreading/transcribing project for the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia

Why Do I Want a Blog?

Well, I don't really know other than I think it might help me get on track with organizing my hopelessly disorganized research efforts. I've picked the word "FOCUS" as my mantra and have decided that I need to spend at least 15 minutes a day filing or otherwise putting papers, pictures and links in some kind of order so I can find them.

So, do I really need another thing to add to my to do list? Probably not. However, I spend too much time looking for notes, pictures I know I have, obits that I think I have and contact information that I should have . My hope is making my efforts public will spurr me on to get at it and get it done.

I bought two plastic portable file boxes at Wal-mart a while ago and a couple of weeks ago dragged one out and put some legal sized hanging folders in it. Then, since I couldn't find my file tabs (must organize the supplies too!), wrote names on post-it notes and stuck them to the folders. I had grabbed a pile of papers and as I went through them, decided where they should be filed and wrote up a post-it note if I didn't already have one. When I finished that night, I put the folders in alphabetical order. I think I need to use one file box for general genealogy stuff - cemetery maps and directions to them, leads to pursue - i.e "To Do" items, info on houses, an index to my notebooks, notes that pertain to several families etc. And the other for specific family names.

I may be able to reduce the amount of paper later on, but have to wait until it's filed to make decisions about what to keep.

I also have a mess of "Favourites" that I can never successfully navigate and have vowed to make better use of del.icio.us so I can get to my links no matter where I am. The added bonus is that I can share my links with others without having to do all of the typing.

And then there are the pictures. The ones I can never locate when I want them or could swear I had one, but can't find it. What to do about those? I think Picasa might be the answer. I downloaded it a long time ago, but then stopped tagging and renaming photos and it got out of hand. Maybe I just need to change some settings and create a new folder for photos that are renamed and tag them a few at a time.

Ok, so here's this week's goal:

1. Daily, spend 15 minutes sorting and filing genealogy research papers.
2. Daily, spend 5 minutes looking at websites that I've bookmarked and deleting or adding them to del.icio.us
3. Spend 1/2 hour setting up Picasa to better track my photo sorting efforts and then spend at least 1/2 hour weekly working on naming and tagging photos.
4. Spend 1/2 hour weekly blogging about my successes (and failures!).

Check back next week to see how I made out.