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By Claire, on May 8th, 2012
 A reader has drawn my attention to the fact that the genealogy database section of this blog is no longer rendering the information correctly. Big sigh…..sometimes technology is NOT my friend. I suspect, although it’s mostly speculation, that the problems lies in a combination of (1) not having upgraded to the most recent versions of WordPress (what my site is built on) and TNG (my software of choice for housing my genealogy data, and (2) conflicts between WordPress, TNG, and Atahualpa (my beloved WordPress theme).
I am at the NGS conference at the moment; am getting the newest issue of my genealogy society’s quarterly bulletin ready to go to print; and have some fast approaching client deadlines. So……I haven’t the time this week to invest in getting to the root of the problem and figuring out a solution, and I do know that diving headlong into quickie updates of WordPress and (…more)
By Claire, on February 21st, 2012
 I’ve been using Rootsmagic for a number of years, but just upgraded to the newest version earlier this month. I immediately fell in love with two of the new features.
Research logs are an ongoing battle for me….lately I’ve had great success with OneNote, and for my major, probably-taking-to-me-grave, brickwalls, I’m using Word. But for all the everyday, run of the mill work on whichever ancestor catch’s my fancy when I find myself looking for a change of pace, Rootsmagic’s new Research Log seems to be the ticket.
I did a little work on locating the birth of a potential son of a revolutionary patriot, and recorded the research as I went in the new section of the person’s individual screen. Here’s what it looks like:
Birth of Thomas Hawes Jr For: Thomas HAWES Objective Is Thomas Hawes Jr the son of the patriot Thomas Hawes? Date Goal Source (…more)
By Claire, on February 1st, 2012
 The other day I was trying to scan a couple documents for a client, using my normally wonderful HP All-in-One printer with scanner capabilities but my laptop couldn’t find the (dreaded) TWAIN. I really don’t know what TWAIN is, but from time to time my laptop has trouble finding it. The problem normally resolves itself after I shut everything down and reboot. After three cycles of shut downs and reboots, I was getting nowhere and the time was tick-tocking away on my client deadline, so…..in desperation, I ran to Best Buy and bought a NeatReceipts scanner. I had intended to purchase a FlipPal, but discovered, to my dismay, that Best Buy doesn’t sell them. I’m pretty happy with NeatReceipts (which I am in NO WAY affiliated with). My laptop had no problem connecting with it, and the scans were clear and my client was happy.
Today, in a rare couple of free (…more)
By Claire, on November 5th, 2011
 This month the focus of my ProGen study group is on building a personal genealogy library. My studymate Melinda was gracious enough to post her assignment early by way of a link to her online library catalog at LibraryThing.com and the rest of us are shamelessly borrowing her pretty marvelous find.
It goes without saying that, as a keeper of a blog, I LOVE the written word and, as an avid reader and writer, I’ve amassed, as I imagine a lot of bloggers have, quite a collection of books over the years. My house is bursting at the seams with books: many on overstuffed bookshelves; stacks balanced on spare chairs; the ever growing collection of must-reads on my night stand; lists of recommended titles I’d like to read but don’t own yet, tucked into my book club journal ; and bags in the garage, filled with books I’ve read but, for a variety of reasons, feel are (…more)
By Claire, on August 23rd, 2011
 I recently began experimenting with Microsoft OneNote and wrote about my first impressions here. Since then, I’ve uploaded some of the templates I’m using for research and they are available here: OneNote Research Templates.
One of my favorite uses for OneNote is laying out a chronology. When faced with a genealogical puzzle, I’ve found the best way for me to see what I know and where the holes are is to organize my facts into a chronological list. Once that’s done, I fill in gaps, connect relevant facts, and chip away until I find a solution, or at least see a path for further research. I’m partial to highlighters in different colors, and my favorite research pen is the kind that has four different colored inks built into it.
Sometimes the problem carries on over months, or even years. When that happens, (…more)
By Claire, on August 2nd, 2011
 I’m a diehard fan of Evernote, for all aspects of my life, not just genealogy notes, but I’ve been giving OneNote a serious look this week and I think it might be a real help in keeping my research organized.
OneNote is a program in the Microsoft Office family (I’m using 2007). The program allows you to create something akin to tabbed notebooks. Each notebook can have any number of tabs, or sections as they’re called. I decided to create a notebook for each family I’m researching. To keep things simple, and to maintain consistency, I created page templates for the different sections of my notebooks:
•Surname tab—Basically an overview of the family name, with general notes as well as a table of contents to get to the sections of the notebook quickly – essentially bookmarks which jump to a specific section, or a certain page (or even a paragraph) within (…more)
By Claire, on February 1st, 2011
 They Came From Montana wrote a great review today, here, of a hand scanner which can be used to make a quick scan of a document should you find yourself in a library or archive without change for the copier, or if you come across something in a book that is too fragile to be copied. I want one!
In the meantime, I’ve discovered another cool gadget for scanning on the fly: an Android app called Portable Scanner, which works on Android phones like my HTC Droid Incredible. It’s available at the Android Marketplace for $1.99 and you can read about the app and see screen shots of it at Appbrain.com Using this software allows me to point my phone’s camera at the document and take a picture image which is then visible on the phone’s screen. This way I immediately know how good the scan was and I (…more)
By Claire, on January 28th, 2011
 I have spent hours every day this week working on the assignments for my BU Genealogy class. Hours. Two days ago I had a panic filled moment when it seemed that my laptop had frozen, and I was reminded of the recent horror I’d lived through a couple months ago when the laptop’s hard drive went bad and I had to send it back to Best Buy for repairs. I hadn’t done a backup in several weeks (shame on me), but fortunately the clever boy at the Geek Squad counter was able to pull most everything off my partially ruined hard drive and put my most recent work onto a backup CD. Phew…..
When my laptop starting acting up this week, I put my class work aside, made sure my backups were all in order, and got myself a Dropbox account. People on the Android forums ( I have (…more)
By Claire, on December 7th, 2010
 Recently connected with someone from Australia researching Thomas Smith of Lewknor (…more)
By Claire, on November 10th, 2010
 Here is one of the several restorations I got after posting the picture on Rootschat. My file uploaded at a lower resolution than I had intended, so they didn’t have as much to work with, however I think the end result is quite good.
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