How To Keep It All Straight

Today I got an e-mail notice telling me that this was my last chance.  Apparently I had not responded to several e-mails telling me my membership dues were overdue. (Except that I have been cleaning up all those e-mails from last year, and there were no notices from this group.) I digress.

One of the things on my goal list was to check my memberships to see if they were all up to date. This would not be an issue if I could just check my bank statements or check book and see when I paid for aforesaid memberships. But that would be too easy, right?

See the problem is with hundreds or maybe thousands of members (depending on the group and whether or not it is local or national) who join at various times. It's a bookkeeping nightmare. You wonder why nobody ever volunteers to be the treasurer? So in answer to the problem most (if not all) organizations just note that you have paid and you are a member for "their year." That means if they designate their year as running from June to June your membership is good from whenever you paid till the next June. So if you paid in January, your membership is good till June. If you paid in October, your membership is good till June. If you paid in March your membership is good and paid up till June. Catching on?

Problem is, unless they pro-rate the dues, you pay the entire membership cost and are only paid up for 5, 8, or 3 months (respectfully.)

I don't have a problem with the math. I'm ok with supporting my societies and professional organizations. My problem is that then I don't know when I'm due to re-up. Every society and professional organization has a different due date. How to keep track?

There are a lot of organizations to remember to pay dues to:
Genealogical Speakers Guild
Association of Professional Genealogists
National Genealogical Society
Utah Genealogical Society
Sacramento Genealogical Society (Root Cellar)
Genealogical Association of Sacramento
California Genealogical Society
Southern California Genealogical Society
Lafayette Genealogical Society
Southwest Louisiana Genealogical Society

They all have different due dates.

How do you keep track? Anybody have any ideas on how to keep track? Is there an app that will alert me to due dates? You know like a alarm or something? Come on Techies, help a girl out.

Follow Up Friday - A Day Late and A Dollar Short

My mother always told me I ran, "A day late and a dollar short." I guess that's true. I'll probably be late to my own funeral. So the fact that I am a day late with this blog is not surprising. At least not to those who know me well.

So in a nutshell, here is how I did this week with my goals:
The update is:
Biz Cards and Website/Blog changes. Didn't happen. I am so disappointed. My printer did not deliver my cards to me before I left and did not return my calls. (When he is your brother-in-law what do you do?)
So I won't have my cards (or the art work for the site) till I get back in Feb. So the completion of this goal is put on hold.

I viewed/read and re-read the notes/homework for the class at SLIG (Advanced Methodology with Dr. Thomas Jones) My head is swimming.

I viewed/attended Marian Pierre-Louis webinar (presented by Legacy) on Massachusetts Ancestors. It was so good that I ordered the CD/DVD so I could hear it a second time.

I sent for two succession records for my Landry/Theaux line.

I ordered my films to be viewed when I get back.

Tomorrow I have a quiet day with nothing on the schedule except the welcome meeting for SLIG. So tomorrow I will work all day on my NGS Home Study class and my National Institute for Genealogical Studies classes.

Time to "fess up"
I didn't get the Organization of my genealogy files done. (or clean the house...you should see it...total disaster.)
I didn't get the Rhodes line "revisited" this will just have to go on the list for Feb.

All in all not bad for a "short" month. I only had 20 days in January. The rest of the month I am at conferences in Salt Lake City. While I am here I hope to get some of my classes done so the fat lady hasn't sung yet.

To all my goal buddies out there, see you next week.

New To RootsTech? Conference Newbie? Join Me

Hi, are you going to Roots Tech for the first time? Never been to the Family History Library? If you want to have a ready made friend waiting for you at RootsTech or want someone to show you around the Library. Let me know. Or if you know someone who would like to meet up, just tell them to contact me via Twitter (Kimmyvon) or FaceBook (Kim von Aspern).   I would be happy to meet up with you/them.

Looking forward to making many new friends and seeing some great friends from times past. (didn't want to say "old friends," not in this profession.)

Lisa Louise Cooke Interview Part II

Part Two of my Interview with Lisa Louise Cooke.

Even though Lisa's three daughters have not followed in her footsteps as a "computer geek" or a "genealogist" they have a deep respect and love of the family history. When they were young, Lisa told me, "they used to race to see who would find the tombstone first," when they visited a cemetery. And now, "all three have, at some point, been involved with my business as well." They have helped edit the books, run the booth at conferences, edit the show, and even hosted the show when Lisa couldn't.

When Lisa remarked that her oldest daughter says, "I know my job, when Mom dies I'm in charge of the tombstone and I know what's going on it. Her maiden name will be there."

So I asked Lisa, "speaking of tombstones, what goes on your tombstone?"
She laughingly responded, "I haven't thought about that in a long time. That I was a mother and a wife, and of course my maiden name. I haven't figured out beyond that, the frilly words that go with it." "But," she went on to say, "as deeply driven and passionate, I do think that I have actually found my life's purpose." Lisa feels extremely lucky to have her life's purpose tied up in her chosen career. However, she emphasized that, "the memories and the relationships I'm forging right now with my children and my husband trump all of that ten times over." She feels that it is important that you not get so connected to your ancestors that you ignore your descendants.  "My number one job is to create the memories for tomorrow to create these stories for the descendants to hear about."

More in my next post. Lisa discusses her special talent for taking technology, genealogy and family memories and merging them.

Interview with Lisa Louise Cooke Part I

What happens when a non-techie (me) and a techie (Lisa) sit down for a chat? I was a bit worried that we would run out of things to talk about. I shouldn't have worried. Lisa and I talked for hours. I have so much to tell you about, I may have to break this blog up and do several posts. There's just that much.

First off, I just want it duly noted that I can keep a secret. You see, Lisa told me all about her upcoming book when we met for lunch in December. I promised I wouldn't let the cat out of the bad. But now she has announced it so...

Check out her new book: Everything You Need To Know About Finding Your Family History in Newspapers. You can find out more about it by going here.

So, on with the story.

The first thing I asked Lisa was how she got started in genealogy. It seemed the logical place to start. Now, you may have heard the story, but I had not. Lisa related to me how when she was eight or nine years old she visited her grandparents in the Stockton, CA area and became intrigued with some scrapbooks she found.

She brought one of the scrapbooks to her grandmother and asked her to tell her who the people were in the photographs. Her grandmother, "stopped her work, threw the kitchen towel over her shoulder, wiped her hands on her apron" and began to write down on the back of an old envelope the names of Lisa's great grandparents. She spelled the names as she had heard them using the phonetic spellings. Lisa still has that envelope and is still gleaning clues from the information her grandmother provided all those years ago. That was it, Lisa said, "I was bit by the bug."

She spent the rest of that summer going through the photos with her grandmother. She learned about her grandfather's side of the family which was "American" back to the Revolutionary War. From then on Lisa "dabbled" in her family's history. She would write back and forth to her grandmother asking more questions and exchanging information. Lisa even saved her allowance to send off for death records and birth records. (Ok, teenage genealogists are a different breed.)

Genealogy took a back seat for a while as Lisa married and raised her kids. Then the internet "hit." It was perfect timing for Lisa, her kids were older and Lisa found her passion, her groove. She relates how she jumped into it "full boar" and adds, "I probably didn't come out of my home office for a month."

Did you know that Lisa is a "farmer?" Lisa learned that her great grandparents came to America with the dream of owning their own land to farm. Although they never fully realized the dream, Lisa feels that her "need" to "dig in the dirt" and "plant things" comes from that genetic code handed down from them.

Lisa also attributes her interest in that "family connection" to the fact that she grew up in a small family, with only one sister and divorced parents. "It's easy to grow up feeling like you're by yourself." she said, "I've always yearned for more bothers and sisters." (I offered her a few of mine, but she declined.)

More on the Lisa Louise Cooke Interview in the next post. Stay tuned.

Lisa Louise Cooke in Sacramento

Lisa Louise Cooke was in Sacramento last week (8 Jan 2012) to give a presentation on "Common Surname Search Strategies" using Google.

I have been doing Google searches for a long time but I learned something new. I always do from Lisa.

If you have never attended one of her presentations I highly recommend it. I also recommend her books; The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, Genealogy Gems, and Ultimate Research Strategies. And I'm happy to report that she is coming out with a brand new one called, Everything You Need To Know About Finding Your Family History in Newspapers. You can read more about it here.
It was nice to see Lisa again. I know you have been waiting for the blog with my interview of Lisa, well wait no longer it is the post following this one.Yes, I am unabashedly a Lisa Louise Cooke fan. ( Right after the SOPA blackout that is, don't know about it, read about it here and here.)

Have you listened to her podcast yet? You haven't? Well, what are you waiting for? Go here and have a listen, it's free (unless you love it so much you want to sign up for the Premium Podcast like I did.) And if you don't know what a podcast is that's ok, I didn't know either. Podcasts are like a radio show that you listen to through your computer or you can download them onto your iPod or MP3 player.

I'm not the only one who enjoyed Lisa's presentation. Several of my friends from my local genealogical society, Root Cellar, were there and this is what they have to say about it. Root Cellar Blog

Lisa Louise Cooke will be presenting in San Mateo in April and at the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree in June. For other places Lisa will be speaking see her website here.

Follow Up Friday - How I'm Doing - January Second Week

Here it is the second week of January and I am ripping right through my goals for January. I have to. I loose part of my month to a wonderful conference/institute. I am going to SLIG! (Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy) I will be too busy there to work on much of my goal list.

My "goal buddy" Caroline Pointer over at the YourFamilyStories blog is ripping right through her's too. As are all the folks participating in Corn and Cotton's Meme.

Once again things I got done this week will be in red. Things I have put on the schedule for next week (or coming up later like the conferences) are in blue and those things that I had planned on doing and somehow they just didn't happen, well, those are in green. When everything is in RED I plan a well deserved ice cream coma.

         I attended a presentation on search stratigies presented by Lisa Louise Cooke on Sunday (Jan 8 at the Central Library in Sacramento. My friend Gloryann was supossed to go with me, but she bowed out. I did run into lots of other friends there. Sherri Finley from      blog was there, as was Sandy and Denise from Root Cellar (Sacramento Genealogy Society)
         I wrote a blog (and posted it today) about the field trip I attended (the Northern California Association of Professional Genealogists field trip to the Special Collections Department of the Library at the University of the Pacific.)
         I worked on three clients cases. And had one client meeting.
         I talked with and scheduled some speakers for the Second Life Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. (See the Facebook page (Genealogists in Second Life) for the line up of speakers for the year.
         I attended the first Second Life APG meeting for the year.  (Great presentation on Polish research by Sherlock)
         I researched & downloaded all the information I need to apply for my new business license. (I'll be finishing that up in February after I get back from the conferences. 
         I took care of personal life things like doctor's appointments, lawyer consultations, church work, aborist, grocery shopping, cooking, house cleaning, and reading.  


1. Before I attend those conferences I need to get my business cards made up with my new business name.
         The business cards have been designed and I am looking at the proofs on Monday. I'll make the final changes and they will be printed and in my hot little hands before SLIG. I've also started working on my new website and blog changes. 
2. I need to prepare my "homework" for SLIG (Tom Jones class. We haven't even got there and we have homework)
         I have read through and am in the process of charting out the homework. I will be Skyping my "Tom Jones Class Buddy" Kathryn this coming week to discuss.
3. Gather together what I will need to do research in the Family History Library (I have about 4 days available to do research there between SLIG and RootsTech)
         I am gathered and set to go. I will be working on my certification project and my Parker family. I also promised a friend that I would spend half a day gathering stuff she forgot to get when she was there in Oct. 
4. Make a list of things I want to learn during RootsTech
         This is done. Now if I can just find a willing victim friend to help me learn what goes over my head in the lectures. (I've also plotted out my classes and unless I get distracted by "bright and shiny things" I have decided ....oh wait, Thomas is speaking there, and I might want to hear Lisa Alzo there...)
5. I have a deadline of Jan 8 to submit my class handouts for the two lectures I will be giving in Redding on Feb 25.
         This is done and I am waiting to hear back if they meet her needs. I have also finished tweaking the presentations. Will check them again closer to the event.
6. Write six blogs for January (I have set six blogs per month as my overall goal and I feel that is very doable. Six blogs per month equals 72 blogs and I posted 77 last year)
        I have posted five posts (counting this one but not counting Tombstone Tuesday). I have six more that I have partially written and they will be posted this month as well. So I have met and exceeded my goal. Plus I will probably blog about the SLIG course. 
7. I will be attending a Webinar by Thomas McEntee and two Webinars put on by Legacy in January
         Attended Thomas' wonderful webinar and I will be viewing the other two this coming week. 
8. I will be attending SLIG (both 7 & 8 go towards my educational goals for the year)
         Working on my homework as mentioned above. I am looking forward to this year, I think it will be a challenge to me. 
9. I plan on getting three classes done on the NGS Home Study Course in January
         Didn't work on this. I will try to work on class number two on Saturday or Sunday.
10. I have set a goal of finishing two classes from National Institute for Genealogical Studies (GenealogicalStudies.com)
         Ok, ran into some major technical glitches and had to take my computer to the doctor this week to correct them. (Yes, I was without my computer for a whole day, suffered withdrawals.) But now I am able to access my classes and I am enrolled in three classes. So I better get a shuffle in my duffle  and get a move on.  
11. The organization of my genealogy files (already in progress)
         Ok, once again I have to say: Didn't work on this at all this week. Hope to get to it next week. It's on the schedule. I'm so bad. I keep procrastinating this very much needed step. Someone want to come help? 
12. To check on my various genealogy memberships (societies, NGS, APG, Speakers Guild, etc) and be sure they are all up to date.
         Renewed my membership with Genealogy Speakers Guild, and Root Cellar, (my local society) all my other memberships are good.
13. Transcribe the Succession Papers (It's like a will) for Irma Domingue (wife of Slyvester Romero) for my certification work.
         Completed four more pages this week. Total stands at seven pages (It's 20 pages long.) 
14. Review my Rhoades family genealogy and see if there is something in that research I can use for my certification.
         Didn't work on this. But there is one more week
15. Send for two different succession records for Landry and Romero (for use in Kinship part of my certification work)
        Didn't get to this either. Don't know why. This should be easy to cross off the list. NEXT WEEK.
16. Order three films for review in Feb. from my Family History Center
         I will do this right before my trip, but I have looked through the card catalog and decided which ones I want to order. 


That's the week in review. More and more of it is turning red. Yee Ha. I wasn't going to keep with the color coding thing but several people have told me it works. And I have to admit. I can't wait to see the whole page turn red.
How are you doing with your goals? Chime in, we're in this together, right? To see how other's are doing with their goals check out Corn and Cotton for links.