I Need Organizing Again

I can't believe it is 2013 already. Looking at the last time I posted to this blog it has been several months. Wow, I apologize for that, I hope to do better this year.

 

I seem to have accumulated way too much stuff for scanning. That is a good thing, so many people have nothing from their family. But I seriously need to get organize. I have lost focus of what has been scanned and not scanned.

 

  On March 6, 2011, I shared photos of my boxes of family goodies.

Well sadly instead of it getting better, it is really a mess now.

 

I moved everything to a different room in the house, one of our spare bedrooms.

 

 

My desk is buried on top and stuffed underneath!

  

 

More stuff and the big cabinet is my sewing cabinet.

All sewing is on hold at the moment.

  

 

More! 

 

 

A tiny peek into the closet, there are boxes on the floor too, but you get the idea.

 

I found some nice photo boxes on sale and bought a few and also found some archival sleeves.

Now to dig in and get things sorted.

 

 

I also need to organize my bookmarks for researching here online. I am thinking of adding a page to my blog where I can paste the links in some sort of a order rather than a long list in my browser.

 

I think it may help me to put my Kansas research in one group and Iowa in another, generic family history sites in another.

 

 

How do you organize your research and scanning?

My New Flip Pal Scanner Is Great

One of the things I received for Christmas was a Flip Pal Scanner.

This is a dream for anyone who loves to scan photos and get them digitized. This is an amazing tool for a family historian who is on the move looking for data and photos and want to scan a copy on the fly. The scanner is battery operated and very small.

I got my scanner out of the packaging and had it up and running in minutes. I just followed a few steps and weeeee I was scanning.

It does some really cool things too. The gray plastic lid snaps off so you can get hard to fit items like a book page on the scanner.

Here is a quick YouTube video that gives you an overview of the scanner.

The scanner scans in either 300 dpi or 600 dpi, you choose which you want to use.  I have taken one photo that I scanned with my full size flat bed scanner and rescanned it with the flip pal. 

You can see the 2 scans here of my father and his 2 brothers:

Scanned at 300 dpi with flip pal scanner

 

Scanned at 300 dpi with full size flat scanner

Hopefully you can tell on your computer that the Flip Pal scan is excellent!

I can adjust the contrast and brightness with my computer photo editing software. You can also buy software from the Flip Pal company.

Flip-pal mobile scanner with Creative Suite Craft Edition DVD

You can scan large items and there is a stitching software that helps you fit the items together into one large image. I haven't done a stitched photo yet so I will have to add a new post later to share how that works out for me.

Here is a video to demo that someone else made that shows how to stitch photos together.

The scanner comes with a small 2 gig card that at 300 dpi estimates over 1200 photos will fit.

You can take the card out and then load them on your computer through a card adapter. The scanner comes with a card to USB adapter.

I haven't bought one yet, but you can buy an Eye Fi memory card that will load your photos onto your computer over your Wi-Fi network. You don't have to take the card out, just sent the pics over the Wi-Fi.

Eye-Fi Pro X2 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-8PC

So I have tons of photos to scan and I can now just sit in front of the TV and scan a ton of these small photos. Then load them onto the computer and work on them at a later time.

I need to copy them to disc too. I don't want to scan then more than one time. 

You can also scan fabric and objects. Do you have a swatch of cloth from grandma's dress or fancy buttons? Perhaps a WWII metal from a grandparent. 

Search on YouTube and you will find lots of uses for this scanner, even scrapbooking.

I apologize for not updating this blog sooner, just so many projects going on. I hope to add an  update soon on my family history progress.

It's a Genealogy Birthday

Saturday my father will be 86 years old!
That is quite an accomplishment.

My father has supplied me with a ton of material for my family history research.

I thought it would be fitting to do something with the data I have been gathering for him on his birthday.

I'm no where near being able to publish my family history book, but I do have quite a bit of data on our direct lines, so that' where I focused.

I chose my father's direct paternal line, which included 4 generations, starting with his parents and ending with his 2nd great grandfather.

Since my father does not use a computer, I printed out the family trees, census reports and all other sources I found and put them in a book.


I made a cute little graphic for the front of the book resembling a family crest.




Today I visited my parents and gave my Father his present. He took to the book like it was the best thing ever. He sat there and went through all 160+ pages in one sitting! Of course he said that this was his first overview, he will go back and look at everything closely later.




Unfortunately the census sheets are almost impossible to read when they are printed on 8 1/2 x 11, but that is all I have, and he won't read them on the computer screen.




I included a few photos and family tree charts and even found some newspaper articles with a few of the ancestors in it.


Now I need to do the same thing with his maternal line and repeat the process on my mother's family lines. It's a great joy to see him enjoy my research.


Happy Birthday Dad!