My daughter-in-law's parents live in Moore; their house was destroyed. They lived across the street - to the east - of Briarwood School, which now looks like this in a photo by Tony Guiterrez and posted on ABC News.
The grandsons are helping today with salvage operations at the house.
There was a lot of stuff in their house and garage. Most of it they probably won't miss, but what about all the family photos?
So, what am I going to do about the chance that one day my belongings might blow away? I've been thinking about that for years, but not seriously enough to actually do something toward that end. Now is probably a good time to make a plan.
Most of my genealogy is online. RootsWeb has always been my favorite spot to post information - on their WorldConnect site. I have thirteen family trees posted - from 30 people in one line, to over 4200 in another. That's a lot of family information. The files include documentation that has been typed in. Only, RootsWeb doesn't have a place for images of those documents nor the photos I have.
The documents themselves are what I want to keep safe. Currently I have show files labeled Birth, Marriage, two for Death, Land records, Military, Maps, and several volumes of Other Records - such as baptisms, school records, organizations, anything that didn't fit into the major labels. I also have 3 books with correspondence and a treasure chest with letters, cards, mementos.
How do I protect those? Scanning may be part of the answer, but with technology changing every few years, I already have files from old computers that will not open on my now-three-year-old computer. Windows promises wonderful things, but they don't always work out the way I would like; compatibility is inconsistent, to say the least.
I've recently sent out a large (172-page) document file and 75 scans of photos and documents. That was to just one person. But if I need to ask for copies in a few years, will I even know where to contact that fellow researcher and will he still have the information on his computer?
I'm thinking about building a steel-reinforced concrete bunker in the back yard for storage, but since the recent tornado demolished buildings stronger than I could build, I guess I'd have to bury it to make it safe.
In the meantime, I'll keep adding to this blog. . .
