Scanning and Preservation - The GW Smith Albums

My grandfather, George Washington Smith, and his camera.
I think the sling on his right arm is to help keep the camera steady.
I wonder how much it weighed?

As I mentioned in my last post, the main focus of my scanning and preservation this year have been three photo albums that belonged to my grandfather, with photos taken from 1911-1919.

These photos were among the first things I scanned when I began my genealogy journey, but I wasn't happy with the job that I did and after last year's discovery that a local archive has some pretty poor quality copies of some of these photos, I decided that I would rescan the albums for myself, my cousins and to share with the Eastern Townships Resource Centre in Quebec.

Finally, the albums are rescanned ✔

I created an index in Excel as I went along ✔

I uploaded the scans and index to Dropbox ✔

I put archival tissue paper between the pages of each album and to fill the empty spaces in the temporary acid-free box.✔

I emailed the link to the ERTC ✔

To Do:

Order archival boxes for the albums

Finish labeling all of my scans for the Smith family to upload to Dropbox and share with family

I should also mention that I confirmed during my visit to this archive last September that they wanted these scans and before I started scanning I checked with the archivist that my scanning method would work for them (600 dpi, .tif format, no color correction, upload to Dropbox). The only thing that Jody asked was that I scan any photos smaller than 2 x 2 inches at 1200 dpi which I was happy to do.

I heard back from Jody after she received my link and she was very happy to have these images and the additional information that I was able to provide for the images already in their collection. As I said in my previous post, I love these photos, but I am so happy that I'm almost done with this project!

2019 Genealogy Goals - Update

The George Robert Smith Family - December 25, 1914

A few genealogy bloggers that I follow have been using the halfway mark of 2019 to take a look at their progress. I'm a bit late this time but thought it would be a good idea for me, too.

DAR Membership - I'm still waiting for my mother to take a good look through her records so that I can complete the first three generations of documentation and then really get going on my application. She had some unexpected medical procedures in May and June but is doing very well now. I'm surprised by this, but she is pretty sure that she does not have death certificates for my grandparents so I've started the process of ordering them. They will be coming from the provinces of Quebec and Ontario in Canada and I have a feeling that the one from Quebec may take a while but I am hopeful that we can use that time to get everything else together.

As for earlier generations, I was hoping to get to the NYC Municipal Archives and the Brooklyn Historical Society this month, but I'm going to have to wait at least until the current heatwave passes before I spend hours on public transportation. I did discover another Brooklyn newspaper on newspapers.com, The Brooklyn Evening Star, that I was able to access through the Brooklyn Historical Society website. In this newspaper, I found a third marriage notice for my 2nd great-grandparents (I had found others in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and The Long Island Farmer newspapers) and although I didn't learn anything new, I was happy to see that all of the names were spelled correctly. Just going through the process of searching got the wheels turning in my head about this family again and led to a few new ideas for research which I hope to investigate soon.

Sharing My Research - I was able to complete five generations on my new public tree on Ancestry before my membership ran out in May. I took advantage of a sale at My Heritage for an annual membership, but I've been a bit frustrated by the way their site works. I may go into more detail on that in another post, but I'll keep working on it for a while before I put my frustrations out there publicly.

Passenger Lists - I've put this on the back burner until I'm ready to really dive into Swedish records. I want to find the date that the church says my great-grandmother and her sister and friend left to give me another date range to search in the records. This likely won't happen in 2019.

Self-Education - I really need to make this more of a priority! Enough said.

Research Trip - We went to Ottawa in May and had a great trip. I even learned about two more Revolutionary War ancestors for further research.

Giving Back - I have posted a new memorial transcription for the Honor Roll Project every month and I have posts ready to go for August, September, and October. I have also photographed enough memorials to transcribe and post monthly through April or May of next year.  Unfortunately, I have not done any indexing on Family Search in months. I'm putting this on my calendar now for next week!

Preservation and Scanning - I am almost finished the rescanning of my grandfather's photo albums, creating an index of the images in Excel and uploading the images to Dropbox to share with the Eastern Townships Resource Centre in Quebec and my cousins. This has been a pretty big project, interrupted for a few months by a shoulder injury. I love these photos, one of which is at the top of my post, and looking at them all again has given me a lot to wonder about but the actual work of scanning, indexing and uploading can get pretty tedious and I am ready to be finished with this project!

Where I Stand - Obviously my DAR application is going more slowly than I had hoped but plugging away is the nature of genealogical research and I will just keep doing what I can.

As for my other goals, once I'm completely finished with my scanning project, I will have more time for them, especially education. I hate to abandon, even temporarily, my search for my great-grandmother Johnson on passenger lists, but leaving it until I can be more focused is best.

I think of my goals often and try not to get spend too much time on anything that isn't on this list, but it's good to do a more formal review once in a while. And writing this post has already made me think about what I might accomplish in 2020 but that would be really getting ahead of myself!

The Honor Roll Project - Westbury, NY

As part of Heather Wilkinson Rojo's Honor Roll Project, I have transcribed these Rolls of Honor in Westbury, NY to make the names visible to search engines so that family researchers may find them.
Please consider finding the Honor Roll(s) in your town or village and transcribing them on your blog or website. And even if you don't have a blog or website, see the Honor Roll Project for instructions on how you can submit a transcription.

This memorial is located in front of the Community Centre in Westbury, NY, just south of the Northern State Parkway. It contains Rolls of Honor for both world wars, a plaque to all those who served and a memorial to those residents who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

IN HONOR
OF THE 
THREE HUNDRED AND TEN MEN
OF WESTBURY
WHO SERVED IN THE WORLD WAR

1917-1919

AND TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY
OF THE FOLLOWING MEN
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES
TO THEIR COUNTRY

John Peter Adnet

Hector Glenn

William H. Madden

Alfred R. Noon

Jack Page

Albert Parr

Walter Shaw

Willard D. Straight

James F. Walsh

Harry Zuk

IN MEMORY OF
THE MEN OF WESTBURY COMMUNITY
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY
IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

1941-1945

Edward S. Apcenski

George Baisley

Frank M. Brown

Thomas M. Brown

Michael J. Buffalino

Thomas Hitchcock Clark

Estle Colvin

Michael J. Cricker

Michael D. Croker

Michael W. DelloIacono

Charles W. Dysko

Nathan M. Edwards

James Ford

Joseph Fachin

Leo J. Gerdowsky

Charles P. Goulding

Griffith Hartwell

William P. Hicks

Thomas Hitchcock

Joseph R. Hoda

John E. Kostew

Thomas J. Laverty

John Leeoutillier

George M. Lloyd

John G. Milburn

John P. Monteforte

Joseph Murphy

Joseph Price

Robert S. Rassman

Philip G. Read

Benjamin Rudolph

Howard M. Russell

William J. Schaal

Adrian Schoedel

Anthony J. Scialdone

Richard J. Shaw

Adam M. Sokol

Robert Shyne

Frank Thomas Tafuro

Robert H. Taylor

Dominick Troccoli

Charles S. VonStade

Frederick G. Watson

Anthony Zukowski

THIS SITE

IS A GIFT TO THE

VILLAGE OF WESTBURY

IN MEMORY OF

THOSE WHO DIED

IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY

AND

THOSE WHO REMEMBERED

WESTBURY WAR MEMORIAL

COMMUNITY CENTER, INC.

1947-1978

IN SOLEMN AND LASTING MEMORY OF THOSE INNOCENT WESTBURY CITIZENS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
WE WILL NEVER FORGET

David G. Arce

Richard A. Aronow

Michael Boyle

Richard G. Bruehert

Thomas P. DeAngelis

David J. Fontana

Wade B. Green

Ann McGovern

Thomas Strada

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001