Tom Mooney
                                Out on a Limb

Tom Mooney

Out on a Limb

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You can have a world-class library of genealogical data, but what happens if you can’t find some item you need?

We’ve all probably had that dreaded experience. You want to retrieve a birth certificate, or a photo, or a copy of a newspaper clipping. You know you’ve got it in your computer. But where is it? Are the names of your files so vague or repetitious that they tell you nothing a year or two later when you look at the listings?

The current issue of “The Heritage,” the quarterly publication of the Northeast Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, offers an adapted version of a recent “Family Tree” magazine article on setting up and maintaining your files digitally. It’s well worth a read.

As an example, here’s the way genealogy writer Rick Crume suggests we title our files. He recommends that we not only create precise file names (perhaps of some length) rather than generic ones, but that we observe consistency in our naming. We can name files by surname, by place or by date, whichever seems most appropriate. The idea is that the very name of the file tells us exactly what’s in it and we don’t have to open a dozen files before finding the one we need.

For the complete article, as well as other useful articles, you can join the society and access the newsletter. Contact is [email protected].

The society’s headquarters is at 57 North Franklin St. in Wilkes-Barre. It is closed because of the ongoing pandemic emergency, but research requests are still being taken. Go to the society’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

Genetic Genealogy: Ancestry’s pending purge of more distant cousins from the DNA test results it sends to test-takers has some genealogists concerned.

In particular, as blogger Roberta Estes points out, the ability of Black genealogists to find information will be impaired. Black Americans trying to find their ancestors cannot count on surnames or documentation over the centuries to the extent that their white counterparts can. So, they need to contact cousins, including distant cousins, whose relationship to them goes back genetically to the days of slavery, when perhaps some of their ancestors were white.

Says Estes, “relationships that occurred before the time of emancipation are only going to be reflected in relationships more distant than fourth cousins – and that is the exact range where smaller segment matches can and do come into play most often.”

The purge was scheduled to take place this month.

Password Management: Here’s a scary thought. What if you spend a lifetime doing genealogy and building a massive family tree going back many centuries, but after you pass away no one knows the passwords to get into your files and read or build on your results?

People with complicated business affairs hire password management companies. It might be a good idea for the rest of us to designate a trusted relative to know where to find a list of our passwords so that our genealogy material remains available to the family.

After all, isn’t family the reason you’re compiling it?

News Notes: Be sure to support the fund raisers being held by your favorite local libraries and historical societies. They’re trying their best to serve you during these difficult times when their usual sources of income are reduced or shut down. Watch your Times Leader for information on their upcoming events and for news of reopenings.

Tom Mooney is a Times Leader genealogy columnist. Reach him at [email protected].