Trying Legacy

I've been a committed user of Brother's Keeper for my genealogy software since I got back into genealogy in 2010.  But I bought a copy of Legacy a few years ago for its charting functions, which are vastly superior to BK.  When I watch Family Tree Webinars, Geoff Rasmussen is always demonstrating some snazzy function on Legacy, so I finally decided to give it a try.  Here's what I've found so far:

Pro's:
1.  The system of master sources and greater detail for sourcing is excellent
2.  Many more options for storing and displaying data
3.  Better to-do reports - This may be the key item for me because I find that I miss things when I go to a certain repository.  BK has only a primitive to-do system.
4.  More search options

Con's:
1.  Slower than BK - With 1 million+ names in the database, it just has a lot to crunch
2.  ID numbers, which are so important in the Grandma database, are present but sort of buried
3.  BK has a much cleaner interface - This is a big deal for me.

What genealogy software do you use?  What are the pro's and con's?  Let us know in a comment.

My Storage Is Acidic!

I just tested my storage materials with the Abbey pH pen and found that some of them are acidic.  Here's the link to the pen on Gaylord Archival, but there are a lot of options on the market.  If you draw a line with the pen, it will be yellow if it is acidic and purple if it is alkaline.  The mark is permanent, so don't do it on a valuable document.

The Good News

• Plain copy paper from Office Depot is alkaline.  So I don't have to buy whatever expensive paper the archival suppliers are selling.
• My plastic document sleeves are good.  Polypropylene sleeves are good but others are acidic - sometimes you can even smell chlorine or something awful when you open a sleeve and sniff and those are definitely acidic.

The Bad News

• One of my cardboard document storage boxes is a leftover from U-Haul from my latest move, and it's acidic.  But all the boxes I bought from an archival supplier are alkaline.  So this news is just a little bit bad and mostly good.

The Ugly News

• My manila folders (at least some of them) are acidic.  No good storing my genealogy records in acidic folders, so I'll replace all of those.  I had made one folder for each ancestor and stuck a label on it with the ancestor's name, dates, and Grandma number, so I'll have to re-do all those labels.  Office Depot sells non-acidic manila folders that are a bit more expensive, but not as bad as the ones from archival suppliers, so I'll order a box of those.

The Moral

• Always look for "acid-free" when you are buying genealogy supplies.  You don't want to leave a yellowed, crumbling mess to posterity after all the work you've done on research.
• Test materials with a pH pen before you buy and use a bunch of them.

Finished organizing my files

Today I finally finished organizing my genealogy files, a project I started in April 2015.  I was planning to visit my aunt in June 2015 to exchange family history documents, so I wanted to have everything organized by then.  Little did I know how long it would take!  Instead of a couple months, it has taken 17 months.

I made a box for each of my grandparents:  Fast, Suderman, Siemens, and Reimer.  Inside each box is a folder for each person in that line.  I compared the Grandma 6 database that I use for my working files with the current Grandma Online information and updated my files to reflect new work that others have sent in to Grandma.  I also sent in corrections to the online database for work that I had done.  I tried to find copies of all the sources used in the Grandma databases so that I would have a copy.

A box of files for each grandparent.

The Sudeman box with a separate file for each ancestor.

Then I printed a 7-generation ancestry chart and a family group sheet for each person and put that in his folder.  I also scanned every paper document and printed every electronic document and put them in archival plastic sleeves so that I would have a copy of everything in both media to increase the likelihood of one copy surviving.  When I noticed things that were missing or thought of research that should be done, I made a to-do list and put it in the ancestor's folder.  Now I have another stack of things to chase down.  And I made a folder on my hard drive for every ancestor.  And I have an off-site backup of everything on a hard drive. 

File structure on my hard drive.

I've also improved my skills because I saw things in the Grandma database that others had done for ancestors that I hadn't worked on.  So then I could apply that to other ancestors.  And I learned a lot about sources, especially in Poland and Prussia where I mostly knew about the Gross Werder sources.  I picked up a lot about the Przechowka, Danzig, and Stuhm areas.

It's been a lot of fun organizing the files because I went systematically through each ancestor.  And I feel so much better about the organized folders and boxes.  Mess, be gone!