WAHOO!!! Breaking out the Champagne!

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/merlin1487/5518280677/

I've been doing the Do-Over pretty much all-in.  But in addition to the craziness of figuring out the priorities and protocols, the plans and methodologies, and precisely how things should be handled, and setting up the new tree, I had another little sideline project I had been working on since before Christmas....

It had to do with my computer files EVERYWHERE!  My big elephant in the room. Well, make that MANY rooms.  A great many rooms....  Rooms with closets, painted-over cupboards, hidden passageways.  And content hidden in every little corner.

I really felt that I had to get them all gathered together, and at least roughly organized, so I knew what I had.  A large number of the "documents that are expensive or very difficult to replace", both legal and important to pull for the Do-Over, were hiding in there. Somewhere in there.    "I know I have that...."    And for everything not in that category, I would at least know where the stuff was so I could set it aside!

In the past, I have been only marginally bad at just adding tree branches from others' trees.  But I have been RABID about going on free-form searches, and gathering bits, saved in "to be sorted" files, "lots of Carricks" files, "analyze these" files,  "Wow Peck Docs" files. Pick any dumping-ground filename.  I've probably used it.

Been doing this for decades....  Oh, my....

So I have been finding and moving all these from wherever they are, and putting them in Evernote, well-sorted, titled, and tagged, so I can find them.  (What a concept!)

A friend got the content from two old hard drives onto a flash drive, and the content in those two old drives was gradually moved out and handled.  I have dug into the current computer, and gathered up everything, from everywhere, and ditto.

Since just before Christmas,  I have found, moved, and at least sort of organized 1.6 GB of old files and finds!!!  And today, just this afternoon, I DELETED both the *Big Sort Job* folder and the *Temp Import File* folder in Evernote.  They were EMPTY!

Oh, my... That felt good!  Understatement....

So now, I can find the image of the register for my parents' marriage. And the 1930 and 1920 census images for them, and aunts and uncles and grandparents,  that I cannot afford now.  And newspaper articles about my great-uncles that I cannot afford now. And other such document images as I move along.

And as I move along, I will fill out the research log as I look for a specific item for a person, but then I will STOP, and check my own Evernote for that first.  I may have 3 copies already there!