Life at the Home20

In light of my recent posts regarding my Genealogical Scanning Project I decided to check into some online backup services.  According to the online reviews I went through tonight, Mozy appears to be the front runner hands down.  Unfortunately, I base this conclusion on price alone.  Everything else is too cost prohibitive for me to even consider.

Now I know that when I backup everything that I really want to on my desktop, it will reach well over 37 GB.  Mozy offers a free service for anything up to 2 GB.  Anything over that costs $4.95 per month and can be billed monthly if you like.  But it is unlimited and how could you possibly beat that?  Apparently no one can.

So in order to test the idea, I have signed up for the free 2 GB offer which does not require even a credit card to set up.  It does require you to download an application to your computer.  However, during setup I was a little disgruntled.  The application searches your hard drive and makes a recommendation for backup.  Naturally, I didn’t like the recommendation.  Besides I only wanted to use the 2 GB free space so I had to start whittling away at their recommendation.  I left Outlook checked but when I started unchecking the other folders things went a little wacky.  Check marks started appearing and disappearing at random.  Once I got that under control I was able to select what I wanted most to backup within My Documents.

Mozy gives you a graphic showing how much of your 2GB you have used up.  I went all the way to 84% for starters.  Mozy then works in the background of my system and may take up to 3 days to do the backup as it runs only when the computer has been idle for at least 30 minutes.  It may be a bit longer than 3 days for me as I always shut my computer down when I leave for work every day.  And there is a thunderstorm approaching as I type and I will most likely shut it down for the night so who knows how long it will take!  I’ll let you know.

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This land record is copied from images made from the microfilm holdings at the Montgomery County (Texas) Library.  The microfilm contains typewritten transcriptions of the original handwritten documents and consequently may have errors.

Edit:  Bear in mind that this is an example of an English transcription of a pre-1836 Mexican (Spanish) document filed in a Texas courthouse after the establishment of the Republic of Texas.

Vol.D.p.66

Josuah Hadley.  Deed from Govt.

I, citizen Miguel Arciniega, Commissioner appointed by the Supreme Government of this State, for the division and occupation of land and the execution of titles to the new colonists, in the colonization enterprise of Empresarios Estevan F. Austin out of the ten litoral leagues of the coast.  Whereas Joshua Hadley has been received as a colonist in the colonization enterprise contracted by the government of the State of Coahuila & Texas by Empresario Stephen F. Austin on the fourth of June 1825, as appears on folio 1451 of this book of records and the said Joshua Hadley having proved that he is married and finding in his person the requirements provided by the law of colonization of this State of March 24, 1825, in conformity with the said law and the instructions which govern me, dated September 4, 1827, and additional Article dated April 25, of the past year 1830, and in the name of the State I give, grant and confirm in real and personal possession one league of land unto the said Joshua Hadley which land has been surveyed by Surveyor Horatio Chrisman appointed previously for the purpose under the following situation and bounds situated adjoining a league of land surveyed by Surveyor Horation Chrisman for John S. Plak and beginning the measure of the survey at a land mark erected on the north line of the league of said Blake 2000 varas from the north east corner of said league from which a land mark a white oak bears south 71° west 6 varas distant, and another white oak bears south 53-1/2° east 21 varas distant, a line was run from said land mark north 70° east and following the said boundry of Black 2000 varas to his north east corner and on the same course 3000 varas more to another land mark for which a white oak bears north 57° west 31 varas distant, and another north 9° east 30 varas distant and thence north 20° west five thousand varas to another land mark from which a white oak bears north 50° east 5-1/3 varas distant and another black jack bears south 52-1/3° east 9-2/3 varas distant and thence south 70° west five thousand varas, to a white oak the north west corner from which a white oak bears south 53° east 6 varas distant, and another bears north 10° east 9-1/2 varas distant, and thence south 20° east five thousand varas to the point of beginning, and comprising one league of land in area, two twenty fifths part of the said land belongs to the arable class and twenty three twenty fifths part to pasture which serves as classification for the price which should be paid to the State for it, according to Article 22 of said law, under the penalties therein established, he being warned that within one year he must erect permanent monument at every corner of the land and that he must settle upon and cultivate it in conformity with the provisions of the law.  Therefore exercising the functions given me by the law proper and subsequent instructions I execute the present instrument and order a copy taken of it and delivered to the petitioner that he may possess and enjoy the land, he his children, heirs and successors or who from him or them may have claim or right.

Given in the town of San Felipe de Austin on the 7 day of the month of May 1831, which I sign with the witnesses of assistance in conformity with the law.

Miguel Arciniega

Of assistance. Robert Taylor, Jr. C.C. GIvens

This accords with the original title which is recorded in these archives whence it is taken for the party on the day of the date hereof in the form required by law to which I refer and sign with witnesses of assistance.

Given in the town of San Felipe de Austin, on the 7 day of the month of May 1831.

Migl Arciniega

Of assistance Robert S. Taylor, Jr. C.C. Givens

2 labores arable land          $5

23  “   pasture land 120      27.60

(total) $32.60

Received July 24, 1838. from Joshah Hadley

Thirty two 60/100 in full for all fees due the Govt. E. Collard, Recr.

Public Money, County Montgomery

Republic of Texas

Montgomery County

Before me Gwyn Morrison, Clerk & Recorder of the county aforesaid, personally came Chas. B. Stewart and William W. Shepherd who being duly sworn saith that they are acquainted with the signature of Migl Arciniega from having frequently seen him write and that they verily believe the signature of Miguel Arciniega to the foregoing deed to be his true and genuine signature.

Sworn and subscribed before me, this the 25 July 1838.

Chs. B. Stewart

W.W. Shepherd.

Gwyn Morrison, Clerk & Recorder.

Filed for record the 24

Recorded the 28 July 1838

Ferdinand Kessler, Deputy Recorder.

I had to use a magnifying glass to read parts of this document.  Even then, the primitive typewriter made it difficult to distinguish between the 3’s and 5’s sometimes.

This is an excellent example of the metes and bounds system used to survey land in early Texas, using varas as a measure of distance rather than chains or feet.  One vara equals roughly 40 inches but that may be arguable.

What it all boils down to is that Stephen F. Austin made it possible for Joshua Hadley to pay $27.60 for roughly 4400 acres of land in Texas in 1831.  It just boggles my mind sometimes.

Edit:  I also find it interesting that in 1831 Joshua promised to pay $27.60 to the Mexican government but instead paid that sum to the Republic of Texas in 1838.  No wonder Mexico was upset.

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On a Thursday morning, not quite three years ago, a category 4 storm named Rita was churning in the Gulf of Mexico and making a beeline for Houston.  Katrina, which hit New Orleans the previous month, was fresh on everyone’s mind.  People were headed north on Interstate 45 in droves.  GetAlong was somewhere up north and the schools were dismissing classes early.  At the office, we weren’t getting much done other than watching the Internet updates and taking turns going to the grocery store around the corner only to find the parking lot full and the shelves empty of anything valuable during a power outage.  The phones weren’t ringing so when the storm became a category 5 hurricane around 4 p.m., management decided to let us go home or hit the highway if we chose.  I took the back roads home because of the traffic tie ups being reported on the local news stations.  All I could think about on the way home was, “Where is everything that needs to be protected in case we have to abandon the house and where do I put it?”

The first thing I did when I got home was empty two large plastic containers and begin filling them with the important papers which were kept fairly accessible in my file cabinet.  These would be put in the truck in case we had to leave.  Next came photos and as much genealogical paperwork as I could stuff into those containers.  And it wasn’t much relatively speaking.  The whole time I kept asking myself, “Why don’t you have all of this stuff stored on an external hard drive yet?”  Then all I would have had to do is disconnect the drive and put it in the car, ready to roll.

So here I am, three years later, ready to get with the program.  Soon all of my genealogical sources will have been digitized and stored on my huge hard drive for easy retrieval during those late night brainstorming sessions.  And as an added bonus, all those files will be copied to my external hard drive in case of a catastrophic event.  Now if I were REALLY smart, I’d have another external hard drive containing a second copy of those files stored at my dad’s house because I may not be able to get home during the next disaster, or, knock on wood, in case of fire.

So even though it seems like a daunting task, I firmly believe that it will be well worth the time and money invested.  Once it is brought up to date, it will be fairly easy to add sources as I find them on my research trips.  The only concern at that point is capacity of the drives on hand.  If they become too full, they may slow down and have to be replaced with larger capacity drives, but if done properly, this should not present a problem.  When technology advances over the next few years, I may have to consider converting the files to a new medium.  Time will only tell.

Luckily the storm weakened to a category 3 when it made landfall just east of Houston and we were able to ride it out at home, not that we could have made it anywhere else if we wanted.  We were without power for 2 days and watched Chinook helicopters fly low over the house, headed for the county airport before taking aid to the Beaumont area.  We were spared this time.

So unless you have a way to load your filing cabinets into the car at a moment’s notice, join me in your own Genealogical Scanning Project!

ScanSoft PaperPort 11 is available at Amazon.com!

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Last March when Sweetpea and I were on our way home from the Bosque County Chuckwagon Cookoff, we decided to stop off at the Covington Cemetery in Reagan, Falls County, Texas.  This is just a couple of miles off Highway 6 but you have to know where you are going because unfortunately it is not marked by any highway signs like many other cemeteries are.

When I first started my genealogical research, my father simply replied, “You won’t find much on my family.”  Well, I love a challenge and when I found this cemetery, my father was very pleased.  When I started, my dad did not even know his grandfather’s name and now he actually had a gravesite to visit.

Here is the family plot containing five generations of my dad’s family.

We’ve made several trips to visit Covington over the last ten or fifteen years. We even buried my Uncle Doug Jesse here. But unfortunately it is a small rural cemetery and there is not much left of the immediate family in the community. So this is what Sweetpea and I found in March.

Of course I informed Dad of what we found but I don’t think it sunk in until he visited last weekend with his weedeater. He called me Sunday evening.

Apparently the gentleman who has been overseeing the upkeep of the cemetery has run into some problems. We have yet to determine why this has happened but it looks like we will be forced to take over the maintenance. This sort of thing should be handled by a cemetery association but I’m sure if there was an interest in that it would already exist.

I’ve already talked to GetAlong about rigging something up so I can load the riding lawn mower onto my truck. But we are going to have to get something larger in there first to take care of the high grass. I’m concerned that hiring someone else to do it might endanger the markers that are already weak.  My dad wants to be buried here, near is brother, and has talked about moving his father’s body here as well.  So we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Suggestions are appreciated.  I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

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When I was typing my post for Friday I unexpectedly found myself talking about the Hadley house at Mill Creek Hundred in Delaware and planning to share the photos that GetAlong had made for me when he visited there several years ago.  The problem was that when it came time to scan the photos into the computer I realized that I didn’t have a clue where they were.  I searched for what seemed like a couple of hours.  As I searched I kept thinking how much I wished my genealogical scanning project was completed because then I would be able to just go to Scansoft’s PaperPort 10 program and search for documents related to the Hadley family.  I might have had to scroll through a few thumbnail images but it would have been so much faster than physically searching through piles of unsorted documents or even looking through my somewhat organized file folders and binders.

In PaperPort 10, Genealogical Scanning Project, Part 2 I explained how to scan each document, single or multi-page, into a PDF file.  PDF files are probably the easiest to share with other researchers.  Anyone can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free and no one has to worry about whether to send images in tiff, bmp or jpg file formats.  You never know what format the recipient prefers and is that really your problem anyway?

Now in order to be able to find a specific file at a future date, you must tag the files as they are scanned in.  Once the file appears in the work space on the right side of the screen, you can right click on the image and then click on Properties.  This will open a window where you can type in words that will help you locate the document later on.  These words might typically be the surnames mentioned, localities mentioned or whatever helps you identify the significance of the document.  These words are entered in the section named Keywords.  You can also type in a description in the Subject area if you like.

Now when you want to search for a document you simply click on the icon which looks like a pair of binoculars.  Another box will appear so you can enter the parameters for your search.  When specifying parameters, you will be asked where to search, All PaperPort folders or the Current folder, with or without subfolders.  If you choose All PaperPort folders, the program will search the entire computer.  If you choose Current folder, it will only search the folder you have been scanning documents into.  The latter is probably more appropriate.  Click Search and a list of matching documents will appear to the right.  You will only see the filenames in this list, however, if you right click on a filename, a thumbnail image will appear at the top of the workspace.  Next to the image will be the information you typed into the file’s Properties, such as Keywords and Subject information.  Keep right clicking on filenames until you see the document that you are searching for.  The more keywords that are typed into the Properties, the more direct the search results will be and the fewer the number of files that will have to be examined.

Now isn’t that much easier than looking through a file cabinet full of paper based folders?  Once you locate the document in question you can either email a copy to the another person, fax it or print out a copy for inclusion in a packet you may be compiling for someone without a computer.  Should you ever need the original in your filing cabinet, just make a note of the filename which should be a number of some sort and go to the file cabinet to retrieve the original.  My originals are in sheet protectors, labeled with the numerically based filename and placed in numerical order in binders.

Next time I’ll talk about the other reason I want all my research digitized - Hurricane Rita.

ScanSoft PaperPort 11 is available at Amazon.com!

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