Quick hits: August, finishing, choosing, researching, and genealogy management

* Early August: the absolute best time to visit a university library.

* As genealogists, we don't finish enough things. It's as if we run from framing one house to framing another. But the finish work takes longer than anything, and sometimes it reveals the quality of the framing. That's one reason I'm in favor of trying for a credential -- or just writing thorough articles. Finishing teaches lessons that don't come any other way.

* On the Genealib list, Barbara J. Hill recently recalled one of her top priorities when buying for the California Genealogical Society's library: a book of local newspaper abstracts ("worth its weight in gold"). Not only are many small newspapers not digitized, even that may not help. Often the result of worn type on cheap newsprint may be such that only humans, not OCR, can decipher it.

* Not so many years ago, I would raid a library by way of the copy machine, then carry and sort and label the paper. Now I scan the pages with a smart phone app and try to email them to myself and then sort and label them from one program into another. I think I'm saving money -- not so sure about saving time, at least until I can refine the process. (It's also often an improvement on just taking notes.)

* Genealogy management and administration is almost a missing specialty (even with FGS in the vanguard). And I'm pretty sure one tenet of it would be not to try to do at the last minute tasks that in their nature require considerable preparation. Another tenet would be that its best practitioners deserves the same respect that DNA specialists and high-end editors and tech wizards receive. It's getting to be too important to be a sacrificial sideline.

* Don't miss Jill Morelli's new blog post, "What Kind of an Historian Are You?"



Harold Henderson, "Quick hits," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 August 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]