Don't Lose Your Genealogy Data!

Keeping your genealogy research safe and sound is important. I'm so pleased that iDrive is extending their special offer to readers of Olive Tree Genealogy blog!

iDrive is offering my followers 1TB of automatic Online Backup Storage PLUS 1TB of Sync Space file storage, for $14.88 for the first year. This is a 75% savings off the regular price of $59.50 and saves you almost $45.00. Offer good until Feb. 28/15

iDrive just received the prestigious PC Mag Editors Choice award for online backup for 2015. iDrive is easy to install and easy to use. There's no learning curve and you can start protecting your years of genealogy research immediately. 

Use this link for the Olive Tree Genealogy exclusive iDrive offer

Exclusive Offer on IDrive Backup for Olive Tree Genealogy Followers

Keeping your genealogy research safe and sound is important. I've been thinking a lot about how and where genealogists should be backing up their computer files and reached out to iDrive to see if they could help. I'm very pleased to say they agreed to provide an exclusive deal for followers of Olive Tree Genealogy! 

iDrive is offering my followers 1TB of automatic Online Backup Storage PLUS 1TB of Sync Space file storage, for $14.88 for the first year. This is a 75% savings off the regular price of $59.50 and saves you almost $45.00

iDrive is easy to install and easy to use. There's no learning curve and you can start protecting your years of genealogy research immediately. 

Use this link for the Olive Tree Genealogy exclusive offer Offer valid  until Feb. 14,2015 

What Does iDrive Offer?

iDrive offers more benefits and features than Dropbox, Carbonite and Backblaze. Here are just a few of the benefits of iDrive:

- backup unlimited computers and smartphones: Mac, PC, iOS & Android
- ability to set a personal encryption key which affords extra security for your data
- real time (as it happens) backup
- offers both online backup and Syncing services  
- Facebook backup 
- Instagram backup
- iDrive Express:  IDrive will ship you a hard drive of up to 3 TB. You simply backup or restore all of your data from the hard drive and return the drive to IDrive. iDrive then transfers the data to your online account. 

iDrive vs Dropbox, Carbonite & Backblaze

Compare  iDrive and Dropbox, iDrive and Carbonite and iDrive and Backblaze

Are There Any Extras?

iDrive has extras benefits available for a small fee. The one I like best is

- Hybrid local backup with iDrive WiFi. This is secure local storage for all of your important files, with speedy backups and restores

Ready to start protecting your work? Use this link for the Olive Tree Genealogy exclusive offer 

Preserving Paper Treaures: Step 3 Ready To Create & Store

This is Step 3 of preserving your family ephemera. Yesterday I talked about sorting and organizing all those family papers into piles (See Preserving Paper Treasures: Step 2 Sorting & Organizing)

We're going to talk about paper Pile #1 and Pile #2 today. These consisted of your  most important and valuable papers and documents. To refresh memories, Pile #1 consists of your most valuable ORIGINAL documents that you are not ever going to throw out or see ruined.There is probably a strong emotional attachment to most items in this pile.

WHERE DO I STORE PAPERS FROM PILE #1?

Pile #1 is easy to deal with. You want to preserve these items intact for future generations. You are never going to throw them out or alter them in any way. You have digitized the papers but you need to do something with the actual documents. Here are my suggestions:

SMALL DECORATIVE BOX
 

Keep the treasured documents and papers in a small decorative box, one that is likely to be passed on down through the family after I'm gone. It's small enough that it is probably never going to be used for something else. You might want to add a family chart or note describing the contents of the box. See Passing on Your Family Genealogy Treasures to a Descendant

Remember my huge blanket box full of papers? That would almost certainly result in someone at some time in the future dumping the papers and using the box for storage of blankets or towels or some other household item. But the small antique box I use looks important enough to not be trashed and isn't big enough to store much more than the documents I've placed in it. 

Update January 20, 2014: Please see  Oops I goofed! A Correction re Preserving Paper Treasures for a caveat and correction

ACID FREE BINDER STORAGE You can also place the documents and papers from Pile #1 into acid free sleeves and keep in an archival binder or box. The idea is to keep them in something that will protect them from deteriorating and maximize the chance that they will still be in your family 100 years from now.  Whatever method you use, the papers from Pile #1 are intact and tucked away safely. And you have digital copies you can print to create something nice. (more on that after we talk about Pile #2)
   
 WHAT DO I DO WITH PAPERS FROM PILE #2?   Pile #2 is where you put papers that have meaning for you but are not as important or unique as Pile #1. You would like to see these documents survive and be passed on in the family but they do not have the same emotional attachment for you.  

Pile #2 is where you can be a bit more flexible. Remember this is the pile that contains items you didn't mind altering, keeping in mind that you have digital copies as a backup.   Before I get to what you should do with Pile #2, let me show you some ways to create some nice items from both piles that you can pass on to other family members.

CREATE BOOKS FROM YOUR DIGITAL COPIES

Shutterfly Book Example Page with scanned document

You've scanned and digitized all the items in both piles. This is where I take my digital copies and create books in Shutterfly. See my YouTube Video Tutorial on Using Shutterfly. You can use any self-publishing service such as Blurb or Lulu or, for those in the USA, MyCanvas.

The benefit of creating a coffee table sized book (30 pages or less) is that it looks professional and therefore important enough to keep and you can have multiple copies printed. This means you can give copies to family members and thus maximize your chances that at least one of those copies will survive in the future.

Shutterfly keeps your original book which means you can have copies printed at any time. Blurb has restrictions on how long they will store your book so be sure to read any restrictions before starting your book.

But what to do if you don't want to create a self-published book? Perhaps you don't want to undertake such a big project. Maybe you've never used Shutterfly or any self-publishing service and the task seems daunting. Perhaps it is just too expensive for your budget. That's okay because I have another solution for you.

MAKE A SCRAPBOOK

Trip Scrapbook I created for grandchildren

Consider creating an old-fashioned scrapbook. If you've been lucky enough to inherit a scrapbook that your mom or grandmother kept, you know the kind I mean. Or perhaps you kept one as a teenager - many of us gals glued in tickets from our first prom or a ribbon from a corsage given to us by a  boyfriend.

You can purchase acid-free scrapbook paper to create a lovely book that can be passed on to someone in the family. As you create your scrapbook remember that you are not going to use the original documents in Pile #1. Instead you will use copies. You've scanned them all so it will be easy to print copies on good quality paper. You can cut those copies up and glue them in your book. Using copies allows you to create more than one scrapbook.

Pile #2 is where you have more flexibility because you can use the originals. The papers in this pile can be cut up or altered and used in your scrapbooks. These documents don't have to be handled as carefully as those in Pile #1. You are still preserving these papers for future descendants in book format. Glue them into a scrapbook. Cut them up and create a collage. The sky's the limit because you have digital copies and you can always print more. If you're going to make more than one scrapbook you have copies of the  papers in Pile #2.

I know that professional archivists will be gasping in horror at the thought of cutting up or using the originals from Pile #2 in a scrapbook but we are preserving them and creating a way to view them and enjoy them.

YOUR SCRAPBOOK - FANCY OR PLAIN?

Your scrapbook can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. You can create fancy borders, add stickers or designs and be very creative or not, as you see fit. Remember your scrapbook does not have to be a work of art. The goal is to achieve a way of keeping these family papers together in a format that can be passed on.

Since your goal is to maximize the chances that this scrapbook will survive and be passed on, you need to put more thought and time into creating the outside cover. The nicer and more professional the cover of your scrapbook looks, the more likely it will be treasured and preserved and given to yet another generation. My husband has a saying "If it looks like junk it will be treated like junk. If it looks important it will be treated with reverence."

ARCHIVAL BINDERS

Archival Binder Box

If creating a scrapbook or a self-published book seems too daunting or time-consuming you might choose to place your original documents from both piles in an archival binder to pass on to a family member at some point.

THE GOALS

Whatever method you choose, there are 3 goals:

1. To preserve the documents
2. To pass them on to other family members
3. To be able to enjoy the documents yourself in an easy-to-use manner

THERE'S MORE!
You probably think this is the last post in this series. But guess what? We've talked about how to preserve, share and enjoy your ancestors' treasured paper records. But we haven't talked about you and your life and your documents! If you have descendants they are going to want to know about you, their ancestor. So keep watching this space for a new series on making sure you are keeping and preserving records about your life as well as the lives of your ancestors.

Preserving Paper Treasures: Step 2 Sorting & Organizing

Yesterday I talked about Step 1 of preserving your paper treasures as well as digitizing them.  Or as Eric commented on the post yesterday "Digitize it, but don't trash it!" If you missed the first post, please see Preserving Paper Treasures: What's New Today is Obsolete Tomorrow

Today I'm going to show you how to handle all those tubs, filing cabinets and blanket boxes full of unsorted miscellaneous ephemera. Because you and I both know that we genealogists are savers. We save copies of documents we find. We save great-grandma's bill for flowers dated 1889. We save Grandpa's love letter to Grandma from WW1.

Let me preface this blog post with saying that I am not including photos in this tutorial. That's a different subject with it's own issues but I'll talk about preserving your most precious photos in a future blog post. 

The problem is that it is extremely unlikely that anyone in the future will want to digitize all those papers. So we must do that now. But if we want to maximize the chances that the originals will still be in the family 100 years from now we have to go beyond digitization. 

Trust me, no one will want to keep a huge blanket box full of papers. It will be used for some other purpose or sold and the contents tossed out. But I have a few suggestions for how best to ensure that your family papers survive for many more generations to come. 


DIGITIZE FIRST!  
First you must scan and digitize all of these papers. Save the scans to your computer, to a cloud service (or several cloud services), burn them to a CD ROM, put copies on a flash drive or an external hard drive and share them with family members. 

CRITERIA FOR SORTING DOCUMENTS

Now you must sort those papers. If you're like me that is difficult. They are all treasures to me. But sorting is necessary and you will need to make 3 piles based on the importance or value of each document. The criteria for creating these 3 piles will differ from person to person but let me quickly define my criteria. 

For me personally I determine a document's "value" or importance based on:

a) the age of the document. The older the document is, the more valuable it is to me. My great-great-grandmother's receipt for bolts of cloth she bought in 1857 is a valuable document in my mind

b) the amount of information or story the document holds. The story it holds is not the same as the number of words, it is the detail within and how it sets my ancestor in history. For example a military discharge certificate tells a huge story about my  grandfather even though there are very few words on it.

c) how unique the document is. In other words if I have my mother's report card from 1922 that might be difficult or impossible to get from any other source. It is a one-of-a-kind document and is thus valuable.

ORGANIZING DOCUMENTS INTO PILES
 

Determine your criteria for prioritizing your documents and then you're ready to sort into your 3 piles.

Pile #1 consists of your most valuable ORIGINAL documents that you are not ever going to throw out or see ruined. I stressed original because this is not where you put copies of images of census records that you found online. Instead these would be such items as that WW1 love letter from Grandpa to Grandma, your uncle's military discharge papers, your dad's death certificate, or your grandmother's baptism record. You probably have a strong emotional attachment to items in this pile and you likely feel they are of historical importance.

Pile #2 This is where you put papers that have meaning for you but are not as important or unique as Pile #1. You would like to see these documents survive and be passed on in the family but they do not have the same emotional pull for you.


This pile might include such things as a newspaper clipping from Grandma's scrapbook, or Christmas cards that were sent to an ancestor from one of their friends. Perhaps there is a Valentine's card from Grandpa to Grandma with only his signature.  In other words these are items that you find interesting or your parents or grandparents treasured but they don't carry the same weight in your mind as the items in Pile #1. This is a very personal decision as to what is most important or valuable and what is of lessor importance.

Pile #3 is the toss pile. For me personally there is a good chance there will be nothing in this pile! I should purge but I will have a difficult time doing so. But the more papers you have in your possession the more ruthless you will need to be. If you can bring yourself to create this pile, please do. To show you how difficult a toss pile is for me, I have a ticket stub for a dance that my mother had in her possessions. I don't know the story behind this ticket. I don't know when the dance took place. I don't know why my mother kept it. So it has no meaning, no story behind it. I should toss it. But I doubt I will. 

You may also wish to consider creating a 4th Pile. Pile #4 consists of original documents that you are willing to pass on to other family members right now. If you aren't prepared to do this or there is no one in your family who is ready or willing to accept some of the items, that's fine. But consider doing this as it will reduce the stress on family who may be left to decide who gets what after you are gone. 

As an example you can see in my photos above that I have a serviette (napkin) from my brother's first wedding in the 1950s. It has the names of the bride and groom and the date of the wedding so it holds important details. I don't really want that napkin but perhaps one of his children would like to take over as guardian and keeper! As well I have two birth announcements for two of my nieces.  They include photos of each baby at birth, plus details of time of birth, weight, size, parents' names etc. Those notices aren't important for me to keep any longer and I think it is time to put them in Pile #4 then pop them in envelopes and mail to my nieces. 

In my next blog post I will talk about what we're going to do with Pile #1 and Pile #2 in order to maximize our chances that those papers will still be in the family 100 years from now. 

You can follow these upcoming blog posts by choosing the topic "Preserving Paper Treasures" from the right hand side bar.

Preserving Paper Treasures: What's New Today is Obsolete Tomorrow

Obsolete floppy discs

See that pile of floppy discs beside my laptop? That's called obsolete technology. I haven't got a computer or laptop that will read them. 

I could, with a great deal of effort, get my hands on something that would allow me to look through those discs and extract any information I might want to keep. But I won't. That's way too much work and time and effort!

And this is but one example of outdated technology. At the time didn't we all figure we could digitize our documents, create our files and save them until we wanted/needed them? But that is what happens with the rapid advance of technology. We end up with important data that can't be read in 5, 10, 15 or more years from when we created it.

As genealogists we save documents, whether original or copies. We need that marriage license of our great-grandparents. We treasure the original 1918 bill for Grandpa Bob's funeral. The push is on to digitize them, to go paperless. But let's be realistic! Will we be able to read or access those treasured digitized items in 10 years or 20 years time? 

Sure we saved a copy on our harddrive but computers crash and data is lost. We saved a copy to the Cloud, that was good wasn't it? But we have zero control over cloud services and they may disappear overnight, or there could be a catastrophic failure and saved data is lost. We have copies on CDs and flash drives and external hard drives and we've shared some of those with family. We're covered, right? Wrong. CDs and flash drives might not be readable in the future, just as those little floppy discs are unreadable to most of us.

Even if the cloud with our digitized documents is still there, if you are no longer around, is there anyone in your family who knows your password or has the technical skills to get to it? 

So what's a genealogist to do? Well, first of all you should absolutely digitize your papers  and photos and save them in every spot you can think of! The more backups the better. But don't be too quick to throw out those paper originals! 

Blanket Box of Ephemera

But where do you keep them? How do you ensure they get saved and passed on to future generations? I keep mine in a very large antique blanket box. It's about 2 feet by 3 feet and is used as a coffee table. It's full of paper documents. 

But I know that at some point in the future someone (most likely one of my grandson's wives, or a granddaughter) will almost certainly look at that blanket box and think "Hmmmm I could store a lot of bedding in here! And what's with these papers? Holy cow, do we really need to give up good storage space for my husband's great grandmother's driver's licence or her marriage certificate?" And his grandpa's death certificate!!??"    

And the papers I have treasured and saved for future generations will be tossed. So what do we do? How do we get the maximum chances that our paper ephemera will be kept by future generations?

In the next few blog posts I'm going to show you several different plans for preserving these paper documents and treasures such as Great Grandmother Harriet's baptism certificate or Great uncle Syd's military discharge papers.

You can follow these upcoming blog posts by choosing the topic "Preserving Paper Treasures" from the right hand side bar.

WARNING! MediaFire Cloud Storage - 2 Thumbs Down

Recently I heard about MediaFire, a cloud storage service. According to their welcome page "With 50GB of free space, you can use MediaFire to backup all your important files—and even your not-so-important ones too."

It's important to note that there is no fine print, no caveat, no details and no other mention of the amount of space given to you when you sign up for MediaFire. 

So let me ask you how much space you BELIEVE you are given when you create an account - 50 GB?

Well if you thought that, you're wrong. You get 10 GB on signup. Yes, you can jump through hoops and earn more free space UP TO 50 GB but contrary to the implied message on their welcome page you do not start with 50 GB

Now I have no problem completing tasks to obtain more free space. What I have a problem with is the sneakiness of the message! Be aboveboard and honest and tell newcomers that they start with 10GB and can earn 40 more.

That was Strike One for me. 

But I started earning my extra GB. I created an avatar for which I was to get 1GB. It never got added to my account. I completed two other "tasks" and earned 4 GB. If I linked my Facebook and Twitter accounts I could earn more. I didn't like the sound of that as there is no need for my Social Media accounts to be linked. That was Strike Two. 

Then I started reading about some issues with MediaFire - among other issues was one that concerned me -  that private files were sometimes inadvertently shared with strangers. That was Strike Three and at that point I decided to delete my account.

Easier said than done! I could not find any way to delete the account I had opened. I consulted the Help File. The instructions were simple and clearly explained but when I followed them I had no "DELETE MY ACCOUNT" button on the page where it was supposed to be. Finally I wrote to Customer Support for help. 24 hours later I had my answer. Here is what they said:

"The delete button appears after the account has been open for at least 7 days.  Until then, the account cannot be deleted. "

Are they kidding me?? A new customer is held hostage for 7 days and cannot leave the service? Strike Four. I was flabbergasted and very annoyed so I replied that I did not wish to keep my account open for 7 days. I demanded they delete my account for me since I had no way of doing that.

I should note that I also posted on their Facebook page, and tweeted them on their Twitter account with no response.

Five days passed and MediaFire Customer Support had not responded. Strike Five.  I wrote again thanking them for providing me with such terrific material for the negative review I would be writing on my blog. I mentioned the review ould be posted on Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and Facebook. I demanded they delete my account on my behalf.

Within 2 hours I had a response. Interesting that it took a threat of a negative review to elicit any response let alone such a quick one! Strike Six

Their response? Here it is: 

"Unfortunately that is the only way to delete an account. We are not holding any hostage. We are ensuring that you have time to test the services we offer and it is our way to reduce the amount of garbage accounts.

After seven days from when you created your account you will be able to log in and delete it."

On Day 7 I followed instructions in the Help File, found the DELETE MY ACCOUNT button which had magically appeared on my page, and deleted my account. 

On Day 9, using a different browser, I returned to MediaFire and tried my login information. I did this because at this point I do not trust this service. Lo and behold MY ACCOUNT STILL EXISTS! I can see my files, my account name, the fact that I earned more GB and have a total of 14 GB of space etc.

On the Account and Billing Information page, which is where the DELETE MY ACCOUNT button appeared after 7 days of being held hostage, that button is no longer there. 

I will be writing to MediaFire Customer Support again but meantime I urge others to give MediaFire a pass. Use a reliable cloud storage service such as Dropbox which does not use trickery or strongarm tactics to keep its customers. 

And wish me luck in getting my account deleted once and for all.

Is Your Genealogy Family History Backed Up and Safe?

Recently this story appeared on a British website Burglars steal a laptop holding family history

It seems a local chauffeur had his home broken into and several items stolen. Among the stolen items was a laptop which contained a 12-year family history project which his father, aged 87, had been working on. 

And you guessed it, there were no backup copies. Ouch! 

The prudent thing to do is protect your genealogy research! Back it up in a cloud storage site, on a flash drive, on an external hard drive, or wherever. Make more than one copy and don't have them all in one home. Give one to your brother or sister or son or daughter or a friend. 

That way if you have a fire or flood or are burgled, all your family data will not be lost. Remember that old adage - don't put all your eggs in one basket

That holds true for genealogy research and family tree data as well. Keep it safe and don't lose what you have probably spent years compiling.

I use Drobox and Bitcasa as my cloud storage and I also have Western Digital MyBookLive for a personal cloud storage system networked to all my laptops and computers. 

As well I have Western Digital Passports for a portable external hard drive system where I can store my files. You can read my review of all of these at Five Cloud Storage Services Revisited

I also like to create  books on Shutterfly which hold a summary of the family ancestors along with photos and scanned documents. I keep one copy for myself and gift other copies to my children and siblings. The more places I can put my family trees the more chance they will survive. 

If you've never created a book using Shutterfly you may want to watch my Shutterfly video tutorials showing how at Creating a Memory Book - Video Tutorials 

Credits: image of burglar by chanpipat  and image of "Cloud Computing Devices" by ddpavumba on FreeDigitalPhotos.net
 

Procrastination, My Word For the Day and a Lesson Learned

My Western Digital My Book Live 2TB Personal Cloud Storage has not been co-operating with my Mac laptop for several months. I can access MyBookLive from my Windows main computer but not from my Mac. 

Yes I've been meaning to check into the problem and fix it..... because that is where I do my backups of important files. MyBookLive is like having your personal cloud computing system and it's really very cool. 

Of course I also have external cloud services. The two I use daily are Dropbox and Bitcasa. But I don't do a complete backup with them because I don't put private or confidential information in the cloud. 

So MyBookLive which I have password protected, is where my monthly backups live. Except I haven't done any monthly backups in, well, months! Lately my Mac has been overheating. It gets so hot I think I could fry eggs on it. This morning I booked an appointment at the nearest Genius Bar (which happens to be a 2 hour drive each way...)

Of course they strongly suggest you backup your computer before bringing it in. That's a wise precaution and I have a feeling my Mac will be staying for some in-depth work, so I do want to back it up. That was a problem so I got to work on fixing MyBookLive.

Well, long story short, that has not been easy nor completely successful. I've managed to fix it enough that I can manually transfer files from my Mac to MyBookLive. That's a tedious and very slow process!

But I cannot use Mac's built in Time Machine to transfer (which would get everything and be far less tedious) because my very poor Internet connection via satellite, will not connect to Western Digital to allow for firmware updates. And without that update, Time Machine can't connect to MyBookLive and start the transfer. 

If I'd begun solving this problem when it first arose I would not be in this mess. 

Procrastination. Yep that's my word for the day. I'm going to write 100 lines of "I will not procrastinate". Well, maybe I'll write it out tomorrow.....


Credits: Image by Stuart Miles on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Five Cloud Storage Services Revisited

In 2011 I wrote about cloud storage and the different free cloud services available. It's at Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining for those who want to have a look. Time for an update!

Here is a list of 5 free Cloud Storage services you might want to try:

1. Dropbox. This is my all-time favourite. With Dropbox I can store, sync, and, share files online for free. Not all cloud services will sync. If that's not important to you, don't worry about it. But I like to have at least one service that will automatically sync my uploaded files to all my devices. You get 2 GB of free space but you can get more with referrals. If you still need more you can always subscribe to Dropbox Pro, available in 100 GB, 200 GB, and 500 GB plans. You can even get more than 500GB with their Business Plan.

2. Google Drive. 15 GB of free space plus the use of Google spreadsheets and docs makes this a great choice.  I use Google Drive quite a bit and it's easy to share editing of files with others.

3. Bitcasa: 10 GB of free storage and surprisingly, for $99.00 a year you can have unlimited storage with their Infinite Plan. I like this option very much and am probably going to sign up for Infinite.

4. Amazon Cloud Drive: 5GB of free storage. I use this for genealogy certificates.

5. SugarSync: 5GB of free storage makes this another option. You can pay for 60GB, 100GB or 250GB plans if 5GB isn't enough for you

I haven't included SkyDrive as I don't care for it. But lots of people do use it and you can get 7 GB of storage so you might want to check it out too.

Let's talk about having your own personal cloud storage and external hard drive systems. I use Western Digital MyBookLive which hooks up to your home network and gives you your own private cloud storage. It's easy to drop files into it and it also creates a backup of your computer hard drive.  I bought the 2TB version at Amazon and there is a 3TB version available too. The WD My Book Live 2TB is on sale, down from $164.99 to $109.99 while the WD My Book Live 3TB is down from $199.99 to $153.98

It's a bit of work setting it up but once you do, it's easy to use. You can even set up different folders for different family members and can password protect the folders if you wish.

I also use the WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive Storage. In fact I have three of them! I can't live without them. They range in size from 3TB down to 320 GB so there's bound to be one that suits you. These are also your own private storage but the beauty is their portability.  The size is 4 x 1 x 3 inches! I have all my genealogy photos and documents on one and I can take it with me to plug into a relative's tv (if they have a USB port) or their computer to share with them

Hopefully these ideas will help you if you're struggling with what cloud service or what type of external back up system to use.

Credits: "Computer Computing Global Social Networks" by KROMKRATHOG on FreeDigitalPhotos.net