Shannon M. Thomas | Mostly Genealogy

(from  Carolina Girl Genealogy )  My cousin and his wife live in my great grandparents house.  They are cleaning out the attic and these wonderful treasures were found!!  My cousin's wife is going to scan them and share them with me.  She found a lot more too!  So very excited!!

(from Carolina Girl Genealogy ) My exciting find was the names of my 4th great grandparents!  I found the death certificate for my 3rd great grandfather, Ami H. Killian, on Ancestry.com.  His parents were listed as John and Amie VanHorn Killian.  Now that I have added Ami’s parents I am anxious to find out about his siblings!

January 10th – 16th Data backup : Genealogy Files -- are saved in One Drive [I got a lot of free space when I got my new computer]. From my Evernote Database.  Right click on Notes and choose export.  Make sure you click on the Options button to choose what is included. Evernote – notes are exported as web pages every few months [I have an Evernote Reminder set for this] and they are saved in One Drive. Photos – are saved to my computer and then automatically backed up to Flickr and Google Photos. The backup options in Legacy Family Tree.  This window open every time I close my database.  I just click on backup because my backup location is already in there. Legacy Family Tree – backs up automatically every time I close it; both media files and my database are backed up. Crash Plan – Everything is backed up with Crash Plan and saved to the cloud for easy retrieval if needed.  I review my backup every now and then to make sure all of ...

Last January I did this  post on 2014 Legacy statistics.  This year I decided to do the same thing. What I found was very surprising to me. My numbers did not change from last year!  What?!  I know I added new people to my database. Then I looked at my husbands and I lots 3 from last year!  What?! Looking at my overall stats I added 104 people and 35 marriages. Last year I worked on sources.  Cleaning up sources was my main objective and I think I accomplished that.  {I have a handful that still need some work.} This year I want to find more documentation for the people in my tree and hopefully add some more ancestors.  My plan is to do what  +Russ Worthington  and  +Randy Seaver  do and mine ancestry databases.  First up will be Pennsylvania death certificates. How did your 2015 genealogy go and did you make plans for 2016?

This year I am setting goals instead of making resolutions.  Goals seem like less pressure than making resolutions. In 2016 I wan to :  1. Get organized {not only in my genealogy life but in other areas of my life}, 2. Do more genealogy, 3. Learn more {by watching more webinars}, and 4. I want to blog more {I want to tell more stories and share genealogy with others}. With some help from the genealogy community I am hoping to accomplish my goals for 2016.   +Tessa Keough  at the LVUG Community at Google+ posted a short video about genealogy plans for 2016.  I am taking her advice and planning to read, write, or watch something genealogy every day.  I am also hoping  +DearMYRTLE  's Organization Lists will help keep things going for 2016. I spent the last two days rearranging, organizing, and cleaning my office in preparation for the fun genealogy year ahead. What are you hoping to achieve in genealogy in 2016?

Yes, I am still alive; it has been a busy few months and I needed a break.  A break from life would be nice too but that will never happen.  I started a new job back in August and it took some time to get use to the new schedule.  My family was calling my name and waiting to be discovered once again. Getting started where I left off was not as difficult as I thought it would be.  I started using Evernote to keep track of what I was doing before my break so when I picked it back up again I knew where I had left off.  My Evernote Task List looks a little different from last time. Time to jump in and discover more family and their stories!

Last month I started keeping track of my to do list in Evernote using TaskClone.  It worked great and with a few minor adjustments this moth has been going even better. One of my concerns was that My Task List note in Evernote was going to get very long and hard to navigate if I kept adding to the bottom of the list.  At the end of June I made a copy of the note and renamed it to z -- My Task List -- 26 June 2015 and moved it to my Research notebook. Now that I had a copy of My Task List note I reviewed my original note and realized that I did not need to use date headings and removed them and all completed tasks.  I saw that most of my to dos were topic related mostly by surname.  With a little rearranging I came up with my new to do list for the month of July.  As I add more notes TaskClone pulls the to dos and adds them to the bottom of the list.  I cut and paste them in the correct area. At the end of the month I will make a copy of the...