Organization presentation - housekeeping items

So today I gave a presentation on organizing your genealogy at the Round Rock [Texas] Family History Center for their Family History Fair. We had a great time, even with our DNA sidetrack. I've given this talk multiple times and each time I do a little more revision.

I had screencaptures of my digital files and had people ask for the contents of my genealogy template folder (folder of empty folders of each record type that I use in my SURNAMES folders) and my general Genealogy folder.

Genealogy Template Folder contains:

BibleRecords

Biography

BountyLandRecords

CemeteryPhotographs

CemeteryRecords

Census-Nonpopulation_Federal

Census-Nonpopulation_State

Census-Population_Canada

Census-Population_England

Census-Population_Federal

Census-Population_Scotland

Census-Population_State

ChurchRecords

EducationRecords

FamilyRecords

FuneralRecords

Immigration

LandRecords

LettersandEmail

Maps

Military

Naturalization

Newspaper

Obituary

OnlineData

PensionFileRecords

Photographs

ProbateRecords

PublicationsorPeriodicals

Signatures

TaxRecords

VitalRecords-Birth

VitalRecords-Death

VitalRecords-Divorce

VitalRecords-Marriage

VotingRecords

These are all items that I have encountered. I do not use spaces in my filenames, I use either dashes or underscores. Spaces, to me, are a problem. 

In my Genealogy folder, I have my random items that don't fit anywhere else. I have folders and files like:

BradburyHeightsElementarySchool

Buildings

CivilWar

CorkSKG [Items from the year I lived in Cork, Ireland]

CornellAlumniNews

defcarbolicacid.txt [Text file from the Columbia Encyclopedia, due to several family members, both extended and close, committing suicide by drinking carbolic acid]

Directories [City Directories]

DNA

DraftCardA.pdf

DraftCardB.pdf

DraftCardC.pdf [Series of forms downloaded from Ancestry.com of the three types of World War I draft card forms.]

Emails [Items that don't fit into a surname folder]

ExcelFilesTranscription [like the pdf forms above, used for transcribing documents, downloaded from the internet.]

FamilyCemeteryRecords

FamilyGroupSheets

FamilyHeirlooms

Familymultimedia

familypictures-unknowns

familyrecipes.doc

familystories-Gredlerside.doc [This needs to be moved to the GREDLER surname folder.]

GEDCOMS

GreatMigration [individual biographies of multiple men from the Great Migration project publication.]

Letters

maps

mapsofPA [Both of these could probably be moved to my LOCATIONS folder.]

MassachusettsVitalRecords [found on Archive.org and Google Books, pdf publications for individual Massachusetts towns.]

MayflowerRecords

PAArchives [pages downloaded from Fold3.com for individual books within this series of publications]

Postcards

Savage-GenDictionaryNE [publication in pdf format]

SKGredler-memories [that's me]

SURNAMES

I also have documents in this folder for items such as vital records that I have ordered but do not belong to my family.

We went through lots more today, but as a teaser, I will be giving a portion of this presentation in January at the Williamson County [Texas] Genealogical Society monthly meeting on 17 January 2013. Please visit!

(c) Sara Gredler, 2012.

History-excitement but not genealogy

Sara at the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park

August 2012

So I had been wanting to visit some battlefields ever since I moved to Texas. I used to live on the East Coast, and there are TONS of battlefields there. Not so many in Texas, though.

A coworker and I were in the Rio Grande Valley for work and driving back to our hotel saw one of the brown historic signs. I was able to convince him to turn off, and we ended up at the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park, the site of the first battle of the US-Mexican War.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the viewpoint), it was so hot that we forwent hiking the trails and did not take a gander of the site from the overlook. Nor did we visit the sister site of Resaca de la Palma. This means that I will have to go back, right?

Palo Alto Battlefield

August 2012

Taken by Sara Gredler

Blog posting was light...

Blog posting last week was super light due to being out of town due to work.  I am an architectural historian and was in Corpus Christi doing a large survey project, and ending up surveying over 700 properties in about 4 days.  Hardcore work.

However, I was super excited because I got to work with one of my great coworkers that I haven't gotten to work with in about 3 years.  On Thursday night we got a chance to let our hair down (after working 12 hours straight) and played in Nueces Bay, then decided to drive in a circle over multiple causeways and took the ferry to Port Aransas, then we drove on the beach and played in the Gulf of Mexico, then drove to South Padre Island and back to Corpus Christi.

Waves at North Beach, Corpus Christi, TX

North Beach, Corpus Christi, TX

Playing with the shark at one of the shops, North Beach, Corpus Christi, TX

Harbor Bridge lit with LEDs, Corpus Christi, TX

Bird near the Corpus Christi Seawall, Corpus Christi, TX

Selena Monument, Corpus Christi, TX

Photos and blog entry (c) Sara Gredler, 2012