Lubbers, Lubbers and More Lubbers

Since my first post I have heard from another Lubbers that there were two groups of Lubbers.  My Lubbers came from Bentheim and the other from the Netherlands.  Since my group had so many children there are tons scattered all over West Michigan and other locals.  The dutch Lubbers seem to be centered around Zeeland area and I don't know how many or what the descendant count is looking like.  And since the first house post, I had my disaster so I'm spending lots of time trying to get everything back into the file.  But going along with my paperless status, I'm shredding paper files that are not original and I have digitally copies of.

Making progress on my Genealogy Do-Over

I have been working on my do-over since 2015.  After 2 years and a few months, I have accomplished two very important goals.  I had an overwhelming amount of digital information that needed to be logged and added to my rootsmagic tree.  I am very please that I have complete not only 1 surname, but 2 surnames (out of four).  I'm still working on the remaining files but I also still have a lot of paper not digitized at all.  So sorting and scanning is still in the future.  But I am very pleased with my progress!  

Do-Over Log Jam

www.catskillarchive.com

One of my first ventures into the trenches of Genealogy in 1997 (about) was meeting with my mother's cousin who had done TONS and TONS of work on our shared line.  She very generously shared by copying all her files that included newspaper clippings and handwritten memories.  So I started as a name collector with that huge file of handwritten family group sheets.  But what I did NOT do was sourcing.  I had no idea where that name or date originated.  I negated the work done by others by not giving credit to the original.

As I go back through those pages plus other collections, I'm looking at a lifetime of work by many as well as record of who came before me.  I'm not a name collector.  Rather I'm honoring the work of my relatives.  The years and years of their efforts (typing, organizing, going to libraries) are worth the hours of effort by me.  Their love of family and history deserves preservation.  What I'm hoping to pass down to my descendants is a well organized record of my work, including names and faces and stories of those who came before,

3 Rules of Genealogy (for beginners)

1st (and easiest) rule of Genealogy : Always start with yourself and work backwards

2nd (harder) rule of Genealogy : Always site your sources so you can find that information again if needed

3rd (hardest) rule of Genealogy : Always site your sources so that ANYONE can find that information again; including yourself when you forget what you meant in rule #2

Genealogy Redo Progress

I started the Redo in March 2015 and it has felt like a really long journey.  I'm still in the "organize what you have rather than find more" stage which has been really hard to accomplish.  But I finally feel like I am making some real progress.  (Although there is a long way to go.) I had a ton of saved documents that were only divided by family.  So I finally decided to sort by type of record, i.e. newspaper, census, dutch records etc. and that has helped out a TON.  I also labeled them by number, 1-13 and I'm on number 5 already!

So being "done" with a section means that the each item is saved as a jpg on my external hard drive, saved as a pdf on my dropbox account, and logged into the corresponding family research log.  Then it is also add to my roots magic family tree and each person & fact has a source attached.  I know everything is not perfect because I do make mistakes but I do love seeing those files lining up by numbers!

PS: this is my 200th posting!

Keeping it all Together

I have been working hard (when I have time) at reorganizing my genealogy files and making sure to source, source and source again for everything in my tree program.  Part of that organization is my need to see what I'm missing easily, without having to go through all the people in my tree.  So this is my master ancestor listing:

(I ONLY have direct ancestors on this sheet.  Adding more would just cause chaos.)  So I have the generations listed on the left, then the ahnentafel number, the last & first name of the ancestor, then all the primary records, then additional information and finally all the census records.  It is color coded at the name level to match the binders I have for each family.  When I find a vital record, I change the font to green.  If I know that person is not going to be in a certain census, I gray out that field.  I actually really love just viewing the chart!  It really appeals to the part of me that loves lists!

I didn't come up with this chart on my own.  I started with another chart a genealogist had used (and offered it to everyone in the group) and then I've just kept adding things.  The last thing I added was Military/Draft field so I can keep track of military records.  I am positive I will never ever complete this chart.  I can keep on adding names without running out of space.  And there is always something I cannot find.  But I will keep on hunting!