Snowed In : Tackling The Paper Pile

 

With the weather outside being a frightful -14 degrees with a -40 degree wind chill, going to work yesterday and today was not in the cards.  So, after snow blowing to make sure we could get out if we needed to, I decided to work on one of my genealogy goals for 2014 : tackling the paper pile.

I have a bad habit of making photocopies at libraries, courthouses, etc. and then letting them sit around and not getting them digitized or the data input into my genealogy database.  Because of this, I'm sure I've paid twice for information that I already had or perhaps have worked on a problem that the solution was available in the stacks of paper.

I also want to try to get this family information organized between my Rootsmagic database and my online Ancestry.com tree.  I would hate for some of this information to not be shared with others.  I'm at the age where I'm starting to realize my own mortality, and don't want to not pass on what I've found.

I spent most of yesterday and today scanning the files, working through the piles that had been previously sorted by maternal, paternal and other lines.  Slowly, but surely, my intention is to post the information to my blog, add it to the Ancestry tree, and then dispose of the paper.  I'm getting tired of being a packrat for paper.  Unless the document is an official copy of a birth certificate, I don't see the need to keep a copy.