9 years ago (yes, you read that right) I made a genealogy trip with my mom and my oldest son (who is now in college) to take photos of headstones in Wabash County, Indiana. It was a two day trip and we visited many graves, took rolls of photos and experienced a couple of events that are definitely blog worthy!
I developed the photos and fully intended to scan and save them digitally. Really....I meant to.
Two years ago I joined Find a Grave. I fully intended to scan those photos and post them on Find a Grave. Really.....I really meant to.
Last Tombstone Tuesday I wanted to post one of my favorite photos from that trip, one of my son (the one that is now in college) at his great-great-great grandparents grave. So, I got out the photos, scanned just that one and posted it to the blog.
Then I decided to go ahead, while I was on a roll, and post the memorial on Find a Grave! And that's when I saw it. A sight that momentarily stopped my heart from beating and then caused it to race! A volunteer on Find a Grave had entered all my Brane, Botkin, Stephens, Scott, and Sutton ancestors in Wabash County, Indiana. She had entered even the most remote cemeteries!
All I needed to do was scan all my photos and upload them to the ancestors memorials! But wait, what about all the dates I have, the relationship links I needed to add. All that would require either me giving all that information to the volunteer and asking her to update the memorials or asking her to transfer the memorials to me so that I could update the information.
After much thought I put the first 26 in an excel spreadsheet, swallowed my guilt, and asked her to transfer them. Which she kindly did. I have since invested over 12 hours adding the photos, updating dates and adding the relationship links.
I realize now that there are so many more memorials posted then I have photos for. That means another genealogy trip to Wabash to take the ones I am missing. And another large transfer request for the Find a Grave volunteer.
Oh, the guilt................................
Lisa, that is like a replay of my week -- one of the volunteers graciously transferred the memorials to me --- rather than do the extensive updates. I was still pleased that someone had taken the time to enter the information --- goodness know when I would have gotten around to it --- tho it did lite a fire to my candle.
ReplyDeleteAlso guilty here of dragging my feet in putting stuff on Findagrave, and of course I wish I had done it sooner!
ReplyDeleteLisa, Your Find a Grave story really hit a note with me. I had put aside tracing my husband's family, waiting to visit Wabash to look at the records and cemetery. That was 2008, no photos or info on Find a Grave then (and no visit, yet). Now, thanks to you, I checked again and found some of his McClure ancestors posted on Find a Grave. Woo hoo! Of course this means more questions to be answered. So many ancestors, so little time.
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