Organizing Update

     

     The reorganization here at Ellie's Ancestors headquarters continues apace.  I was actually getting something done, to my astonishment...then I read my email.  The one from World Irish, an Irish website I belong to to be exact, informing me they are merging with Irish Central.  I was just going to take a quick look at Irish Central, somehow that turned into two hours????  In my defense, it was an interesting site.

     Still, I think I've done well. I've tossed a pile of papers I no longer need but for some reason have hung onto.  I think it's because they are hard won trophies from the days before Ancestry.com, I really had to work for these.  Back then, when the internet wasn't full of databases, I was so thrilled with every new discovery that I made a copy of it.  Sometimes several, which I admit I still do from time to time if it's a really good find.  Usually though, now that I'm a seasoned veteran of the genealogical struggles, I recognize I don't need a hard copy or two, the copy in my genealogy software and yet another in a word document.  Especially when it's something like the 1910 census which I can easily find in multiple places on the internet.  In fact if I'm doing some research at my desk I'm much more likely to just pull up a census on the computer than go rummaging through my folders for the paper copy.

     As I knew I would, I've rediscovered information as I plow through folders full of scribbled notes on everything from old envelopes and scrap paper, to coffee stained napkins, (I've been known to make notes to self in Barnes & Noble, bet you do too).  On one bit of paper I found a line copied from the 1865 New York State Census Mortality Schedule--"Kinsel infant age 1/12 died Aug. 10 [1864] cause unknown".  I sent that off to my Kinsella cousin since his name was often misspelled in that manner and it was from the town they lived in, which is why I noted it in the first place.

     I've kept things I know I don't need, but just couldn't bring myself to part with like the group sheets sent by a now deceased cousin that are for the most part wrong, but it was so sweet of her to mail them to me.  I'll toss them eventually or let my kids do it someday.  In the meantime I'll make a note on them indicating they are incorrect... humor me here. Then there's the memoirs I found online of an elderly lady who lived in the"Half Acre" a short time after my 2nd great grandfather James O'Hora lived in that tiny crossroads near Auburn, New York.  And... wait a minute, online?? Son of a biscuit eating bulldog!!!  My computer files are a mess too!