Friday, September 16, 2011

What I did for summer vacation

I mentioned earlier that I scanned a bunch of photos, newspaper clippings, and other stuff from my grandmother's photo albums and scrapbooks while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago.  Well, one of my goals for this past two weeks was to sort and organize all of those items.  Epic failure.  I think I simply bit off more than I could chew.  All told, after I stitched and culled, I think I have somewhere around 250 images.  Nearly all of them have been labeled (the ones I can remember), but I still have to attach them to their namesakes in RootsMagic.  That is taking significantly longer than expected.  Let me explain why ...


I think I have contracted that not-so-rare disorder called Genea-ADD.  The way I have my files set up, in order to put images in RootsMagic, they all get dumped in one folder (the media folder from Family Tree Maker - since that's where they were when I transferred everything).  It turns out that if I dump them all in that folder at one time, I can't remember which photos I've done and which ones I haven't.  See the problem?


So in the process of trying to do the right thing, I've created a whole other set of tasks for myself - design a filing system for my images in RootsMagic, and create the folders to make that design a reality.  Sure.  Piece of cake.


Needless to say, I'm nowhere near done (sorry, Laura!).  However, I wanted to share one photo that I discovered that has become my absolute favorite of all the ones I scanned:
This is my grandmother and my late grandfather at a picnic around the time they were married (1944).  What I love is that this is a candid shot and shows how much fun they were when they were young (that really didn't change all that much as they got older), and how in love they were.  And check out gramma's gorgeous gams! 


There are a lot of photos that I am going to share over the next several weeks, including a surprise about my grandmother that I never knew until I went through those scrapbooks!


Stay tuned ...


Other things I DID manage to get accomplished over the past few weeks:
1.  Registered for the Family History Expo in Atlanta and reserved my hotel room;
2.  Ordered my first microfilm from the Family History Library;
3.  Prepared my presentation on Chapter 4 of The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy for the Genealogists in SecondLife Book Club.

5 comments:

Laura Aanenson said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture! I can see why it's a favorite of yours. I have not yet completed my Success Team goals for this week either. I figured I'd just stay up REAL late tonight. LOL

Michelle Goodrum said...

You got me thinking. I haven't started putting images in my genealogy program but my plan was to do like you and dump them all into one folder. The consequences you mentioned hadn't even occurred to me! Thanks for the enlightenment!

PS The picture of your grandparents is priceless!

Anonymous said...

Oh I *love* that photo! I can see how it would be one of your very favorites...

On the photo thing...after you upload, can you tag the photo with the upload date in the tags field?

Just a thought.

Greta Koehl said...

What a neat photo - their personalities just shine through!

Unknown said...

Thanks for reading (and commenting), ladies!
@Laura - glad to know we're on the same page! :)
@Dee - didn't think about tagging. I know I can tag within my photo editing software, but whether it will carry over into my Dropbox folder, I'll have to check out. Thanks for that idea!
@Michelle - look at Dee's thoughts - sounds like it might be worth looking into.
I'll let you know how it works out!

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