There's a heat wave coming our way. The weatherman has promised us a high of 111 degrees later this week. I don't know about you but my strategy, in withering heat, is not to go out and attend to my garden. Nope, you can be sure I'll be parked inside in the welcome air conditioning—and probably in front of my computer.
Perhaps this is the season which shapes up to be the genealogical equivalent of spring cleaning. I've already come to the end of a few surprising family history stories—and believe me, those critters don't show up easily on my research doorstep. I've wrapped up those projects, but haven't yet found any tantalizing new ones to share.
Sometimes, the lull in research excitement is the perfect time to dig in and clean up the mess from past frenetic genealogical endeavors. No more travel for a while, either, so I'm home to stay focused on the Great Big Genealogical Cleanup.
Only problem is: no great chance for exciting headlines here. Just the grunt work of cleaning up. Still, it helps to focus on the reward ahead. Just think of how good it will feel (I keep telling myself), getting those files organized. I can clean up duplicate entries, marrying parallel lines of identities which turned out to be one and the same person. I can seek new hints for old, old entries, since Ancestry.com is always adding more records. I can correlate my more recent collateral lines with searches in newspaper databases to see if I can glean additional information on family members, besides the usual BMD routine.
All for well over twenty thousand people.
Ready? Let's begin.
Above: "The Jonquils," from a painting by American artist Childe Hassam reprinted in The Booklovers Magazine in 1904; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.
Ah yes, newspaper blurbs. I just saved a folder full over the week-end and my indoor activity needs to be renaming and categorizing them. But with balmy weather predicted here this week the flower gardens may win the day.
ReplyDeleteOh, Gayle, the flower gardens do sound tempting...but I have to remind myself that this week's weather (at least here for us) will go quite beyond "balmy." It was 90 degrees by 10:00 a.m. Need to finish all outside work before then, simply out of self-protection. This week is going to be a scorcher! Newspaper folders, here I come!
Delete120 for our son and family in Arizona---worrisome.
DeleteIn response to an inquiry from a reader, I clicked on a page tab on my blog only to see that dreaded error page not found message. Oh, that's right -- Dropbox changed the format for housing and linking files. Totally forgot about it. Ugh. Cleanup on aisle 3!
ReplyDeleteNow, there's an adrenaline rush you could have done without, today! But as much as we all cringe over those error messages, I suppose it's just as well to find the problem early and get that fix rolled out there!
DeleteI hope the newspapers yield some results! Stay cool, 111 wow I hope everyone brings their dogs inside :)
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of warnings about health safety and the heat, thankfully. We usually get one of these killer heat weeks each summer, so everyone usually is up to the routine. But right on the heels of a 47 degree day with an hour straight of hail? That's the crazy part. Just not geared up for this, right now. And besides, I thought this was still June! The weather's got its calendar all mixed up!
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