Backup Tools

At the risk of sounding like a nagging spouse or mother - I hope you are all backing up your family history data (and all your other digital files) on a regular basis.  I am a firm advocate of the 3-2-1 rule:

3 copies of your digital information
2 different formats
1 off-site copy

For example - my 3 copies are:

• on my laptop harddrive
• Carbonite continuous backup AND a once-weekly mirror image of my whole laptop
• peripheral hard drive (WD 1TB My Passport)

My 2 formats are:

• Cloud backup
• Peripheral Hard drive

My off-site copy is another 1TB WD My Passport that I keep in our safe.

Okay, that may not technically qualify as "off-site" - but the safe is fire and water proof and unless we get hit by a tsunami or Cat 5 Tornado it should be okay.

For those of you who are still trying to figure out the best way to safeguard your data, Family History Daily posted an article entitled, "5 Online Tools For Backing Up Your Family History Data" that is worth reading.  In it, they outline what I consider to be the top five best backup plans/programs.

Trust me - all it takes is one major hardware or software crash and you will appreciate the little bit of time and money it takes to secure all that information you have worked so hard to assemble.

Obituaries

One of the resources we tend over overlook when searching for information about our ancestors is obituaries.  They can be a treasure trove of information.  If you have any idea at all about where an ancestor died, try searching the local papers for that area for an obituary.  Most indexed newspapers have been scanned or digitized using OCR (optical character recognition) meaning you can do a name search of the newspapers archives to find someone.

Here is a list of some of the information you can find in an obituary or death notice:

1. Date of death, name of cemetery, date and place of the funeral and burial
2. Name, place, and year of birth

3. Names of children, where they lived, and their position in the family’s birth order
4. Names of the towns and how long they lived in each one
5. Age of spouse at death and how long ago that was
6. Details on the longevity of parents and grandparents
7. Count of descendants, by generation

8. Name of spouses (and maybe even past spouses)

9. Names of siblings and sibling's spouses

10. Occupation(s) of deceased

You just never know what you can learn - so I hope you will use this valuable resource in attempting to break down your brick walls!

One Brick Wall Busted!

It looks as though our research project is off to a fabulous start.  We are pleased to announce that "The Royals" successfully helped Denise K. find information about her great-grandparents. These are folks Denise knew nothing about and it seems the group even managed to unearth a photo. WOW!  Good work!

We should also mention that the "Shorebirds" have made some progress in helping the Robertsons find information on Jamie's elusive family.  So it appears that it is true - many heads working on a problem can make a huge difference.

I know the rest of you are working hard as well - and if our current record of success is any measure, I am sure we are going to see many more busted brick walls in the weeks to come.

It was great to see so much productive team-work and one-on-one collaboration happening in our meeting yesterday. Keep up the good work!

Portable Storage with Password Encryptioin

For those of you who are looking for portable storage with built-in password encryption, you may want to take a look at Western Digital's My Passport.  This peripheral storage device is available for personal computers using Windows OS and for Macs using iOS.  The PC version comes in a variety of fun colors and both versions come in four different sizes: 1TB ($59.99), 2TB ($89.99), 3TB ($109.99) and 4TB ($119.99).  They have a USB 3.0 interface (fastest now available) and are reverse compatible with a USB 2.0 interface. The great thing is that there is a built-in 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption with WD Security software that helps keep your content private and safe. You can even add a “return-if-found” message as the password prompt in case your My Passport drive ever gets lost. 

I have been using WD portable drives for years and have found them to be extremely reliable. I have a 1TB I use as a continuous backup and an older, 350GB one that I use like a thumb drive. 

In addition, the company stands by their guarantee. If anything happens to the drive during the first 3 years you have it, they will replace it for free - no questions asked. One of mine decided to go swimming a couple of years ago and I had a replacement in less than a week. 

With its built-in auto-backup software - it is the perfect way to make sure your computer is continually and consistently backed-up to an outside source.  And, unlike cloud storage that relies on wifi to connect you to your files, this little guy will travel with you and always be available.  It is compact and small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.

I highly recommend you maintain THREE backups for your computer and this little drive is a great way to take care of one of them.

17 Genealogy Habits for 2017

If you have $4 to spare each month, I recommend you try a subscription to Family Tree Magazine. It is well worth the money and is always full of information that will make you a better genealogist.

FTM also has a blog that I read regularly, and they recently posted an article entitled, 17 Genealogy Habits to Make in 2017.  All of their suggestions for getting more done on your genealogy in the coming year are good ones and I recommend you take a look and see what you can incorporate into your routine.

If you want to get more done on your family history project this year, you have to do more than just sit at your computer screen looking for records (although that is, indeed, important). You need to explore what other folks are doing, how they are doing it, and educate yourself about what is going on the vast genealogy world.

Everything you learn will make your research easier, more productive and a lot more fun!

New Online Catalog For Genealogy eBooks

Hi.  My name is Denise and I am a bibliophile. I admit it. I have loved books since I was a kid and, in spite of my romance with technology, I still can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than in a bookstore. I have pared down my collection of "real" books over the years in favor of digital books (sometimes referred to as ebooks).  I have over 700 at the moment. This format allows me to access any of the books in my collection anywhere at any time from my Kindle Fire, laptop or Chromebook. It is the quintessential, instant, portable library.  And, if I don't have a resource I need, I can usually find it in one of the millions of library resources or ebook sellers around the world and access or download it in a nanosecond.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

If you follow Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, you probably saw his recent post entitled, Genealogy Publishing Company Adds A New Online Catalog Solely For Genealogy eBooks.  In it he talks about a new ebook store just for genealogists at Genealogical.com.

One of the advantages of buying ebooks is that they are usually less expensive than their physical cousins and, of course, you don't have to wait for it to be delivered.  According to Dick Eastman,

At Genealogical.com you can:

• Search for books by locality, subject, time period, and other categories.
• Look inside the book to view pages from the publication and search within the text.
• Buy the book easily with just one click, registering with Google, Facebook, or your e-mail.
• Read the book instantly on our site or download it to the eReader of your choice.
• Cut and paste content directly from the book to your genealogical project, without having to retype the information.

I particularly like the last item as most ebooks you purchase through Amazon.com or other sellers preclude you from copying/pasting text due to copyright restrictions. 

I highly recommend you read Dick Eastman's post and check out this new genealogy library. The more you read, the more you will know!

New Information Available

I recently visited the South Carolina History Room at the Charleston Country Library's downtown location.  I collected a variety of brochures I thought our D.I.R.T. members might find useful.

Please go to the "Resources" tab above and scroll down and you will find a new section entitled "Charleston County Library Resources".  The documents are listed under that heading. All the documents are in PDF format and can be downloaded to your computer or printed.