Technology

Well, I know I'm a little tardy posting this, but I just have not gotten any new information.  Yeah I'm still waiting on the library to send me the obit, but I have slowed my driving down a bit.  I also sent out a couple of more letters that I am awaiting responses to.  The first was to St Joseph's Church in Ashland, Pa -  I asked for any old church records from the Bradys of Schuylkill County, PA and the second was to a group that manages Hoboken Cemetery.  I asked them about Mary Ann Sullivan who died and was buried in a potters field, only to be disinterred and buried in Holy Cross in Brooklyn.  So while I'm waiting, I decided to write about some technological advances in the Genealogy field.

Let's see, technology and a 56 year old retired Police Officer and father of five - This should be good.  Prior to my recent endeavors in technology, the closest thing I got to be technically savvy was using a cell phone and taking 15 minutes to answer one of my teenage children's texts with a simple "k".  But I have moved up in the world.  A couple of years ago, I got an iPod touch.  My kids set me up with an iTunes account, probably just to get my credit card number, but they were very helpful.  I found the world of Podcasts and found several genealogy podcasts on the web.  In case you are not familiar with podcasts, they are basically taped radio episodes where the hosts will talk about genealogy. Sometimes they interview guests, such as professional genealogists and authors among others.  So I could plug in my ear buds and get blissfully lost in a conversation that no one else in the house wanted to hear anyway.  So everyone else was also blissfully happy that they could not hear what the iPod was telling  me.  It was a win/win.  Just in case you are interested my two favorites are the Genealogy Guys Podcast and Genealogy Gems with Lisa Louise Cook.  In fact, Lisa Louise Cook is the one who kind of talked me into blogging - so you can blame this on her.

Then I would take my iPod on my cemetery jaunts and use the camera to photograph headstones, while strangers whispered to each other, stared, and pointed.  This was the new extent of my technological knowledge.  Now my son, Jack asked if he could use my iPod to download an app (short for application), much like a program on a computer.  Well the app he chose is an editing app which is very similar to the Power Point program.  You can use photos, music, and talking to narrate a series of pictures.  This will come in handy for pictures I have of headstones, documents, obits, etc (that is of course if Jack consents to help me through it).

I have recently found another app.  It is the Ancestry.com app.  I downloaded it awhile ago, but I had never uploaded my family tree to Ancestry.com, so it was pretty useless.  Fortunately for the iPod, but not so much for me, I have recently had problems with my laptop.  So I figured I should take the plunge and upload my family tree to Ancestry before I lose it all (eight years of research down the drain).  So I uploaded my info to Ancestry - Not to worry my living relatives, your information does not show up to the general public, besides I don't know that much anyway.  The result of this is that now my entire family tree is downloaded to my iPod, so if I come to visit you, I'll have a Family Tree in my pocket.  Anyone inadvertently mentions anything about family history and I will just blurt out "Excuse me while I whip this out!", of course while reaching into my pocket.

The other technological breakthrough that I have experienced is my recent purchase of the Wolverine - Next Generation Handheld Scanner.  This thing is cool.  I got it through Costco.com and it cost less that $100.00.  It is powered by two AA batteries and the images are saved in a JPEG format to a Micro SD card (my card is a 4 gig, so I can save a lot of documents).  You can carry it anywhere and it will plug in to the computer with a USB adapter.  I can scan photos, documents, pages in books or ledgers, scrapbooks, etc...  It can scan up to 8 1/2" wide and just about any length.  All you do is push the button and roll in over the document, when you reach the end of the paper, hit the button again and the scanning stops.  The image is then saved to the memory card.  So simple it makes me sound like a tekkie.

I had the opportunity to try my scanner out last week.  My friend George and I took a class about researching property records - titles, deeds and mortgages in the county Clerks office.  Everyone else in the group had scanner envy because George and I each had our scanners and were not afraid to use them.  A member of our genealogy society who does Title Searches for a living gave the class and showed us how to look up deeds and such.  I found some stuff, but the best find was the deed to 22 Evergreen Ave, Neptune City.  I never knew when we emigrated to the Shore, but now I know.  Mom and Dad bought the house on 31 July 1958, from Mrs. Margaret Slater, a widow, for $12,900.00.  I always remember mom and dad saying what a nice lady she was, and that if it weren't for her, they never could have bought the house, because I think she held the mortgage.  Anyway they were always grateful to her.  I personally don't think she had much of a choice, she met mom and dad with four small children (me being the youngest at  2 1/2) and one more on the way.  How could she do anything else but help them out.  Just kidding, they could have been forced to live in the garage and dressed me in swaddling clothes.  After all, I have heard of it happening at least once before.