Digging up the trees to their roots

2007-03-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted, but I figured since this website is on my business cards that I should.

I've been working on my websites consistently, as well as scanning microfilm a lot at the Freedman Center I scanned all of the Green River Republican prior to 1923, and I'm working on a roll of Death Certificates for the KY Vital Records project, and should finish it today to mail back to the library that loaned it. I have on loan microfilm of really old newspapers from Owensboro to scan and post as well, so my time is well claimed.

I'm also planning my summer genealogy trip and hopefully getting credit for it (History 397: Independent Study).

Mono and bicycles

2007-01-11T19:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the last few months were unproductive and slow, because I had mono. I've been home on break for a month and am returning to school tomorrow morning.
I realized that for this summer's genealogical trip I won't be able to get a car. So I decided...to do it on a bike!! Time to get myself into shape, and get a new means of transportation at the same time. My father and grandfather used to be avid bikers, so I have a general sense of what's going on. I also joined a mailing list for "bike tourists" as they call those that go on extended tours by bike. My next step is to buy a bike, I've been riding my fathers while in Maryland, but it's time to hit the road and get back to cleveland tomorrow morning.

As for productivity, over break I got caught up on my Frederick County pages. I both got the VAGenweb site up to date with submissions, and created the TOC index for Frederick County. I also got through the TOC for Northumberland, and halfway through Rockbridge County.
I made the new Lancaster VAGenweb page but I've yet to upload it.

I scanned a large portion (600) of my grandmother's photos as a private project for her. Those extremely old photos that were in the lot may get posted on one of the Butler County websites, probably the MyFamily.com site as well as the KYGenweb, after I talk to her and see which I can put up.

I visited a cemetery in Fauquier County VA where there are many Embrys to this day. That's a project for the second set of Embry books. My first set will be descendants of Grancer. Email me at EmbryProject@gmail.com for pricing and ordering information-- they will be out by October 2007.

I went to the Maryland State archives yesterday, copied the marriage license listing of Lloyd Gary and Anne Jarvis, 1792. Also got the will of Gideon Gary (1783) and the will of his daughter Mary (1806). Email me if you are interested, I haven't put them online yet.

And now I should go sleep, because I have to get up at 6am for my flight and it's 10:30pm here.

School..

2006-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

School's been getting the better of me, I've been staying on top of things the best that I can but I have not had time to work into my backlogs at all. Today I got into working on the Virginia Archives pages... I have finished 14/27 pages for that-- just a little over halfway... I got a lot of good headway today though so I hope next time I get a block of time I will finish them.

I've been thinking about other pages, and working on the surname lists for the counties missing them.

All moved in and all is good.

2006-08-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

I am completely settled in, have started schoolwork.

I finished TOCs for Lee and Loudoun (I'm uploading Loudoun soon) in VA.

I did a lot of image editing for the KYVitalRecordsProject Sunday night, or else I'd be more ahead. I'm still looking at my goal of getting rid of all of my backlogs by the end of the week. Classes start the 28th and if I get my pages to where they just need updating rather than originial forming, Classes shouldn't keep me from staying on top of all of this.

Moving time

2006-08-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last night Sharon, the state coordinator for the VA Archives and I worked on the search pages. We got the second search line working and discovered that the first line never really worked anyways so I removed it from my TOCs.

I finished my TOCs for all my counties in VA alphabetically up through Lancaster County although I skipped Frederick because I have more to upload for it and I'm coming back to it.

And now my computer is actually getting unplugged for the move so I can't get more done today.

Friday before Move

2006-08-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

Everything is gone in my room now, except my computer. I'm still working though. I added some Obituaries in King George County, VA, did a bunch of little things, and finished a few Tables of Contents for the VA Archives page.

Unfortunately I found out none of the search bars work on my Archives pages. I have to get that fixed a s a p but there is that little problem that I'm moving and really need to get moving on the moving...

I'm feeling really accomplished though. I'm getting all the websites to an easily managed level and off the mountain of work to do stage.

Moving

2006-08-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

It's extremely hectic to go through the moving process, all the packing and all of the sorting and getting my whole life into a honda civic.

However, even with moving day at about 50 hours away, I'm getting more and more done with the websites. I got more done with the IA Archives today because I had been confused about how to handle cemeteries officially and also went and double checked Polk County, because I used to have a County Coordinator for the one county (now I have none) and I wanted to double check that everything was in good shape that nothing got overlooked between me and my former CC thinking that the either was doing something.

I posted a new announcement to Daviess County: http://rootsweb.com/~kydavies
about the Cemetery Preservation Board being founded. I'd like to help with it myself but I don't have the resources.

I adopted more counties in Virginia on the VAGenweb. I'm going to go edit my initial post that lists my projects so all the links are there. I adopted some counties I'm really looking forward to working on-- and I have 2 co-CCs! I'm really excited. I've never cohosted a county before but I think it's going to be a blast. I spent quite a while last night talking to my cohost for Northumberland and Lancaster. I haven't talked to my cohost for Henrico yet, although I want to.

I'm going to finish my backlog before working on my new counties. That will give me the drive to really finish everything on my list by next week. I'm excited about the move to Cleveland :hint: Sunday I will be insanely busy, what with the 7 hour drive and moving in and all.

2006-08-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I did finish my first cemetery from my trip. The transcription is currently at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~amw42/frankembrey

I also dug deep into the Frederick County VA submissions I had backlogged, and got through all the Estate bonds in the set. There's still tons more for me to go through. I think I can finish it soon.

I also went through and got *most* of my IA Archives TOCs up to date with the newest submissions. I'll finish that tonight, as well as work more on Frederick County submissions.

I am trying to just get rid of my backlogs so that I am caught up-- I think I can get caught up probably by tomorrow evening if I really try-- then I have so many things i *want* to do with my sites that I haven't had time to. I'm making surname pages for King George and Frederick, so that I can have a listing of who is researching who. It's proven useful in Butler and Daviess Counties *(KY) and so many people have already written me about the Frederick listings that I think it will be very useful as well.

2006-08-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

I had a very long and eventful road trip. I will update at greater length about it later.

I am now home, and dealing with my backlogs. I think I can honestly catch up with everything this week-- and pack for moving into college next sunday the 20th. Hint-- for those of you needing my mailing address, it's changing on the 20th.

I worked on my backlog of Frederick County, Virginia docs for the Archives and VAGenweb pages, and got several more online. Tomorrow during the day when I am rested more and have more wits about me I'm going to do more of them.

I have almost processed one of the cemeteries from my trip that I promised to someone I would have posted asap... the other things from my trip will wait until my normal backlog has cleared.

I am home now, however, and working on getting everything functioning and back to normal.

VA Archives TOC

2006-07-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

I got through Dinwiddie and Fairfax today, I'm working on Albemarle. It's easier because although it has more files, it has an old TOC that's only 2 years out of date-- so I don't have to add tons.

I have so much to work on right now... and my DAR application is languishing because I can't afford a professional notary public and the ones I know I haven't seen yet.

Followup

2006-07-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I successfully processed ALL the documents and contributions that I had from that time period that I had been missing, and I got through a lot of the IA Archives set, I only didn't get to the ones that required photo resizing.

I expect to finish that tomorrow, and all my other things, and get into my major todo list:

Finish VA TOCs
Finish Frederick Co., VA website contributions
Get Clarke Co., VA online
Sort and deal with AR Tombstone Photos

and there's more, of course...

in addition to the photos from Irvin's estate and the pictures I have to scan for my grandmother.

June 14-24

2006-07-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

While I was out of town I somehow messed up my email for the previous dates-- and now I have to work on getting all those submissions online because I hadn't gotten them onto my desktop computer for some reason. If you submitted items to me in that time frame, I am getting to them, and I apologize for not noticing sooner.

July 10 2006

2006-07-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

I have returned from 3 days away and started to catch up on what I missed the last 3 days.

I have also volunteered for the Obituary Project for Iowa (technically already mine ) and New York and Vermont, which will be new. I'm still getting the details on that and seeing if I'm actually doing it.

I have planned my trip more and budgeted in my money. I think I'm leaving the 24th or so of July and returning the 8th or so of August. We will see how it goes from here.

Caroline County VA TOC

2006-07-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well, most of my day was devoted to the TOC of Caroline County-- now seen at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/caroline.htm and finally done! now there's just... many more to go.

But that took longer than expected so that's all today.

Thunderstorms

2006-07-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Well, most of my plan got shot by the weather. No fireworks, and no internet for my 4 hours of free time I had to work on most of this stuff. And being prepared like I am, I didn't have the stuff that I needed to work on downloaded off the servers. So I wasted my four hours staring at the static on the tv waiting for cable to resurrect itself.

Fourth of July

2006-07-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm working more on planning my trip-- including that pesky "earn enough money to go" part of it, so I don't have tons of time to spend on doing all this that I want to get done.

Tonight after I finish painting the walls (and getting paid for it) I'm going to test out the new online form submission process that usgenweb va archives is testing out on a trial basis. I don't know how many of the counties are using it, but I'm going to use some of it to format my backlog.

That, and work on my TOCs for VA archives. Have a lot of them partially done, but need to get more than one actually website ready and uploaded. We'll see how far I get-- some of these have a LOT of listings. Frederick County will be a nightmare for creating the TOC-- but at the same time, I am amazed and happy that people will contribute so much to make a database that is truly useful. I think by the time my main submitter is done submitting and I have finished uploading, the Frederick county site and the archives will be something to behold.

...to painting.

2 July 2006

2006-07-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today I cleaned out my email, made sure I'd replied to everything, leaving me with 214 items to deal with in my inbox-- mostly archive project contributions. I figured I'd clean out part of my todo list.

I did my first set of images for the KY Vital Records Project, http://kyvitals.com/ . It was interesting. I have been using Photoshop Elements1 and 3 long enough I had forgotten how to use Photoshop CS2 and had to teach myself each function as I used it.

Then I decided to work on the Iowa Archives. I have had a lot of submissions lately thanks to a very good submitter. It's so amazing when someone shares such a large collection.

2006-07-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

Now that my introduction is out of the way, I can talk about where I am now.

I just got the Butler County site ( http://rootsweb.com/~kybutler ) uploaded to the site after recently adopting it from Jimmy Orange. I have a lot of things to do now, but I feel like polishing the Butler County site soon. All I've done is get it really up and running / functioning, but it could use some sought out input rather than just waiting and seeing what shows up. I'll see how that goes, but for now I think I have some higher priorities.

A cousin of mine (my grandfather's first cousin, in his eighties) passed away in April, and we just cleaned out the estate a couple of weeks ago. I have maybe 1-2 hundred photos that I have to scan and organize now, and see who I can mail copies of what to so that I can get all of them identified. They are from the Bath County area, or possibly Ashland, KY depending on the shot.

Also, I still have all my photos from last summer to finish sorting before this year's travel. I plan on going down through VA, NC, coming west through TN and KY, getting to St Louis, and then coming back through KY, then up through WV, MD to home (in DC). I don't want to wind up duplicating photos (I photodocumented every stone in several cemeteries and several hundred marriage certificates). I need to get everything organized so I don't waste time on my trip, although if I can't make enough money, it's getting curtailed quite a bit. I don't know how much, but it is going to get cut some. I think I will make it for about a week on what I have now, so I just have to earn more money on top of that to keep going longer. I have to be back at college in Ohio in late August so I don't have tons of time left.

I also have a huge backlog from one of my wonderful contributors from Frederick County, VA, and some assorted things to fix on various sites. I'll see how far I get.

Introduction

2006-07-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

I think having a blog where I can talk about my genealogy work each day will be nicer than my old blog where all I do is have emotional rants that don't make sense. I'm currently working on enough genealogical projects that I actually need to have an outlet to write down everything I'm doing or else I lose track. This way I can keep track, and people out there that are interested can read and keep up to date. When I tell someone "I have a bit of a backlog" they can come see how much is ahead of them.

Now to introduce myself. My name is Alice Warner and I am interested in genealogy and archiving. I am interested in genealogy and pulling things together out of original documents. I sit there and look at the census and try to wonder... how do these people fit in? I am one of those rarities that actually looks at everyone and wants the big picture. I don't stop at tracing backwards-- when it gets a little difficult to go backwards I go forwards. I love creating descendancies and tracing all the descendants of someone downwards. My current pet project in that matter is the descendancy of William Grancer Embry-- from Butler County, Kentucky. For those of you visiting from my other counties and not aware of him, he had 9 children, and every one of them had several children-- until a large proportion of Butler County traces back to him at least once if not more in their genealogy.

My website projects are some of my favorites. I love using my computer familiarity (I grew up, literally, with computers. There has been one in my house every day since my birth).

My list of websites genealogically that I'm working on right now:

KYGenweb:
Butler County http://rootsweb.com/~kybutler
Daviess County http://rootsweb.com/~kydavies

VAGenweb:
Arlington County http://rootsweb.com/~vaarling
Clarke County http://rootsweb.com/~vaclarke
Frederick County http://rootsweb.com/~vafreder
King George County http://rootsweb.com/~vakingge

USGenweb Tombstone Project
Arkansas State http://rootsweb.com/~cemetery/arkansas/arkansas.html

USGenweb Archives Project
State Coordinator
Iowa http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ia/iafiles.htm

County Coordinator
In Virginia: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/vafiles.htm

Albemarle Co., VA
Arlington Co., VA
Augusta Co., VA
Buckingham Co., VA
Caroline Co., VA
Dinwiddie Co., VA
Fairfax Co., VA
Fauquier Co., VA
Frederick Co., VA
King George Co., VA
Lancaster Co., VA
Lee Co., VA
Loudoun Co., VA
Madison Co., VA
Northampton Co., VA
Prince George Co., VA
Rappahannock Co., VA
Richmond Co., VA
Rockbridge Co., VA
Stafford Co., VA
Westmoreland Co., VA

In Kentucky: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ky/kyfiles.html

Daviess Co., KY
Edmonson Co., KY
Grayson Co., KY

Long list of things to do now, isn't there?