How did five days slip past? I'm on a mission to clean up my study which houses all of my family history material accumulated over the last 34 years. A good friend when she moved from Brisbane to Canberra a couple of years ago said be ruthless. I have moved four times in the last 12 years so I have tried to keep the clutter down but we are facing yet another move and the time to be ruthless is upon me.
One easy win is that many things I printed out or photocopied years ago are now freely available online so I have made the decision to not keep the paper copies - amazing how much paper weighs. Mostly this is BDM indexes, IGI printouts, electoral rolls and so on. The family information is of course already captured in my Legacy Family Tree database.
Another easy win has been giving away my genealogy journals from the two Brisbane based societies. Both the Genealogy Society of Queensland and the Queensland Family History Society have digitised back issues of their journals, respectively Generation (1979-2008) and Queensland Family Historian (1979-2010). I came home from my recent trip to Brisbane with a copy of both and it is a much easier way to search through old journal issues. The only other Australian society that I am aware of which has done this with their journal Descent (1933-2008) is the Society of Australian Genealogists based in Sydney.
However I still can't resist flicking through everything and that is what is taking the time. I also made the mistake of looking at all my boxes of family photographs and after many trips down memory lane, I put all the boxes back in the cupboard or I was never going to get anything done. I have been scanning my photos as well but that also takes time. Don't worry, I won't be getting rid of original copies but it will be good to have backup copies.
I have two more talks in September so I spent some time updating Archives You May Not Know But Should for the Genealogical Society of Victoria and I am also giving that talk to the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies together with It's Not All Online: Where Else Can I Look? To see what else I am doing Oct-Dec 2011 see the Events page on my website.
Some of my online reading so far has included September issues for Genes Reunited, Ancestry.com, Public Record Office Despatch (Victoria), Lost Cousins and my daily doses of Dick Eastman. It is good to see Channel 9 showing the US series of Who Do You Think You Are? on Wednesdays at 10pm (starting tonight so don't miss it). However I do wish it was on a bit earlier - I'm not a tape and watch later person so a late night for me!
Now back to my clean up!
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