In the beginning..help!
Over the years I have been putting bits and dabs into my Reunion File, it is poorly sourced and incomplete. I am now retired and have discovered that many boxes, trunks and pictures accumulated over 30-40 years are all at my house. Primary sources have passed away, much of the family left lives far away and either is computer illiterate or their information and documentation is still in boxes also.
1. Where to begin and how to document "stuff" like old Bibles, boxes of tatted lace, handkerchiefs, linens, or there is so much stuff and much has become mixed over the years. I also have several packs of letters one from the civil war era and another of my father's from when he finished boot camp and through his short stint in the Navy until discharged with an injury.
Should I photograph or scan the items and create a source number and add it to a general list, try to attach it to the family member I think is belongs to and then store and label the box/item with that number?
My sister-in-law is my primary source close by that has "stories" about some of the stuff but because of accumulated family dysfunctions like adoptions, feuds, children taken from mother to live with relatives and then back to Mom, frankly more of a soap opera at times than a genealogy, how do I indicate that she may be completely off base or her rocker about these issues? I can go to the other siblings but that would be like switching channels and coming up with an entirely different program and different writer.
I have read through many of the letters/comments here and checked out links, books and sources so have a lot of "information", but still when faced with the task of starting just don't know where to start.
2. If and when I can visit family in another state is it better to just copy photographs or use one of the small portable scanners and a lap top to get copies of the documents and photos that they won't part with.
3. What about those slips of papers, napkins, pages from tablets etc that I find stuck in books and random papers with names and birth dates but don't know if they are from a grandmother or aunt or the milkman, should I enter those as "undocumented source", scan and give a number to each piece of paper?
I know that I can eventually get my own Reunion files organized and perhaps all of the items sorted before my grandson some day opens the closet/bedroom door and wonders when I slipped off my rocker, if I can just figure out how/where to start.
1. Where to begin and how to document "stuff" like old Bibles, boxes of tatted lace, handkerchiefs, linens, or there is so much stuff and much has become mixed over the years. I also have several packs of letters one from the civil war era and another of my father's from when he finished boot camp and through his short stint in the Navy until discharged with an injury.
Should I photograph or scan the items and create a source number and add it to a general list, try to attach it to the family member I think is belongs to and then store and label the box/item with that number?
My sister-in-law is my primary source close by that has "stories" about some of the stuff but because of accumulated family dysfunctions like adoptions, feuds, children taken from mother to live with relatives and then back to Mom, frankly more of a soap opera at times than a genealogy, how do I indicate that she may be completely off base or her rocker about these issues? I can go to the other siblings but that would be like switching channels and coming up with an entirely different program and different writer.
I have read through many of the letters/comments here and checked out links, books and sources so have a lot of "information", but still when faced with the task of starting just don't know where to start.
2. If and when I can visit family in another state is it better to just copy photographs or use one of the small portable scanners and a lap top to get copies of the documents and photos that they won't part with.
3. What about those slips of papers, napkins, pages from tablets etc that I find stuck in books and random papers with names and birth dates but don't know if they are from a grandmother or aunt or the milkman, should I enter those as "undocumented source", scan and give a number to each piece of paper?
I know that I can eventually get my own Reunion files organized and perhaps all of the items sorted before my grandson some day opens the closet/bedroom door and wonders when I slipped off my rocker, if I can just figure out how/where to start.
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