The Paperless Genealogist

Paperless Genealogy - Status Update

2011-12-20T10:52:00.000-05:00

Even though I haven't been very active in the blogosphere lately, work HAS continued on the paperless journey. Of course, I have had to remind my wife a couple of times that this is a marathon, not a race to the mailbox... but overall things are going well.

A few key updates to mention:

1) (this is mostly for my wife if she stumbles across this blog :) My paperless journey started with genealogy because that's where the bulk of my papers come from. I do continue to have paper in and around my desk, but FAR less than before. Once we get the genealogy system ironed out, other things will fall in place. For now though, I will still have some work papers floating around, a few emails I've printed off and of course, my most favoritest paper... bills.

2) I have had great progress on the genealogy front. In the past serveral weeks I have printed only 4 new papers, despite working on a new 30 page section on our family history for Christmas gifts. In past years, when taking on a project like this, I type, print, edit the hardcopy, make changes, reprint, etc. This year, I've taken a new approach. Using One Note, I write a paragraph at a time in a "block." I can easily treat each paragraph as it's own entity and move it around at will until it fits the story just right. For a particularly difficult passage, I have found it helps to add a new page and look at that section on it's own without anything else distracting me.

3) (this is mostly for my wife if she stumbles across this blog :) I'm still hoping for a FlipPal scanner for Christmas. I see great progress in my future with the Flip Pal in my life. Just Sayin'...

So, the obvious question on everyone's mind (everyone that cares, that is) is... "After annoncing to the world a little over 2 months ago that you were going paperless, is there any significant change? Is it working? Are you sticking to it?"

I am sticking to it. It is working, and yes, I do notice a change. Besides the obvious lack of a stack of papers on my desk, the bookshelf I had to add to my office a few months ago to give me more room to stack things on is slowly becoming a little more bare, and A LOT more organized. It can be done. But it is (Honey, are you reading this?) a marathon and not a sprint to the finish line...

Amanuensis Monday - Birth Mother's Letter

2011-12-19T07:42:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned how I was working on writing up a new "paper" to share with the family this holiday season, but I wasn't sure what to focus on. I finally decided I need to share the current state of my search for the birth families of my Great Grandmother, Frances Marion (WILLIAMS) KNOWLTON (DOW) MONTGOMERY. So... yeah, I'm not quite sure the proper way to put that on paper. She was born Frances WILLIAMS. Adopted by a KNOWLTON family when she was about 2 years old. Later, she married Raymond A. DOW, but Raymond died before their only child was born (my grandmother) and then she remarried Floyd MONTGOMERY. I don't really expect anyone to follow all of that. It's confusing enough for me sometimes, but it sets the stage for what could be a messy research project.

Frances was born in 1914 in New Jersey. All the rest of my mother's family was from Maine... all the way back to 1790 and earlier, so in addition to the adoption, this is my first project where I've had to do some long distance research. It's been a long road, and I think I may have found the right family, though I am still trying to get some supporting documentation. What's made it more "fun-strating" (that's my name for something that is fun and uber frustrating at the same time) is that this whole time, I've been guided by a letter from my GGrandmother's mother, Louise HARDING to my GGrandmother written sometime around 1930. For anyone that's researching adopted children's ancestry, this letter would seem like a gold mine, but until recently it has raised more questions than solved problems.

As I think about the Geneablogger's blogging prompt, Amanuensis Monday, and my most recent project to document what I've been able to find, it seems only fitting to share the context of this letter today ...

"Frances you were born here at 180 Wayne St., Jersey City, NJ Sept 10th, 1914. Your name is Frances Marion Williams. David was born here at 149 Wayne St., Jersey City, NJ March 1st, 1913. Your birth record is here in courthouse. My name was Louise Harding. Your father's name was David Otis Williams. Your brother has the same name. You had a sister Mildred, but she died when only a week old; if you want to know anything else that ???? I will tell you.

David Otis is your brother's name to. You were baptized at St. Bridget's Church where Edna and George Jr. was Baptized. David was Baptized at Grace Church here also.

Do you intend to get married is that why you ask me where you were born? If so, I hope you will be very happy but don't forget to write to me. Does your boyfriend know I am your mother? You have nothing to be ashamed of, as I have good people and I know your Dad's people were goof. you had one Aunt who was a Nurse. I don't know if she is still living or not as your Dad told me Gram Ames did not like to talk of her.

I wish Gram Ames was ok with me. I would go see her some time. I like her even though she don't like me. I am glad she is alright. I put your birthday's in ink so you can remember them. it is the 10th Sept 1914 and Son is the 1st March 1913"

And that's the letter that started the search. I've posted to message boards, Facebook groups, mailing lists, etc... all with no good leads. I called and wrote to St. Bridget's Church in Jersey City, but they never even acknowledged my requests for baptismal records as far as I can tell. I was intimidated to request records from the State of New Jersey since you're supposed to prove out your family ties.. After all, that's what I was trying to accomplish with this research. It wasn't until a new member of our local genealogical society mentioned she was researching her grandchild's birth parents and I made some off the cuff comment like, "Maybe I should have you look for my Great Great Grandparents," that the research really took off.

So, I'm curious. If you were doing research on an adopted family member, and all you had for information was this letter and a picture of Mom and baby that came with it, what would your research path look like?

Follow Friday: Nutfield Genealogy

2011-11-25T09:41:00.001-05:00

Well it happened today... I got a new comment, "Where have ya been?" Ya, I know it's been a while since my last post. I'll go through spells. It happens when you have 5 kids and "other" things you want to do, too... like doing some actual research. This time of year gets really busy for me, not only because of the holidays, etc.. but its about the beginning of November each year that I start writing up another aspect of my family's history to share with family at Christmas. It's something I started doing a few years ago, and each year I seem to find some new interesting story to share. I'm not sure which it will be this year yet... Maybe something about my paternal Great-Great Grandfather who was convicted of murder in the woods of Maine around the turn of the 20th century, in a case that was covered internationally by the press... or maybe it will be how I (actually a friend of mine) was FINALLY able to crack the mystery of my maternal Great Grandmother's birth parents. At any rate, my time for doing a lot of blogging has been limited, and probably will be for a little bit, so I thought I would share someone else's blog that I often stop by to watch when I have some time...

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/

I first came across Nutfield Genealogy last year when I was doing research for a presenation on social media for genealogy. What really struck me about this blog were two things. First, it is updated almost daily, which means its never disappointing to stop by and see what's new. Secondly, I really enjoyed the posts. While the blog description says its about Nutfield area history genealogy (Derry/Londonderry, NH) there are often posts about other things like general genealogy, Mayflower ancestry, historic sites, etc...

So, if you stop by here and don't notice a new post, take the time to check out Nutfield Genealogy. There's always something new and interesting to read, particularly if you like New England history.

Introduction To OneNote For Genealogists

2011-11-03T13:46:00.001-04:00

Well, I've started using Microsoft's OneNote to organize my digital files, and I realized as I started that there a lot of videos and "How To" articles on the internet about organizing your genealogy, but most of them assume you are dealing with stacks of paper, which of course, I am trying to avoid.

So, after a little bit of use, I put together this "Introduction To OneNote For Genealogists" video. It's my first attempt at any kind of "How To" video, so I'm open to whatever criticism, good or bad, comes of it. If it's something people seem interested in, I may do some more shorter videos that identify some of the "neat" features of the program and how they can enhance your research, but this particular video is meant as an introduction and to get people thinking about how easy it can be to convert countless binders to a simple set of OneNote notebooks.

Feel free to leave a comment with what you like, didn't like, etc about the video and/or if you are interested in hearing more about OneNote.

It Snowed In Maine Yesterday

2011-10-31T14:08:00.000-04:00

Seriously. Yesterday we woke up to a few inches of heavy, wet snow and no power. What to do? What to do? Given where I'm at in my mission to go paperless, I could have spent a good deal of time organizing what's left to scan and enter, but it got me thinking. When I am "completely" paperless, what will I do the next time a snow storm hits and I don't have internet access to work on my genealogy.

It seems to me like it's a good time to spend some time with my living family and make some memories with them. I like to point out to people that we, as genealogists, need to not get so caught up i tracking down our ancestors that we neglect our living relatives and descendants.

Do you have a "favorite" power outage activity? In our house, many of us pick up a book and read. Sometimes we play Monopoly when we suspect its going to be a while. What does your family do when you're disconnected from the grid? Have you recorded those special activities in your own family's history?

Wordless Wednesday Fom Vinalhaven, Maine

2011-10-26T00:45:00.000-04:00

Is Paperless A Joke?

2011-10-24T08:10:00.001-04:00

First, let me say Thank you, Dick Eastman for your recent plus article titled The Paperless Genealogist.

This is not a joke. It can be done. In fact there is no reason why it shouldn't be done. We hold on to paper because we like the certainty of having it in our hands and being able to feel documents. It seems impersonal to pull up a file on your computer, magnify it, drag it around and then close it, but paper... Paper is there. It's in your face, a constant reminder of what you know.

We use excuses all the time about why we use paper, but we know, from our research that it doesn't last forever. It can be easily destroyed by any number of things, but we still cling to it like it is the be all/end all.

If you haven't guessed, I had a bit of slip, almost, this weekend, where I seriously considered printing out 38 pages of Civil War Pension file documents i found on fold3.com for my 4th great grandmother, Edna (RICHARDSON) BABBIDGE. Her husband Erastsus died of dysentary in Louisiana and left her with a number of very small children to care for... Ok, off topic a little there.

The point is, why do I want to print paper? What is bringing me back there? The documents are clearly already online at fold3.com so.. that's one place. I have them saved to my harddrive, so I have them there. They are also on a flash drive so I can bring them around with me during research.. so... I have 3 accessible copies of these documents, yet I still wanted to print them out and put them in a binder.

Glad to say I didn't do it, but I have to ask myself. What's wrong with me? Am I afraid of losing this information. Do I just not trust technology (which would be a shame, given that's sort of my job...) What draws me... us... back to paper?

Tech Tuesday - OneNote vs. Evernote

2011-10-18T12:42:00.000-04:00

I was reading an older post from Elyses's Genealogy Blog today in which she discusses her preferences in the OneNote vs. Evernote debate. It really struck a chord with me when I read the beginning of the second paragraph:

A year or two ago, I played around with Evernote but just didn’t fall in love with it. I was attracted to Evernote because I’ve seen so many blog posts written about it; how easy it is to use, very mobile, syncs with the web – the list of cool features was pretty long. So I tried it. But I didn’t fall in love. I felt that the interface wasn’t as intuitive as I would have liked and I got confused a few times. After a few weeks, I gave up and moved on.

I know exactly what you mean, Elyse. I did it too. Then I found OneNote and I love it. I used it for a little bit with my genealogy files, but as I continued to read about how great Evernote was... I dunno... I felt like I was missing something and OneNote wasn't really the tool of choice, so I left it for a while.

Now, as I am working on my paperless office, I realize I need a program like Evernote or OneNote to help me beter organize my thoughts.

Now I need to pick up one, or both of these tools and try again. Maybe there is another option I'm not even considering.

I'm curious what other family historians think about the topic. Are you using one of these programs or something similar? Why did you pick one over the other? Did you try other options before settling on the program you use? I'll likely try both ofr a period of time, but if you have consideration you think I should factor in, please let me know. It would be helpful to know what other genealogists find useful.

The Place For Sticky Notes

2011-10-16T11:14:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I cleaned off my desk of most paper, save for a few things.. bills, mostly. I also left a handful of sticky notes, business cards and some random pieces of paper taped to my monitor. I have a 26" monitor in my home office, so I've had plenty of "surface area", if you will, along the outer edge to collect various notes over the years.

I also have countless pieces of scratch paper that were laying around my desk, now neatly stacked in a basket ready to be gone through. The question for me is how I was going to get rid of this stuff in a way that I can maintain going forward. In the past I've tried putting things in Word documents or text files on my desktop, but then my desktop (the Windows desktop, I mean) gets cluttered. I also don't like having to launch Word or notepad everytime I want to look at something.

So, while I'm not sure I have the perfect solution for ALL the scrap paper, I decided to replace all my sticky notes around my monitor with... Sticky Notes.

Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking... ."Huh?! That doesn't seem like a big step forward..." But it is.

Sticky Notes is a program built into Windows 7 (and I believe Vista) that allows you to use virtual sticky notes on your desktop just like I was using them taped to the outside of my monitor. Found under "Accessories" from the Start Menu's "All Programs" (The same place you go to find the calculator...) The icon for Sticky Notes looks like this:

Sticky Notes look just like the little yellow pieces of paper we're used to scribbling notes on, but have a few great features you can't get with the paper version:

Easily resize your Sticky note with familiar click and drag feature in most Windows programs.
By right clicking in the text area of the note, you can change the color of the note, making it easy to color code specific "groups" of notes together, visually.
Easily Accessible and you don't run out... each note has a + in the upper left hand corner. Click that to create a new note without fumbling around the desk trying to find the pad of paper
You can expose all your sticky notes with the click of 1 item on the task bar in Windows so it only clutters your view for as long as you need it. When you're done, click the task bar icon again and all your notes are hidden from view.

Oh yeah, and one of the really cool things about Sticky Notes is that they also work with a tablet pen if you have one of those.

I wouldn't suggest that folks should put long sets of notes, or things that you have a need for backup and recovery, but for those quick reminders and contact information I had on my monitor it seems to be working pretty well. Here's an example of a few of my notes:

Unintentional Consequences Of Going Paperless

2011-10-10T07:23:00.000-04:00

As I was working on general cleaning up of my office on Saturday and Sunday, I realized there is another unintentional consequence of my quest. I have a relatively small office space, so even as I was organizing and cleaning it still seemed cluttered to me. Then it hit me. I have a basket hanging on the wall for important papers. There is a small set of plastic bins for... papers. I have a holder for my paper bills. A filing cabinet, 2 sets of accordion files, multiple plastic bins and a slew of file folders all lining my walls and covering my work surfaces... and all for papers. Heck, I have a stapler and a tape dispenser I should have little use for going forward. Scissors won't be as much of a necessity. And hopefully I can find a way to get all these binders under control....

I might be able to yard sale all this stuff off in the spring and buy me some more records...

Desk Progress

2011-10-09T06:41:00.000-04:00

I realize there has been little genealogy talk on this blog to this point. The reason is I need to get my office into working shape to get moving on this whole project. That's starting to come together now after a good day of organizing and getting my ducks in a row.

I was very focused yesterday on getting my desk to a point that I could tackle the project of scanning & entering all the information I have. One step at a time, right?

So yesterday, I was focused enough to make some good progress on my desk and I thought I would share the before/after photos again, if for nothing else, to pat myself on the back a bit. I know it's nothing spectacular, but I hope to be able to look at this 3 months, 6 months, a year from now and really show people how it all started. Thanks for listening...


Before

After

So, a couple of things to note... If you read the earlier post with all the before pictures, you may remember I said there was a printer under that stack of papers in the foreground of the first picture. Now you can see I wasn't lying :)

This is just my desk, though. Good progress, but you'll notice there are still a bunch of sticky notes lining my monitor. To the right of the monitor are a bunch of bills which are paper. They will be around for a while (but now I can find them to pay them on time :). On the wall there is a basket that also have papers, which I will get to sometime shortly, but for now they are out of the way and I need to to organizing some genealogy files!

Sorting Saturday

2011-10-08T14:08:00.000-04:00

So, I was looking at the Blogging prompts on Genealobloggers this afternoon, and 'lo and behold... "Sorting Saturday" shows up on the list. Perfect.

After soccer games this morning, I came home and started my mission. The first step, of course is to get some organization to the chaos that has become my office. Some work has been successfully accomplished here. My desk is usable again, though, as usual I have a big basket of genealogy papers to weed through. But I have a new way to tackle this today.

The old me would try to organize everything in my office into piles. One pile was typically "Home" related things. Another might be "Work" related. I often would have a "Music Boosters" pile which contained things related to the High School Music Boosters I volunteer for. Then I would have a series of genealogy piles. "Genealogy" itself was just too big a pile to try to keep together, so I would have "Mom's Genealogy" and "Dad's Genealogy" to try to separate things out. Then, I have to have "Wife's Genealogy" and of course, "Genealogical Society Papers & Projects."

Then, as I mentioned in a previous post, I would end up so wiped out by the end of it all, everything would get shoved in piles on my desk and worktable, never to be touched (until the next cleaning spree).

Today, I made simple. Fill a basket. Empty the basket. And whatever is being emptied from that basket needs to be taken care of in a way that gets that darned paper out of this office for good. Well, the basket is almost full, so now I need to figure out how to tackle it. Wish me luck.

Before And... Well, Just Before For Now.

2011-10-08T07:15:00.001-04:00

With any "transformation" project there is a certain amount of power in being able to show how things look "before and after." At least that seems to be how all the great infomercials do it. (so I've been told). So yesterday I decided to snap some "Before" photos of my office. It's hard to tell from the photos, but trust me...a lot of the problem here are my genealogy notes, copies, handouts, forms, etc. Certainly the is more to do than just get rid of the genealogy paper, but that's a big part of it. So for those who were wondering how my mess compares to yours, here it is. All I ask is this... Please don't judge me :)

To put this whole thing in perspective, my office is a 6'x12' room The desk and bookshelf below are the 12' lengths with my workspace along the back window being 6' from end to end.

The photo on the left is of my desk. It's hard to tell, but my printer/scanner is under the pile of papers in the foreground.
On the right is the new bookshelf I just brought in from my Aunt and Uncle. This is now holding all the extra papers that were on my desk and workstation. Notice our cat, Rascal at the end of the shelf. He was kind enough to clear some papers off the top so he could have a comfy place to lay down.

There two shots show the workspace I have to the right of my desk. This is where I would normally work on some of my transcription work, editing projects, etc.

The Impetus

2011-10-07T07:40:00.000-04:00

I announced my new goal of a paperless office, and more generally, a paperless genealogist to some friends yesterday afternoon and one of them, asked the question, "What's the impetus for THAT decision?"

It's a good question to be sure. I mean I've been doing genealogy research in various forms for the better part of the last 15 years, and the system I have has been working so far, right? So once I looked up the definition to be sure I understood the question, I came up with what is actually a pretty basic answer, but I think sums it up well.

I am what some would call "slightly unorganized." You might say my organization system is messy, untidy, severely cluttered or disheveled. Those who know me might say "What organization system?" The truth is these are all valid ways to describe what my office and my genealogy records have become.

As the president of our local genealogical society I have explained to people the need to be organized. I have attended many presentations on organizational strategies... both for genealogists and for work. It's just never seemed to click. Everything is based on filing things in a way that makes sense for you. The problem is an organizational structure that makes sense to me today may not make sense to me tomorrow, so I need something a little more fluid. Having things electronically at least gives me, I hope, better access to search for the things I need but can't find because of ADD when it comes to how things should be organized.

Also, I have to point out, I've been doing this for 15 years. Well, to be fair, that was pointed out to me first, so it wasn't much of a revelation, but here's why that's important. If you have a bad habit, ANY bad habit, for any given length of time, you will eventually realize its a problem and recognize you need to take steps to fix it. If, for example, I were a smoker, and I had been smoking for 15 years and I announce to the world that I decided I needed to quit smoking would anyone say to me, "Why? You've been smoking for 15 years. What's the impetus for THAT decision?" I would like to think the first reaction would be more like "Awesome! Way to go man!" But can I really compare a life threatening addiction with being a clutter bug? As I think about my wife's reaction if I keep letting my office's organized chaos slip into the bedroom, I think there is a fair comparison to be made. :)

New Day... New Goal...

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

Today I have a new goal... A Paperless Office. And since most of my office is swimming in various genealogy papers, I thought I would start this blog dedicated to my quest and hopefully I can help some other slob like me get out from under the mountain of genealogy notes, birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc.

Well, in all honesty, it's not really new. And in reality, it's not even my idea. My wife has been trying to get me to clean up my office since we've been together. Every once in a while I get real ambitious and start sorting papers into various piles in my office and bedroom (I have a lot of piles....) Then I break for lunch.
Then I HAVE to check my email accounts, facebook messages, Google+ updates, etc. Oh yeah, usually I end up doing this on the weekend, so by this time there is usually a baseball or football game on television, or a good movie, or something else that is WAY better than sorting through papers.... And by early evening, after a wonderful dinner lovingly cooked by my wife I'm just too wiped out to do any more. So, later... just before bed, I gather up my indivividual piles of paperwork and carefully put them all back into a few larger piles in my office. There must be a better way, but how am I going to do it?

Well, first, I need to start with a few ground rules for both myself, and my wife:

#1 - I'm sure if she was reading this right now, my wife would be rolling her eyes and saying, "I wonder how long is this going to last..." So, we need to establish a timeline. This is NOT going to happen in a weekend. We're talking about a complete change in attitude. It's going to be a while... But do I have the stamina to continue down the path. Yes. I am committed to this, for sure. (My office is too small to bring any more paper in, and if anything else spills out into my bedroom, I'll be forced to bring it all with me to the doghouse I'll be sleeping in, so for sure I'm dedicated.

#2 - Let's be realistic about the goal here, folks. I'm not proposing there will be no paper in my office. Sure that would be nice, but there is always going to be something, particularly around records that are ordered and shipped to me. So what I am talking about? Maybe what I really am talking about is a "less-paper office" but I don't want to give the wrong impression here. SIGNIFICANTLY less paper is the goal.

#3 - Whats the plan? I'm not going to lie. There is going to be some investment in this effort, and maybe a few of my electronic "toys" but eye on the prize, people. It's going to be sooooooo worth it when all is said and done. I don't have a detailed plan yet, but in general, I am imagining the process will look something like this:

Establish policies around how this will all look. I need to think about things like being able to retrive documents quickly, the ability to modify and mark up documents (I need a replacement for my sticky notes too...) document sharing with other family members & researchers, backup and recovery... Establishing the guidelines and policies for this stuff will be key!
Inventory. What to I already have that is digitized and how is it stored, organized, etc.. What do I have for paper laying around that needs to be digitized? Can I follow the patterns I already have with my other files, or do I need to rething the strategy given the change in volume & types of records I may be dealing with? I will definitely need to figure out what I have and decide what stays, what goes, and what gets reorganized in the process.
Develop a plan what will remain on paper. I already admitted some things will just always be around on paper. What's the plan for that stuff? How does that fit into my paperless office?
Start Scanning. This isn't going to just happen. Eventually, I'm going to have to get scanning and put this plan into action.
Back Up. If I'm not going to keep paper copies around, there are going to be a lot of back ups in my future. Could be on CD, DVD, or online, but it needs to be somewhere easily accessible in the event of an epic failure of my computer. As a side note, I need to remember to actually use the recovery process for my documents once in a while to make sure it will work when I need it. What good is backing everything up only to find you can restore it when the time comes. Yep.. HAVE to do both backup and recovery on a semi-regular basis!
Destroy originals. This is the whole point right? Why go through all this work only to decide to keep the originals, "just in case?" This could be the hardest part in the whole process, but its obviously crucial if I am to succeed.

So there it all is. This is where I am headed...

I've done a lot of reading lately about paperless offices in general, and some more specific paperless genealogy stuff. Has anyone successfully made this leap? Can it be done? I am just searching for some sort of panacea that doesn't exist? Does anyone want to take the challenge on with me?

Your comments are welcome. I'm interested in hearing other people's tales of going paperless and/or thoughts on the matter.