email and genealogy ?

[diveboy]

Hi All,

My father has recently passed away after a struggle with cancer for the last 9 years.  He was active with the family history and was happy with putting information online on the family tree website to be shared with other family members, I am preserving his user account on website as part of the genealogy history.

I have access to his email that was hosted with Google, my question is, do I treat it just like you would letters and postcards ? how to you classify and reference non physical things ? for future generations ? print them out, scan them in ? or just cut and paste ?

so many many questions and the person I would ask is no longer here with me.

I know he would want them added to the family history database, he was a programmer for the last 20 years and kept alot of family items (baptism, christening, school reports and other tidbits) in his family history archive box, so I don't have a moral question, it's a "how" question...

I don't wish any one else to have gone through this but I hope someone has some advise to offer.

Thanks in advance

Michael.

[sandiep]

Hello Michael

sorry for your loss........I am sure your father would be delighted that you are continuing his work, we always wonder what will happen to our research.

with the emails...did your father keep paper files as well as the database?

if he did perhaps you should print out and keep copies.
I expect you will have to check before adding to the database.
It all depends on what the emails are about really and if its genealogy it will all be for classified for future generations I guess.

not sure if I have answered anything, but I am sure others on here will be able to

sandie

[danuslave]

Hi Michael

I am so pleased to hear that you want to carry on your father's work, especially at such a difficult time

Think of it like a scrapbook.  What is the best way to store and display everything that you have?  There is no 'right' answer   

Bear in mind that you should always have more than one copy of all your computer files (do you know what a 'backup' is?) preferably in separate places.  So if your computer dies (and it does happen) you don't lose everything   

Some people also like to use photocopies of BMD (birth, marriage & death) certificates etc for general use and file the originals away safely

RootsChatters are a friendly bunch and will be more than willing to help with specific questions - technical as well as genealogical

Linda

PS You do know that Family History is addictive don't you?? 

[Guy Etchells]

If you have space to store print-outs I would suggest printing useful or interesting emails.
Even with the likes of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine - http://archive.org/web/web.php - a site that archives websites, the internet is still a transient place.

If you cannot make hard copies of your father's research I would suggest uploading to a website hosted by Rootsweb.
They have freely available webspace for genealogy sites.
There is more chance a site hosted on Rootsweb will exist after the death of the "owner" than other sites which require a subscription to pay for the space.
Cheers
Guy

[Plummiegirl]

Firstly my sympathy at the loss of your father.  And may I also congratulate you on taking on the mantle of your family historian.  You are very lucky to have access to your fathers emails and tree, such a wealth of informatoin to delve into.

I would also suggest that much of the information held in these emails is also contained in the tree.

May take some time but maybe cross checking each email with the information on the tree could help you to eliminate quite a few of the emails.  And you could also, if possible, just add the information on the rest to the tree and thereby eliminating a few more.

Good luck with continuing your fathers' research.

[Marmalady]

I too took over my father's genealogy files -  but before he died when he became incapacitated by dementia.

he had kept absolutely everything -- from copies of letters to Register Offices requesting certificates, to extensive details of possible family members that he eventually marked  as "not of our family" to many many trees printed out in duplicate -- and each time he found a new person to add he printed out a new tree in duplicate

I have been weeding out a lot of the paperwork he kept -- and have also had to check & correct much of his work on the family where his declining mental faculties meant he made wrong assumptions

Some things I have discarded -- such as all the extensive entries he copied from GRO indexes giving all occurrences of a particular name for a particular period -- such things are readily available on-line if i should ever need them again. Also gone are vague enquiries from contacts regarding possible connections

I have kept the print-outs he made from emails giving details of people / events that might take some tracking down again -- such as detailed trees or research notes from contacts

It has been a long job -- and is still by no means finished  - but interspersed with continuing his work on the tree means that i don't get too bogged down by it all!

It helped that i had already had an interest in genealogy for many years ( researching my husband's family as my own was already covered!) and so i did know what was important to keep and what could be discarded

If you are new to the hobby, i can see it could be a daunting task being thrown in the deep end - but don't be afraid to ask for any help or advice  you need from the other members here

Good Luck

[Rishile]

Firstly I would like to add my condolences for your loss.  Secondly, I would like to welcome you to the fascinating world of family history. 

The golden rule of geneology and I’m sure your father followed this is:  Never, ever add anything to your tree that you haven’t verified to your own standard.

So, you must bear in mind that if your father’s tree was on-line, he would have had lots of emails which he would probably have disregarded.  He may or may not have kept these.  So, this is what I would do.

Create a WORD document for a contact.  Note the email address of the contact at the top of the page.  Copy and paste all the emails from that contact and from your father to that contact, into the one document in chronological order including any attachments.  When you have that, you have a conversation between the contact and your father.  You may be able to ascertain your father’s thoughts on that contact just by reading all the correspondence.  Continue to do this with the rest of the contacts using a new WORD document for each.  These contacts will probably fall into one of four categories –

1) Not related
2) Name collectors
3) Incorrect Information
4) Possible correct and verified information

If you create a folder for each of these categories, you can file the WORD document in the relevant folder for future use.

When you have done this with all the emails you can disregared the first three categories and concentrate on checking and verifying the fourth folder.  This is where the wonderful people on Rootschat will help you if necessary.  In fact, I’m sure there are a lot of RC’ers with their fingers poised on the keyboard already waiting to help.

Good luck and don’t be afraid of asking for help.

Rishile

[kathb]

Hi, please accept my condolences on the death of your father.  I am sure you will find family history very rewarding.  I catalogue all emails similar to the descriptors that Rishile uses.  I do however keep paper copies of all relevant emails in the files for each family that I have researched.  This does make for very heavy bookshelves, but I have asked my offspring to preserve these when I die.  They may not be able to access my computer and I want my descendants to be able to see the information on their ancestors.
Good Luck
Regards
Kathb

[Billyblue]

It is tempting to throw away any mail from people not related, but it's not always a good idea.

I try to keep mine, and on more than one occasion I have found, down the years, that there has actually been a connection to some.  I am also able to pass on names to others who might contact me.  I did this once and got back an email that simply said  "Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!"
which made it all worthwhile       

Dawn M

ADD:  I have thrown out some of the 'not related' ones that were over 20 years old, as I figured the senders are probably dead or not interested any more, so no point in keeping them.  D