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| Genius Scan is a app from the App shop |
For a little while now the family history files and folders have been breeding quietly in the spare bedrooms. Occasionally, I need to access the spare beds in the rooms. Sadly and ironically there’s no visitors currently, So one thing led to another and I have Marie Kondo’d my Family History and it feels good!
Marie Kondo is an organising consultant who has written 4 books on organising. As I was also brought up on the “Happily Organised Housewife” books I prided myself on my labelling, categorising and filing but 12 years’ worth of research needed critical consideration.
Marie’s philosophy is to sort one category at a time ie Family History and keep things that spark joy. The idea is to treasure what you have. In my case memories and photos are important as are my blog stories. I have a pretty good database of records both on my Family Tree Maker and Ancestry and backed up on an external hard drive. I have some fabulous photographic records. My blogs have been published into two volumes taking up far less space than printed copies of individual stories.
Yes, I tossed out a lot of record copies and research data which can be easily accessed again and for a few cents can be printed again if necessary. More importantly, I’m now environmentally friendly as they can be now viewed digitally.
I’m comfortable with what I’ve done. I don’t have to prove my family tree lines to anyone. My families have been keenly researched for each of my blog stories. So as the process involved several recycling bins spread over 3-4 fortnightly collections. This gave me time for nostalgia as I re-read letters, saved emails and items such as all solicitors letters, funeral costs and I’ll and old school reports. These were the risky sentimental clutter- things tossed into the files when I cleaned out my parents’ house. I took scans of things that might not spark joy but were things still a bit too sentimental to discard entirely. l realise they may never be needed again but hey they are digital. For everything else… If it was hard to come by or required an obsolete website I use the useful scanning app called Genius Scan to record the information, name the files and email them to myself for storage on my computer.
After scanning you can edit, rename and email the file
It’s good to go back and look at the conclusions we jumped to and a lot of our research findings from early days have now been discounted with new records coming to light, further research, contact with relatives and experience. Plenty of those papers needed a look, a chuckle and a toss-out!
So what have I deemed as “sparking joy”?
I kept certificates for grandparents, great-great grandparents and great great grandparents, a few cards, a couple of church records and some passport snaps. I’m pleased to say they fit into 2 to 3 plastic sleeves
#HappilyOrganisedHousewife
Finally, Marie Kondo recommends you choose a place to keep them. I think they will slip very nicely in the back of my large photo albums after I’ve steeped them in silverfish baits just to make sure none of the little critters have survived.
No dear husband, you can’t take over the new found space.
I’m happy with my “spiritual “cleanse. My son in law had threatened to skip bin the lot. I’ve saved them the trouble. I hope the grandkids see what sparked joy in me as “good junk” when my time comes.
"Sparking Joy"
Finally, what did spark joy and make this little heart race was a paper census I found. It broke down a brick wall. Every family historian’s ‘Joy’.
#Spiritual
#GoodbyeSilverfish #Purge #Relief #GoingPaperless #HappilyOrganisedHousewife
#NoYouCan’tHaveMySpace
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