My New Year's Resolution

My Genealogy New Year's Resolution for 2009 is to get organized! There are a few things involved with this:

1. Find all my stuff. I have a lot of books, magazines, documents, and photos that are scattered all over the house. So I need to collect it all into one spot.

2. File/Box it. I have a filing drawer for my papers and photo albums for old documents and pictures. I need to sort of of my stuff into these in an organized manner.

3. Make copies / print documents. A lot of documents, such as census records, are only on my computer. I want to print out all of my digital files so that I'll have hard copies - incase my computer crashes like it did a few months ago (luckily most documents were backed up!).

4. Keep it all together. I've cleared a bookshelf and have started putting my books, magazines, etc there. I want to keep this up so that I won't have any trouble finding my records.

finally, a response

I posted on October 24th about an issue I was having with Ancestry.com Magazine and my subscription. I had contacted them to find out when my subscription started, because I wasn't sure if I had missed any issues. I was contacted over a month later (honestly, I'd forgotten I'd emailed them) and entered into a somewhat confusing and all together unhelpful email conversation with the subscriptions department.

The last email that I received from them stated that "it sounds like you have missed some issues." That's it, just that statement, no solution. So I emailed back, asking what they would do about it. I received no response. That was at the end of October.

I've been sending emails, probably bi-weekly since then, trying to get an answer. Yes, I could have called them, but this started in email and could be finished in the same format. About a month ago, I received an Ancestry.com magazine for February in the mail. It didn't contain a letter or any information, but I assume that this was their way of making up the "missed issues." Great customer service guys!

So, I kept emailing. After a while I was just sending emails such as "Hello, anyone there?" and "I just want a response." Finally, today, I received an email stating:

"You have been issued a refund for the missing subs and have been giving one year free for the magazines.

Ancestry Publishing Sales & Support
ancestry publishing"

I'm glad that someone finally responded - but where is the customer service (and spell checker)? An apology or explanation for why it took six months to get this finished.... oh, wait! It's not actually finish. My question was: when does my subscription expire. I still don't have a date.

new photos

My Grandmama at Stone Mountain Park

My Mom and her siblings at Christmas in 1964

Mom mom graduating from Elementary School

A party to welcome my uncle home from Vietnam

more photos

I've found another two photo albums full of photos from my mom's family. I actually think we've had these two photo albums in the house for a while and I just never went through them. They have a lot of photos from my mom's pre-teen and teen years. I'm looking forward to going through them and scanning the photos.

record the new too

I've been bugging my parents recently to see some of the "artifacts" from my childhood. My mom has my first baby tooth. My Dad has some of our baby shoes and our Christmas lists from kindergarden.

I want to record these items, much as if they belonged to a long ago ancestor. This is my history - and it's in danger!

The Christmas lists were written on adhesive paper, with little squares of sticker paper on it. The adhesive is gone and it's holding to its backing by habit. I'd like to see about what I can do to preserve it. For now, I've scanned the Christmas lists and posted them online.

I also found the photos from that Christmas. I was really shocked to find that we had the photos to match. We don't always have photos of special occasions - I think there's a large gap of Christmas morning shots after the third year. I'm really pleased to be able to have both, and they help to date each other. The photos are dated Apr '91, which means that it's Christmas 1990, when we were in kindergarden.

SC Department of Archives and History

I found the South Carolina Department of Archives and History's website today. I found a few gems already!

It's a relatively easy site to use, especially since there aren't a whole lot of resources, but what

they do have is pretty valuable.

I found the wills of John Dorn Jr. and Peter Ouzts.

DNA test received

I just got an email stating that my mtDNA test has been received by FamilyTreeDNA. The email says that it will be between three to five weeks before I receive my results. This is less time than they quoted to receive my Dad's results - however I got his DNA test results back about two weeks early. I'm really looking forward to receiving my test results back.

In anticipation, I've been working my my direct maternal line ancestry. The line follows backwards:

• Betty Huyler Albea - 1932-2005, GA
  
• Ruby Waters Huyler - 1911-1953, GA
  
• Louise Smith Waters - 1881-1949, GA
  
• Rachel Garman Smith - 1850-1915, GA
  
• Martha Yancy Garman - 1820-?, GA
  
• Mary _?_ Yancy - ?-?, ?
  

error!

GRRR! Yet more errors on my website. It seems that my sources don't match as they should and random sources are attached to the wrong individuals. I'm having to re-upload all of my files... again. That's 1,203 files!