Spring Cleaning

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 Courtesy https://www.freepik.com/vectors/house, gstudioimagen


Ah! Spring!  You can feel it in your bones and smell it in the air!  To some people it is newly cleaned flower and vegetable beds.  To others it is open windows and freshly laundered curtains.  It is an overall renewal of spirit and purpose.

My apartment complex is doing major renovations to our units and within the last month professional movers came in, carefully packed up all my possessions and put them in storage while the cat and I went to temporary quarters.  I had limited cooking utensils and clothing but I managed to keep my internet access and contact with the outside world.

After two and a half weeks we moved back into our apartment and the professional movers brought back all those boxes and moving racks with our furniture.  A whirlwind named Desiree unpacked all the boxes, flattened them for removal and disposed of all the packing paper.  I was working in the kitchen so most of the dishes and cooking utensils made it back to their appropriate places.  Desiree laid everything on flat surfaces in the living room and bedroom.  Not everything made it to the appropriate room so I'm still putting things away.

While I am in the process of rearranging furniture and putting things back where they belong, I am finding items that I barely recognize as being mine!  I vaguely remember having some of these things but some of them should have gone in the trash long ago.  The movers had so carefully wrapped them, along with years of dust, and now I get to do some much needed spring cleaning.


Family files

Through this process it has occurred to me that I probably need to look at my family files and do some cleaning there.  How many of you have done that recently?  I know that there are several techniques to help you get started.


#Filing Friday

On Facebook, at The Genealogy Squad, Cyndi Ingle does a weekly post entitled #FilingFriday in which she encourages attacking specific types of records so the task doesn't seem so big.


Genealogy Do-Over

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Spring Clean your Family Tree

Last year, we published here on the blog Spring Clean Your Family Tree. Besides specific advice about trees on various websites, we listed some "best practices":

  • Be sure to list each woman with her birth surname; if you do not not know it, leave it blank. If you know only the married name, link her to a spouse with that surname and if you do not know his forename, leave it blank.
  • No longer is it necessary to note surnames in ALL CAPS, so don't do it!
  • Enter dates dd mmm yyyy and places beginning with the smallest jurisdiction you know, up to the country.
  • Ensure that each fact is supported by a source; and each source is linked to a fact.
  • Finally, do the facts you have verified seem to make sense? Or have you perhaps confused two people with similar names and dates?
  • No matter how you approach it, a fresh start is always a good idea, especially parts of your research you haven't touched for awhile. Fresh eyes on the situation might give you fresh ideas or even lead you to newly found records!
Be sure to share with your fellow genealogists your successes and challenges. Collaboration can be magic!

Happy Spring! 



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