Sorry for the delay

I moved!  Okay it was just across the county line, basically, but after 20 years in one place, it is good to be some where else!  For the last year+, I have done so little with any genealogy or pictures.  Nothing.  Everything got packed away when we were looking for a new place and getting the old one ready to sell.  And it is still packed away since the new place needs to have the lower level completed before I will truly have a whole bedroom to organize everything.  Someday........

(Also we do not have regular internet, just cellular data which is not very fast.)

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.

Paper Free Office

So at work, we are needing more space but have limited storage.  This makes me think of the mythical paperless office.  So I did some research and found some ideas of how to get started.  But the suggestions are actually better for my home.  I kind of hate mail.  There is just so much paper all the time.  My kids are out of school so I'm not even seeing that flow of paper.  Yet I feel like there is just too much paper all over the place.  It also doesn't help that my husband writes things down on random pieces of paper and leaves them in his pocket or laying around the house.

So I'm forging ahead to eliminate paper clutter.  Mail should go in one spot, scan and tag and then shred that sucker!

UPDATE:  I didn't post this before but I have been making an effort to move paper along faster.  I did purchase a new scanner (I love scanners!).  And it is better than I thought it would be.  I did choice one with OCR since, if I'm getting a new scanner might as well have something I didn't before!  Since my home scanner is even better than the work one, I'm bring paperwork home to scan and eliminate more clutter!!

Disaster struck

Okay not total disaster but not great either.  I have been working very hard to create a very sourced family using RootsMagic.  I was going along fine, not quickly, but fine until I started noticing missing people. Yep, names I knew should be there were not there.  I'm not sure if I accidentally switched files or what but it was a big problem.  So I tried to fix the problem by merging an earlier backup with my current file.  Basically I just made it worst.  Now I had multiply people and everything was just mixed up.

Logic thing to do?  Just start over again.  The good part of this is it is going faster the 2nd time because my family logs were much better.  So that work didn't go to waste!  And I have a way to make sure I don't mess up again.  Before every backup on RootsMagic, I keep a spreadsheet of certain key file summaries to make sure that I'm not loosing any additional information.

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!  

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!

Scrapbooking Update

After much delay and procrastination, I have actually finished my albums from January 1998 to September 2007!  Feeling proud right now to finally have that part of the task complete and my albums are looking very organized right now.  (see above)

Just as a little reminder, I had skipped portions from almost every scrapbook album I had created in order to "keep up", which didn't happen either.  So I had to back track through every album to finish those skipped pages.  Some of the albums had over half the pages incomplete but luckily, the last few were only short a few pages.  In fact, the last one I did, my chocolate 2007 album, there were only four skipped pages and I really have no idea why I just didn't finish them at the time.  Now they all have page protecters and everything!

Summary:
9  - 45 page albums for me complete
7 - 45 page albums for my son PLUS his high school album current to Fall 2014
6 - 45 page albums for my daughter PLUS her high school album ready to add Fall 2014

Since it's Pi day (3-14-15) that makes 990 double sided pages completed!!

Scrapbook Organization Project

I might need to change this to the Getting Organized blog instead!  I haven't scrapbooked in about a year, except very small here and there stuff.  Part of the problem is that my desk downstairs is a dumping ground for every piece of paper in the house!  Well, it feels like it at least.  So my desk is always covered with stuff that needs to be put away before I can work.  Part of the issue is the heritage pictures I still need to scan.  I had them stacked on the desk but they kept creeping over to take up more space.  Then the cat would use it for a jumping off point to get to the window and knock things unto the floor.  So looking at my space, I realized that I needed to use the farthest away portion of the desk for scrapbooking, since that takes up the most space.  So all the pictures had to be moved and I needed to move a large file cabinet from under the desk as well.

Fast forward to that being accomplished.  Next I knew I needed a better way to organized the stuff I had since I really hated having my stickers in the portable container that worked great when I actually scrapped at other locations.  I came across the Scraprack which sits on the desk and this also comes with a whole new way to organize ALL your stuff together!  Just what I needed.  Used my Christmas money and bought a kit and have been busy organizing ever since!