My first three attempts at getting the computer to use facial recognition software for a celebrity collage couldn't find any results for me. When I did a set of three more all in a batch, two of them actually worked. So I guess perseverance is the watchword. My result can be found right here on the blog. (Immediately prior to Geneoblog--69 entry.)
Thoughts on what people are doing on footnote: more than anything, it looked to me like a combination of the kind of randomness I expect to find on facebook with the kinds of genealogically relevant data-sharing my wife periodically mentions running into on ancestry.com. (Which itself has been a mix of valuable information and obnoxious harassment.)
Friday, October 2, 2009
Geneoloblog.--69
I looked up my grandmother on Ancestry.com. Off the top of my head I didn't remember birth & death dates, and results were too varied to be helpful. Then I thought to add her middle name and immediately spotted a Social Security Death Index. This gave me the exact birth and death date information to further refine the search and with it I managed to turn up a U.S. Public Records entry. Trying to move on to exact match searches didn't seem to help at all, oddly enough. By far the best thing I could do to improve results on Ancestry.com would be to log into my wife's account there and utilized all the extra bells and whistles that come with payed membership.
Geneoloblog.--68
I haven't worked in any real depth on an oral history project. It seems unlikely that I would launch into one focused on my family since, as I mentioned previously, my wife has all ready done more in-depth research into these issues than I am ever likely to find time for. It also seems far more like me to delve into oral history or whatever other research more as a springboard to inspire fictional writing than for its own sake. If I were to do so, however, I think my paternal Grandmother would be my best starting point. She actually experienced life in the Great Depression, my other grandparents have all passed away.
Tracking down gravesites... and there absolutely must be a more efficient tool for this than I ever managed to find on the site... and discounting "unknown" dates, the oldest listed burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino County, CA appears to be:
Charlotte Whipple Lansing
Born June 2, 1847
Died March 5, 1851
Inscription: Age 36 9m 3d
Find A Grave Memorial# 28775309
Tracking down gravesites... and there absolutely must be a more efficient tool for this than I ever managed to find on the site... and discounting "unknown" dates, the oldest listed burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino County, CA appears to be:
Charlotte Whipple Lansing
Born June 2, 1847
Died March 5, 1851
Inscription: Age 36 9m 3d
Find A Grave Memorial# 28775309
Geneoloblog.--67
I have not to any real degree studied genealogy.
If I were to do so... three of my first steps would be:
1. Talk to my wife about how best to go about researching genealogy. She has done so extensively and could provide me with the specific and personalized tricks and hints that wouldn't come together as cohesively from a more generic source.
2. Decide what it is I want to research, what my goals are. If I just want more information about my ancestors then I probably can get more of what I need from just glancing at trees my wife has all ready created. If I want the experience of researching genealogy then I might wish to intentionally ignore resources she has all ready uncovered for the sake of coming up with them on my own. Picking the best path to my destination requires figuring out what that destination is.
3. Look through the genealogy folders my grandfather put together way back when. There is a great font of family information there.
If I were to do so... three of my first steps would be:
1. Talk to my wife about how best to go about researching genealogy. She has done so extensively and could provide me with the specific and personalized tricks and hints that wouldn't come together as cohesively from a more generic source.
2. Decide what it is I want to research, what my goals are. If I just want more information about my ancestors then I probably can get more of what I need from just glancing at trees my wife has all ready created. If I want the experience of researching genealogy then I might wish to intentionally ignore resources she has all ready uncovered for the sake of coming up with them on my own. Picking the best path to my destination requires figuring out what that destination is.
3. Look through the genealogy folders my grandfather put together way back when. There is a great font of family information there.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Texting
Yea, tho frm th frgd nrthlnds he hd cm, yt in th lng f teh ntn hd he md hs hme. & so did it cm to pss tht whn 1ce mr he wnt thru a lnd of rsnbl tmprtr he ws frzn in an icbrg 4 abt a yr.
And lo, when the iceberg thawed the world was changed. People were staring into strange little boxes and typing into keyboards which were way too small for their fingers. And they left so many letters out of their words that making sense of all they said became nigh-impossible. Plus there was some weird red, white and blue shield, but we won’t concern ourselves with that. And so he soldiered on.
I would say that my thoughts on texting and driving after reading the article are about the same as my thoughts on texting and driving before reading the article. Driving is serious business, life-or-death business really and it makes no sense to distract yourself during that process.
No, I have never sent a text message. And when I receive them it is my habit to ignore them. But I have always felt that I could should the occasion call for it, and having looked through this module and the video and descriptions therein I find it still more likely. The mechanics of texting seem largely straightforward.
The jargon is a somewhat bigger hurdle. The website presented in this exercise is one workable tool for managing that hurdle. In addition I manage to maintain communication with enough folks that actually use said jargon that I’m not approaching it entirely flat-footed.
And lo, when the iceberg thawed the world was changed. People were staring into strange little boxes and typing into keyboards which were way too small for their fingers. And they left so many letters out of their words that making sense of all they said became nigh-impossible. Plus there was some weird red, white and blue shield, but we won’t concern ourselves with that. And so he soldiered on.
I would say that my thoughts on texting and driving after reading the article are about the same as my thoughts on texting and driving before reading the article. Driving is serious business, life-or-death business really and it makes no sense to distract yourself during that process.
No, I have never sent a text message. And when I receive them it is my habit to ignore them. But I have always felt that I could should the occasion call for it, and having looked through this module and the video and descriptions therein I find it still more likely. The mechanics of texting seem largely straightforward.
The jargon is a somewhat bigger hurdle. The website presented in this exercise is one workable tool for managing that hurdle. In addition I manage to maintain communication with enough folks that actually use said jargon that I’m not approaching it entirely flat-footed.
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