Looking Back, Looking Forward, and the stats

The original plan was to do 18 counties in 18 days – that was overly ambitious and for me a little unrealistic.  I did start in August and ended in September and in that time researched and grew to love 19 of Ohio’s 88 counties. They all have their own peculiar character – all of them representative of Ohio – and yet so different.  Different like siblings or cousins.  If you have more than one child or grandchild you know what it is like to marvel over how related and how different they are.  That is the feeling I have for the 19 counties where my families settled.  

These sibling counties (those split off from each other) and these cousin counties (formed in the same pioneering spirit) are like the children of a family.  

I don’t want to diminish the importance of the remaining 69 counties of Ohio. They are simply not the brothers, sisters, and cousins of my families – but they may be yours.  I encourage my readers to research the history of any of those places and I’m sure they’ll find, as I have, many things of value and of interest to celebrate.  Thanks to all those hard working people in ‘my counties’ who take the time to tell their story on-line – whether it be genealogists, government workers, or volunteers—they all love their home and are most generous in sharing.

I have to put in a plug for Google. When I first started blogging in September 2009 [http://sandyhikes.blogspot.com/] I chose Google’s Blogger for my site. It was clean, simple, easy and attractive. Since then it has gotten a little more sophisticated, but not complicated. It has gotten better and is still clean and easy – free and ad free if I wish it to be.  It is also linked to other Google services like Picasa for my photos.  One day I may learn to use all the other Google services – but at the moment I’m happy and grateful for this outlet where I can express myself and share information. 

There are certain websites that are so useful that I use them over and over.  I’ve done a post on Find A Grave. com and I owe one to Wikipedia.com.

Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki

My blog would be diminished and much more difficult to do if the wiki information wasn’t out there.  Thank you, thank you!  Sprinkled throughout my blog posts you will see wiki links and photos.  I am grateful for the wonderful, free clipart available through mircosoft.com.  I agree with one reviewer who mentioned that her estimation of Microsoft raised several notches when she found their generous sharing of free clipart. 

Google Blogger – thanks for the stats! Part of Google’s blog service is to track how often your blog  is accessed, which posts are read, and where your readers are from. I love this and check often. As of this evening for Aquila’s Orchard Blog I have 41 published posts and they have been accessed 3,502 times. That is amazing and I’m thrilled. Google has graphs showing which days the blog has been accessed. They let me know which posts have been popular that day.  This can be displayed for the day, week, month, or total time. For this week the post on Hamilton County has the most views. That isn’t too hard to understand as Hamilton contains the very large city of Cincinnati. But right next to it in popularity is Knox, a rural country that not only is second in the number of hits but has the most comments. 

One thing that I love about the Google stats is that it has a world map and that shows where your readers are in varying shade of green.  In the world?!  Yes, this is a global site and I have international readers. How cool is that!! I wonder if they are expats, non-English speakers practicing their English, or just interested in things American?  What countries are represented? My second largest audience, by far, is in Russia. The list continues with Germany, South Korea, United Kingdom, Malaysia, France, Norway, Canada, Ireland, China, Indonesia, and Poland.  This is. . .well. . .cool.  Those countries that had one view drop off the list. . . but I find them interesting, too.  Who is that one person in an entire country that read my blog? It’s sort of like having a zillion international pen pals but with only one-way communication. I wish they’d use the comment box and let me know who they are! 

Thanks readers ~ спасибо spasibo, danke, gamsahabnida 감사합니다, Cheers, terima kasih, merci, Tusen takk, Go raibh maith agat, Xièxiè 谢谢, dziękuję !!

 Time to work on that book!

Photos & Clipart:  Wikipedia; Microsoft Clipart, Google Blogger

Voilà!

It’s a complicated process – getting it all right – no matter what your project. Mine is a book and like any project it takes perseverance and patience as well as ‘keeping your nose to the grindstone’ and ‘using elbow-grease.’ Origins interest me – but looking for origins is a distraction from the project, right. I need focus.  Oh well, it’s all fun – except when my derriere gets sore, my legs go numb, and my BP rises from sitting at the computer too long – not to mention carpel tunnel from using the mouse!  Geez.

What else holds me up, holds me down, keeps me up, or keeps me down – the details that make it work. The catch is to make it all work in time for the Christmas mail.  “So, Sandy,” you say, “what is holding you up and keeping you down from being up?” Hmm. Two days ago I was looking for a chart. This would be a chart that shows how my daughter (let’s pick a fictional one) Izzy is related to her 7^th great grandfather Obediah. After a search through the charts available in Family Tree Maker I found such a chart.  Great!  I’m all ready to set up the chart for Izzy, with one each for the rest of the children and grandchildren.  I figure out how to select the individuals I need (I’ve never felt that Family Tree Maker 2009 was user friendly – yes, I have an old version) and push the button. Voilà! 

There’s my chart, I’ve used precious ink but I have my test copy.  BUT, there is something amiss!  Izzy is at the top of the chart when she should be at the button. Old Obed goes at the top.  So, I fix that and push the button and Voilà!

There’s my chart, but no, I’ve added Izzy’s baby who trails behind her but Baby Izzy's birthplace says she was born in Montana.  Montana?  That’s a pretty big place.  I don’t know if Izzy went to the hospital in Missoula or Whitefish – she lives somewhere in the middle.  So, of course, I have to email Izzy to find out where, and I have to wait for the answer.  I could call her but she doesn’t answer her phone on the job – she’s usually out giving fly-fishing lessons in some wilderness stream. No cell service. If you ask her she'll tell you whatever it is a "river runs through it."

I have to wait to finish the chart.  In the meantime I find that Obediah has a “I” by his name instead of Sr. – a designation I use on ancestry.com but not right for this chart.  The Srs and Jrs have to be corrected.  Okay, that’s fixed.  Chart waiting for Izzy, I tackle the rest of the family.  I try doing Moe’s chart and find that there are asterisks by the names – I use them to designate direct line on ancestry.com but they aren’t needed for the chart.  I have to go back and delete them from each individual.  So far I have quite a bit of time invested in this chart. Ah, now the asterisks are gone.

Next I see that backgrounds are available for the chart and I scroll through all the possibilities finally settling on a very attractive ‘tree’ photo and then play with the transparency as 50% is too dark to show off the chart well.  I settle on 70%.  The chart is ‘lookin’ good.’  I handcraft and individualize a page for each family member and save them as a .pdf to a file on my desktop; and I’m set to test it out by printing one with the pretty background.  I press the print button – and Voilà!

Gasp!  Well, that didn’t work.  The background is all pink. Where are the greens and browns of the forest? The answer comes from a little box on my monitor that says I’m running out of colored ink. Sigh.  Now I’ll have to scrape up some dinero, or dig out some plastic, and order cartridges on line or shove the dog into a cage and get out the old convertible for a run to Staples. This chart is taking a serious amount of time. Well, printing can wait as I’m waiting for Izzy anyway.

Is there more, well of course, I’m working with a 2009 copy of Family Tree Maker and there is a newer version out there that will help me to sync my ancestry.com tree (of over 35,000 people) to my Family Tree Maker.  It might even have a better chart. I wonder how long that will take? I make a call, I am on hold listening to ads, waiting for a sales person . . . and waiting, and waiting (business must be good). Ah, she finally answers and we talk about pros and cons of ordering the disk or downloading online.  I opt for online – less of a wait time.  I’ve been doing too much waiting. This evening I’ll sync the tree – I was hoping to go off and watch TV (can’t miss the ancestry.com sponsored “Who Do You Think You Are?) but no, I’m told I can’t let the computer go to sleep – so I’ll be babysitting the sync process.  Never mind, I’ve been planning to do this sync for a couple of years and the Christmas project has aided me in getting this accomplished. 

While waiting for the operator I was looking at my page on ancestry.com and noticed it listing “Residence” for my most favorite house I’ve ever lived in – in Monrovia, CA.  AND, you can upload a photo of the house . . . !  Oh, but I don’t have a photo of the house. Then I think! Google Earth will have a street view of the house!  How cool is that.  So, I sort of remember the street address and there it is in the foothills, backed up by a huge mountain range – our little classic 1928 California cottage. 

It takes me a while, by zooming in and out, to get just the right shot. Ah, there it is.  But the program won’t let me copy or save it.  Boo, and besides that they made me jump through all kinds of hoops as they wanted me to test the Beta version of the new Google Earth.  Golly, the old one was working well for me.  I finally found my way back to the original version, found my picture again. . . and the light bulb goes off.

What I need is screen capture! I type that in Google and find all kinds of pay sites that will help you.  Well, that is dumb . . . I know you can do this for free.  After more searching I find the directions – I grab my beloved picture, paste it in Microsoft Paint, as per instructions, convert it to a .jpg and save it to my desktop and Voilà!. . .but wait, no. . . I can put it in Picasa and improve the photo.  That, thankfully, I know how to do.  I crop and improve the photo, open up ancestry.com to my page and click on up-load media, up-load photo and put it on my page.  Then I go to the “Residence” section and place a copy of the photo by the fact, go in to the citation section and give credit to Google Earth for the photo and. . . Voilà! . . . that looks great!  But, of course, this was all a distraction from the downloading of the up-graded Family Tree Maker.  Guess I’ll go check it out. Oh brother, it didn’t download as it is waiting for me to click install! I click, and agree, and click . . . and. . . . this turns out to be about a 12 step process but eventually . . . .

Voilà! 

That is how my days go. . . somehow I’ll keep slogging through until I have the Christmas presents wrapped and ready to go. Sure hope Izzy and all the kids like it! In the meantime, I learn new things every day. Can you relate?

 Photos: Microsoft Clipart; Google Earth; www.telegraph.co.uk 

PS Are you ready for this? After all that work for the perfect chart the new version of Family Tree Maker doesn't even have that chart. Groan!