Housework time at Geniaus.net

I remember somewhere, sometime saying that I intended to update my website GeniAus Family Site every month or so. It seems that my good intentions flew out the window. I just checked to see when I had last updated the site and it was back in February.

GeniAus Family Site

Ever since we went into our latest Covid lockdown a website update has been on my gunna list but I keep saying I'll do it tomorrow. During the lockdown I have been hatching, matching, and dispatching many ancestors.  I hadn't looked at some of my research from last century since last century and, in that period, many new records have come online and several elderly cousins have left this mortal earth. 

When I did my early research I was grateful to find one source for each event but I have learnt that is not enough. Events need to be corroborated by multiple sources of quality. Lockdown has given me time to go back, update records and seek new sources.

Each day I think I'll update the website now but then I say "I'll just check a few more records and upload tomorrow."  I could have gone on like this until Christmas. When I wanted to share a link to the record of a family member who had recently passed away I realised that I needed to upload a gedcom containing the death date of that person to make the record appear on the GeniAus Family website.  (Records of living people are not in the public domain on my site.) All of a sudden I had a pressing need for an immediate upload.

So today, 7 months since my last update, I have spent a few minutes exporting a gedcom from my Family Historian software and uploading it to my website ( TNG software hosted by Simply Hosting). If I had remembered where I had saved my login details for the site this should only take around five minutes! Sadly it took me much longer to retrieve those details. Once I was at the host's site I also made a full backup of my website that I will store on an external hard drive. 

A few statistics from the GeniAus Family site today.

I am constantly making edits and additions to my Family Historian database so I will try to remember a monthly website upload (reminder now in calendar). I wonder if I will manage.

Pile Busting

On our recent trip to Hawaii I purchased a new 4 terabyte portable hard drive.

As I'm off to Rootstech in four days and shortly after that I'll be off gallivanting with Mr GeniAus I thought it time to copy all the files from my existing portable drive to the new one. I'll then be able to take one of the drives on my journeys knowing that all my files are backed up safely at home.

Last night as I watched my hero Roger play in the Australian Open I started transferring my files in manageable chunks. I felt more confident managing this task manually. I have photos from the late 19th century to today all organised in folders by date. At this point in time I am copying over our pics from 2013. Did you know I have 33,000 images from 2012? This process is taking a while.

Multitasking

I had previously transferred some of my family history files and will finish this (if and) when the photos are done. Meanwhile I didn't want to do too many tasks on my computer that may slow down the copying process. I had to think of a job for today that didn't involve the keyboard.

About six months ago I set up a folding table in my study on to which I sorted some of the hard copy family history files I had scanned. I am kicking myself that I didn't take a picture of this mountain range of filing piles because it has now vanished. Today I have dealt with all the files for myself, Mr GeniAus and our offspring. Next task is to sort the ancestor and grandchildren's papers on to the I may take a photo of the next mountain range of files I build.

Meanwhile I am so proud of my pile busting exercise.

I know I should be ditching a lot of this paper now that it's digitised but, like most genies, I'm a hoarder.

4TB

Before travelling overseas earlier this year I realised that I needed a portable hard drive with more than 2TB of storage. I thought that if there was one place on earth I could find such a beast it would be Bangkok.

Dragging Mr GeniAus along I went to the big technology mall, Pantip Plaza,  in Bangkok in search of a portable drive of 3 or 4TB but there was none to be found. One stallholder  said he could order me one in but that it would cost more than $AU1,000, my response was "Thanks but no thanks".

Since I arrived home from that trip in June I have made regular trips to local electronics stores to see if they had a such a drive, there were plenty of large bulky 4TB drives but no small ones that a little old lady like me could pop in her handbag and tote around the world, that is until two weeks ago. I did the rounds of my three fave stores and at the third I found on the shelves a Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB portable drive, a heavy but small answer to this old girl's prayers. Even though I didn't dance on the spot the young salesman appeared quite shocked that an old girl would get so excited,

As I had an overseas trip in the offing (and in Australia we can apply for a 10% tax rebate on goods purchased in the four weeks before we travel) I exercised restraint and didn't make a purchase on impulse. I retreated home, read some reviews and discovered that the device was over $AU100 cheaper at B&H in New York where I like to shop. As I needed wanted the drive before I travelled I realised that I would have to pay a premium (as we nearly always do in Australia).

As it is now less than four weeks until I take off on my next adventure I went to the shops on Friday and bought my new toy. I burnt the midnight oil  as I put all of my data, docs and photos onto the drive and then asked Picasa to index the photos and left the computer humming overnight. Now all is organised once more, it is so nice to have everything in one place once more. I'll have lots of space to store the happy snaps I take on holiday.

I wonder how long it will be before portable 8TB drives are on the market, I guess 1 Petabyte drives are just around the corner too.