Just in case you guys are wondering (especially after that last post of mine), yes, I am still working on geneology stuff. My grandmother (dad’s side) gave me a binder which is basically about a zillion hours of her research on her and Grandpa’s ancestors. I’ve been off and on plugging that info into my computer. Not everything is going in, right now I’m doing direct line back and branching just for the last couple of generations, not all the “great great aunt matilda’s 12 kids and their families” and etc. I’ve noticed that this stuff is kind of addicting and I’m really enjoying it. One night 2 weeks ago I had intended to go to bed early (around 9 or so) and was still up at midnight plugging names and dates into my computer. Can’t imagine why my eyes were burning!
I realize I could probably just borrow Grandma’s Family Tree Maker file and plug it into my own tree, but I’m learning so much about how the tree goes together and what crazy ancestors are back there by doing it myself. Besides, her printout makes it really easy and fast to enter in just what I’m interested in. And I have the binder in case I want to add more later or look someone else up!
As for the rest of the tree, I’m a little short on info. My aunt Arlene did send me a file with some of my maternal grandmother’s side, but I don’t know that I have anything for maternal grandfather’s side or much for Matthew’s whole half of the family. So far I haven’t finished with Grandma’s binder or even started on Arlene’s file, so I’m not out of things to do, but at some point I’ll have to prod my other family members for more info.
One thing that did set me back just a bit is that I installed the wrong program initially. I had one old family tree program from my dad and an old one from Matthew’s mom. At first I thought they were the same exact program under different packaging and installed one randomly. Turns out after many flakey issues and the realization that a ten year old version was not going to work for me, that I’d picked the one that is no longer updated. We bought a new version of Family Tree Maker (one of the 2 or 3 highest rated programs and also the one that my Grandma uses, albeit an older version) and I spent MANY hours trying to get my info transferred (through no fault of the new program, the old one was flakey and wouldn’t let me make a copy of the file or export to GEDCOM format). Finally through a convoluted process using both programs installed on two different computers and a handy little flash drive the info transferred (with only a few errors and empty spaces, thank goodness I didn’t have a lot of info yet to review!) After that mess I walked away from the whole project for about 3 weeks, but I’m back in full swing now!
Will probably get back to entering a few pieces of the puzzle this weekend.