Christmas List!

It's National Shopping Day!  Also known as The Day in which Debbie Does Not Leave the House.  Time to make Christmas lists!  I’m a list maker at heart and if I’m making a list, I feel like I’m doing something, even though I’m really not.  But this time, it’s different, because I’m helping people.  See?  I’m giving back, not just making a list. 

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to ask for when someone says, “What do you want for Christmas?”  I stutter and don’t know what to say, because I never quite know.  My extensive, cross-referenced, hyperlinked Excel spreadsheet lists are all about what to get other people not about what I want.  So here is where I help you make YOUR list of what YOU want. 

Based on what I already have and love, and on what I am coveting, here is what you, the genealogist, should also have and love:

·         These sticky notes.  Really, you need them.  Lots of them. 

·         This notebook with your blog name on it.  It is fun to make lists in and to put notes for your blog in.  And makes you feel royal and important. 

·         This bracelet.  The link is to eBay because Premier Designs Jewelry doesn't have a website you can order from.  You have to order it from a Premier Jewelry representative (I’ll give you the email address of mine if you need her!) and it’s less than $30.  It holds 5 pictures, so you could, as I did, do 5 generations of photos.

·         Two copies of this book.  One PDF for your Kindle (what?!?!  You don’t have a Kindle!?!?  Add that to the list…) and one hardcopy.  You can search the PDF copy and you can look good with the hardcopy (and, of course, read it cover-to-cover.

·         This computer program.  It is past time for you to record your own stories.  This makes it easy and fun. 

·         This scanner.  I was able to scan my grandpa’s 500 photos and write a book all because of this scanner.  This is the most awesome, easy to use scanner ever. 

·         A bunch of these stickers to stick on stuff.  Then you write a short story about the stuff and everyone will know that even though it is extremely hideous, that lamp was made by your great grandfather and they really shouldn’t Freecycle it. 

·         A subscription to this and/or this.  Just a month or two helps, even if you already have a subscription.  

·         A gift card here so that you can load up your new iPad with great programs to help you with you genealogy.  And your lists. 

·         A gift certificate for here or here.  DNA and Discovery.  One tests your DNA (or someone else’s) and one helps you discover family history in SLC without, you know, going to SLC.  

Updated to add a chart from here. I forgot because it's on my own covet list.

This is Not a Joke

How long does it take an anal-retentive genealogist to put some pictures in a cute family tree frame she got for Christmas?   

Answer:  11 hours and 50 minutes. 

1. Count how many pictures will fit.  Ten small and ten large total.  Okay.  No problem.  But they don’t have the real flow of an actual family tree.  Ponder this and make several maps of how to make this work.- 1 hour.
2. Decide to just make a list of the cool pictures that COULD be in the tree.  While looking through these, notice that you actually do have a picture of 3^rd great grampa Henry and that it needs to go in the book.  You know, the one where you have long since finished the chapter on Henry?  Yes, that one.  Well, now that chapter has to be refigured because of the picture insert.  Do this.  Notice that the picture also includes his brother Louis (who you knew about) and his brother Herman (who you had never heard of).  Research Herman.  6 hours and 16 minutes.
3. Finish the list of cool pictures.  The list now includes 927 pictures.  Recall that you can have ten small and ten large.  Throw cool picture list away.  Then dig it back out because, really, you spent all that time on it…  57 minutes.
4. Get a fresh piece of paper and decide to make a map of where the pictures are on the cool family tree gift you got.  5 minutes.
5. Plot out grandparents (4 pictures).  Then great grandparents (8 more pictures).  Then great great grandparents (16 more pictures).  Then remember husband has ancestors, too.  Throw the list away.  5 minutes.
6. Finally decide on the pictures.  Plot them out. Several times.  3 hours and 12 minutes.
7. Re-size and print the pictures.  Cut them out and frame them.  15 minutes.