Sorry this is a little late getting put up, everyone--I had some image problems! I had the hardest time trying to decide what to write about, as a newbie, I don't have a lot of completed stories I can tell yet, I just have lots of tidbits of things. I picture here, a document there. I'm feeling overwhelmed by some stuff I recently collected that should be helping my research along, but instead I'm just kind of stuck...
Apart from one ancestor whose parents traveled the Oregon Trail and settled in Portland for a time, most of my family roots are in the midwest. When you live in the pacific northwest, as I do, that restricts your family research to what you can find online or in family history centers (which I still haven't been brave enough to visit yet).
This summer Mr. larmos, the 3 year old kid and 13 year old dog rented a minivan and drove from the PNW to central Illinois and Tennessee to spend a month visiting our families. The highlights of the drive included a stop in Yellowstone and a very long detour to get across the Missouri (flooding).
While I was visiting I got to scan a mountain of photos, papers, clippings, from both families, visit my dad's hometown, walk a family cemetery, visit the Abe Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library, etc. After the curls I'll share a few of my favorite discoveries with you and talk about how I managed to scan and organize the stuff I found.
Before leaving I knew I was going to try to do as much scanning and organizing as I could, so I prepared by packing up my scanner and external hard drives. I also ordered some white gloves for handling the pictures and other documents.
When I finally got a chance to take a look in the box, after anticipating what I would find for months, I was overwhelmed by the amount and kinds of stuff we had in the box.
There was a cigar box of my grandfather's, in which he had saved obituaries of family members--his grandparents', his parents', his siblings, etc.
There was my great grandfather's report card from 1896, which was signed by both my great great grandparents.
Among a collection of post cards, there was a post card from my grandfather written in 1934 in which he wrote that Peoria had lots of jobs, but even more job seekers and people out of work (and high rents). At the time he had a one year old, my uncle, and must have been trying to supplement the farm income.
I found my great grandfather's diary from 1906-1907. He used the diary mostly to keep track of the work he did on a day-to-day basis, where he went on the thrashing crew on which he worked those years, for whom he built "posts," for whom he cultivated onions, etc. He did mention a few special occasions, like when he spent Christmas or an evening with his "sweetheart" and when he bought her a ring.
I found a bank book from 1869 where my GGGgrandfather kept track of the accounting necessary for taking care of some heirs of a relative that he was looking after (I also found the county records for this at familysearch.org before my visit, so this was a nice surprise).
There is a cased image, a daguerreotype, of a woman. I don't know who it is. I need to ask my uncle, but don't know if he'll know. I've checked out one of Maureen Taylor's books to help me date it.
I could go on and on, but this would get too long, and there would be too much scrolling to get to the discussion! I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to go through that things I was scanning, but I did get so much safely scanned that I have months of stuff to look at now that we're home. My one problem is that I scanned everything as TIFs because it is a lossless format, so when I want to share something online I have to convert a copy of it and upload it (PITA!!). At least, however, I've got family papers, stuff I can't get on Ancestry or Family Search, stuff to help me fill in some blanks and tell some stories about the people I'm finding in censuses. A lot of it, however, I'm just not sure what to do with. How do you decide what is worth keeping and what is not? How do you know what important information is hiding in some of these family documents?