Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Do-Over is beginning its third cycle this week so I thought it was time for me to assess my own Go-Over progress.
My 2015 goal is to have ALL my genealogy photos and documents scanned (6000+ images), to remount all the items into their archival album homes and then to rename the newly scanned images and to attach them into my software program.
As of April, my dining room floor looked like this around two sides of the room:
Albums Taken Apart
Photos had been sorted, packaged and mailed off to be scanned. Here are some of the sorting piles:
Photos and Docs Being Sorted
We were on cruise vacations for most of April and May. However, the scanning was done and the boxes back in my dining room before we left in mid-April. I have spent three weeks this month, unpacking the boxes and resorting everything. I placed similarly sized items in separate envelopes so they had to be resorted into the correct family groups.
The scanning company commented that my project was the best organized one that they had ever received. My thinking is that why should I pay for extra hours that they would have needed to prepare the stacks for scanning?
Where am I today? I am pleased to say that during this process, I eliminated hundreds of duplicate photos and documents and have remounted everything into albums.
My collection now consists of 29 albums, although 9 of these are actually my son’s albums documenting his life from birth to age 21.
How much have I been able to downsize after discarding duplicates and deteriorated photocopied pages?
Empty Archival Albums
39 empty albums!! My current collection has a bit of space to house future discoveries, but I will save three or four of these empty albums, just in case I come across any bonanzas. The company from which I bought these albums through the years no longer makes a slipcase cover for my favorite style of album (which are the albums in the two right stacks) so I want to be sure I have a few on hand.
The rest of the albums will be offered to the genealogy group that I teach. I have a couple of stacks of extra paper pages and page protectors to go with them.
What still remains to be completed on my Go-Over? I need to rename the 6000+ images, which currently have image numbers, to descriptions of the images so I know what I am looking at. My plan is to rename them in this pattern:
SurnameFirstnameDateEventOrPlace
As they are renamed, I will back up the images and attach them to my genealogy software. (The numbered images already exist on two hard drives, in the cloud and on a flash drive given to me by the company that did the work.)
My goal is to finish this last step by December 31. It is hot and uncomfortable right now in Tucson so I have set a tentative goal of finishing this by mid-September, but depending on how bored I get with this tedious job (and being interrupted by a couple of short trips), the end of the year is probably more realistic.
All in all, I am very pleased with the progress I’ve made!
Wow! Your sense of organization is very impressive and inspiring. I have just a fraction of what you have and I feel overwhelmed. This gives me renewed hope of getting my project done. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Deborah, Thank you. I’ve always been told I’m an organized person, but anyone can get their projects in order. Just develop a simple plan before starting, move the work up to the top of the “to do” list and have a somewhat strong tolerance for very repetitive and sometimes boring tasks. Motivation comes from knowing that other family members and those after me will understand the family relationships and which photos and docs match to each person. I am dreading the renaming of the images, though. That will take some time, but I want to meet my goal!
Hi Linda, Mine was just a go-over, so not so overwhelming to face. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate it.