52 weeks to better genealogy - Week 17

This is the assignment... From Geneabloggers and Wee Tree
Get out your family photos and label them. You’ve seen them a million tines because they’re YOUR photos, but what happens when they’re passed down to others? Will those people know the names of everyone in the pictures? Take some time and label your photos with pertinent information. If you’re working with old photos, take consideration with their age and condition. Devise an archival-friendly labeling system. For digital photos, you can use computer programs to tag the images with names or other identifying information. If that’s too confusing, you can at least save and/or re-name digital photos with details of your choosing. Don’t let another generation slip by without documenting your photos. Your ancestors will thank you. If you have a genealogy blog, share with your readers your system for identifying photos, and even share a photo if you like.

When I read this, I thought, OMG, I so need to do this.
I don't have time to actually complete it right now, but it will be on my mind when I look at my pictures in the future.

For the pictures I have on my computer that are "genealogy" related, (that is, not the hundreds I have of my new daughter), I have been getting good at labelling them.  This is how I have been labelling them so far.

LASTNAME_Firstname_Locationifknown_date if known

So far it seems to be working well for me, but I probably should do this for all the "recent' photos I have of my family as well.

So I didn't actually do any work for this weeks challenge, but here is a picture of my daughter...just because.
I'll label it Swinging fun! :)

52 Weeks to better Genealogy - Challenge #14

It's week 14 for the 52 weeks to better Genealogy.(Geneabloggers and Wee Tree)
 
Here is what we were asked to do:

 Use a different search engine for your online genealogy research. Google is quite popular, but other search engines may provide different results. Try Yahoo! Search (http://search.yahoo.com/), Bing (http://www.bing.com/), Ask.com (http://www.ask.com/), Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/), and even Clusty (http://clusty.com/). Pick an unusual surname and search it in different engines. Make note of the top 10 page returns for each. If you’re a genealogy blogger, share your observations on this experience.

I have become so accustomed to using Google as I am sure so many people have, that I forget about the other search enginges.  I tried various names and places in all of the above pages.  For the most part I the same results from all of them.

In my quick seach I cam across some pages I had forgotten I had found in the past.  So I quickly bookmarked them, they should provide me with some information when I have time to get back to them
.
I find that with google, while I get numerous "hits", some good sites often get lost in the crowd, so trying some of these different ones allowed them to float to the top so too speak.
I will be bookmarking these other search engines and will utilise them for sure when doing my searches.

This was a great exercise!

52 weeks to Better Genealogy - Challenge #13 - Cyndi's List

After reading   Dr. Bills blog today, I decided to check out Cyndi's list as part of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy - Challenge # 13. (as discussed by Geneabloggers and We Tree)


My experience with this website in the past was one of confusion.  I have come across it before during my searches, but never gained much information from the links, simply because it was so overwhelming, and I didn't know where to begin.

Today I gave it another go.  And, to be honest I have come away with the same feeling.

First I used the search bar and typed in Wentworth Ontario.  For a county I want to research.  It came back with 68 sites. 1-10 results on the first page, but when I went to the second page, it said there was only 13 results in total.  So I'm not sure what happened so the rest of the results?   

It was not easy to determine what the search results were about exactly, but I could easily click on them to find out if it was of inerest.  So I did, thinking it would take me to a page that talked Wentworth and Ontario, and I would determine then if they were relevant or not.  I expected to be taken to various webpages.  But instead I was taken back to various index pages, where I had to search for the page they were talking about.  The pages were often very long, filled with lots of writing and links. Only by using my "find" button, could I easily find the links talking about Wentworth. 
With all that searching, I did get one page that could be useful, that I have used in the past.  Ontario genweb: Wentworth County

Now compare this to typing in Wentworth Ontario in google.  It came up as my second or third option.

So in conclusion, while Cyndi's List is FULL of lots of valuable information I am sure, in my opinion it is just not worth the time needed to search it.  I much prefer Mr Google.


p.s There is a small list of blogs listed there...I think geneabloggers should add their site, as should some of the other bloggers around here.  Although I think they would just get lost in the huge collections of information.