Genealogical News
Wow, it published it before I even wrote anything except the title.
Of late I have not done much with out genealogy. I have about 111,000 names in the file, dating back as far as 1100 AD.
My major complaint is that I do not have all the data I need for persons about my age, as most PAF's, gedcoms, etc., will shield that data until at least 70 years from date of birth have passed. Well, I am 72, so I cannot get the more relevant data on my own generation. The Census Bureau did release the 1940 materials (that's 2 years before I was born.)
And I refuse to use Social Security data/records, as I feel myself that information should remain private.
The biggest hang-up has been my computer. For some time I could not access the internet, as the speed my ISP was giving me was so low. I am on dial-up so it was going to be slow anyway, but speeds of 4.8 kbps is way too slow. After having my son check my computer over and pronouncing it sound, I called my ISP and we worked out a routine that gives me 16 to 24 kbps consistently, with occasional flubs, to as high as 38 kbps, which seems like lightning speed after only getting 10 or 12 kbps.
I have learned a trick. If I don't like the speed it gives me, I log out and log right back in, sometimes as many as three or four times until it gives me 30+. Or just postpone what I planned to do. I keep a stack of papers to enter data from for such occasions. Then when I do get a good connection, I go to Rootsweb and download additional data to use during the next downtime.
I have generally found that I can log into Rootsweb and then get just about all the information I need for one or another of it's subsets.
The other project I am working on is to have an ongoing list, by alpha, of all family names we have in the file. I have to do this manually as there is no automatic function that I can find to do it for me in the PAF which I use. I have it complete for the first 104,ooo persons, and am working to get it current again. I go through it every four or five months to update it.
Of late I have not done much with out genealogy. I have about 111,000 names in the file, dating back as far as 1100 AD.
My major complaint is that I do not have all the data I need for persons about my age, as most PAF's, gedcoms, etc., will shield that data until at least 70 years from date of birth have passed. Well, I am 72, so I cannot get the more relevant data on my own generation. The Census Bureau did release the 1940 materials (that's 2 years before I was born.)
And I refuse to use Social Security data/records, as I feel myself that information should remain private.
The biggest hang-up has been my computer. For some time I could not access the internet, as the speed my ISP was giving me was so low. I am on dial-up so it was going to be slow anyway, but speeds of 4.8 kbps is way too slow. After having my son check my computer over and pronouncing it sound, I called my ISP and we worked out a routine that gives me 16 to 24 kbps consistently, with occasional flubs, to as high as 38 kbps, which seems like lightning speed after only getting 10 or 12 kbps.
I have learned a trick. If I don't like the speed it gives me, I log out and log right back in, sometimes as many as three or four times until it gives me 30+. Or just postpone what I planned to do. I keep a stack of papers to enter data from for such occasions. Then when I do get a good connection, I go to Rootsweb and download additional data to use during the next downtime.
I have generally found that I can log into Rootsweb and then get just about all the information I need for one or another of it's subsets.
The other project I am working on is to have an ongoing list, by alpha, of all family names we have in the file. I have to do this manually as there is no automatic function that I can find to do it for me in the PAF which I use. I have it complete for the first 104,ooo persons, and am working to get it current again. I go through it every four or five months to update it.
posted by tanstaafl | 6:45 PM
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