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Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Thomas Strong Line, 2009 Strong Family Reunion Would you like to do some genealogy? You probably already have an idea of where you might fit in, but let me remind you of some broad areas of need. Preservation Copy We have four 4-drawer filing cabinets of paper records. If those records get lost in a fire, flood, or tornado, our thousands upon thousands of carefully collected documents are gone forever. We plan to run these pages through a scanner, one page at a time. The Historian, President, and Webmaster will each have a copy of the scanned computer files. That way, if some disaster happens to the original, our records are safe. We are looking for a few people who understand the importance of this preservation project, and are experienced in carefully scanning documents into their computer, and who have their own scanner. Continue reading Call for Volunteers Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Mary Strong Line, 2009 Strong Family Reunion Wow! This is Part 19 and counting! I hope you have enjoyed reading about our ideas. Maybe you have even thought of ways you would like to contribute! It won’t take long for us to build some momentum, and have fun in the process! In fact, we can bring some happy results to the 2010 Strong Family Reunion in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Here is what I think we can accomplish over the next year:
With that bit of experience under our belts, we should have a very good idea of whether we want to proceed with the Preliminary Information project, or stop with preserving the Historian Archives. I expect that by time we reach the next Reunion, we will already have some momentum, and we can propose an official project based on the experience gained in our “pilot project.” Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Stronghold Castle Turret Stairs, 2009 Reunion Tour We began Part 1 by posing the question, “Why would I want to join?” We answered, “Let’s do some genealogy, in a way that will be interesting to our membership.” We continued by posing the question, “How do we get this project off the ground?” We answered, “Create an interesting online presence, and focus on early results that we can show off.” In answering those two questions, we have accomplished some amazing results! But more importantly, we have completely prepared ourselves to take on a Future Strong Updates program. We have the means, we have the material, we have the training, and we have the processes. We have made our wealth of knowledge available through the Newsletter and online. We have become more interactive than ever before, in a manner particularly appealing to the younger generation. We have published our works already in progress on CD and as instant download. At this point, if we as an Association decide to take on a Future Strong Updates project, we’ll know exactly how to do so. Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Grinnell Genealogy 1887, Grand Ledge Michigan To the best of my knowledge, we all have two parents. Most of us who have studied the Strong side of the family have also gathered information on other non-Strong parts of the family. In principle, everything I’ve suggested that applies to collecting and disseminating our Strong Family heritage, applies to our allied families as well. I see no reason why our Digital Library couldn’t include photos and documents related to other families, so long as they are correctly cataloged. We thus provide a greater service, and greater interest, to our members at large. In principle, we can provide books on CD regarding these allied families, so long as we don’t lose our original focus. By providing an outlet for sharing their own heritage, we do a service to specific members, while gaining additional interest and widening our own scope of influence. At that point we have an established process, and can provide advice and experience. It’s a possibility… but a long way down the road! Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved. In Creating for the Future, I proposed generating future Strong Updates books from an Official Strong Genealogy Database. The other large value of this approach is that we can take things in bite-size pieces. Someone can pick up one specific family unit, or one specific file folder from the Historian Archives and do the research surrounding that one specific topic. Rather than taking on a daunting multi-year task all at once, someone can take on one manageable piece, and when that’s complete, come back for the next piece. Continue reading One Bite at a Time Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Establishing Genealogical Standards Before we type one single name into our Official Strong Genealogy database, we establish our quality and editorial standards. There is one and only one master copy of the database. The SFAA Historian is the only person who updates the master copy. He or she then distributes copies to the other project members for their use. It doesn’t really matter if we use Family Tree Maker, Legacy, or something else, so long as it can be used to record what we want to record, and generate book sections for our Future Updates program. I use Legacy, so I’ll use it as my example. Legacy has a large set of Source Citation templates that comply with Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills, an unofficial but widely-used high standard of citation. We have not printed extensive and detailed source citations in our bound volumes, but we don’t have the same limits in a book on CD. We can add 50 pages of bibliography for free. Imagine the value to future Strong Historians in generations to come, if we carefully document every source of information as it’s used. The Official Strong Genealogy database can be the source of our Strong Update books on CD for sure, but its real value is to our Historians in their day-to-day investigations. We can keep any number of research notes and anecdotes attached to any specific individual, thus passing on our detailed knowledge to the next generation of Historians. In the same way, when the time comes, we can decide on the other editorial and genealogical standards to be followed. A genealogy program doesn’t have the same “flow” as a manuscript. If you’re writing about the entire Thomas (son of Elder John Strong) line, it’s hard to see how that flows when you’re looking at the computer screen displaying (for example) the David Strong family unit and nothing else. On the other hand, we all use these sorts of genealogy programs, and are quite comfortable with them. In short, creating a book by first creating an Official Strong Genealogy database sounds like a weird way to do it. But we create something of tremendous ongoing day-to-day value to our Historians. It’s easy and intuitive to update information as it comes in (and meets our genealogical standards for inclusion). Information doesn’t need to wait for months and years to be processed and disseminated. Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Jedediah Strong Descendants at 2009 Reunion Remember that as we embark upon this suggested Future Updates program:
What I’d like to suggest is that at this point we start over, with a “real” updates program – but with a twist. We now have a luxury that did not exist 15 or 25 years ago. We can take things one manageable bite at a time, while retaining top genealogical standards and complete quality control. We can take things on a piece at a time as people become available. My suggestion is simple: Begin an Official Strong Genealogy database. It doesn’t really matter if we use Family Tree Maker, Legacy, or something else, so long as it can be used to record what we want to record, and generate book sections for our Future Updates program. The next article, Creating for the Future, explains this technique in detail. Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved. In past articles, I described turning our Historian Archives into an online presence, and into a useful resource available to our membership. It’s a large multi-year project, but it’s manageable and relatively straight-forward. We can tackle one piece of the project at a time, as time permits, knowing where that piece fits into the overall plan. Each step produces tangible results – always a good feeling. Continue reading A Manageable Future Updates Program Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Why the Draper Manuscripts Exist One of the initial goals of our Historian Archives project, is to protect those four large 4-drawer filing cabinets from natural disasters such as fire, flood, or tornado. We do that by running every page through a scanner, one page at a time. That gives an image of every page. It’s a photograph, not searchable text. It’s not searchable or otherwise usable. Scanning those pages will take countless hours. The result is less than useful. A picture of a page, on a computer screen, is not easy to use. It is a picture, not book text. That means you can’t search through the files for a particular name, or anything else. So… Why is this important? We are creating a preservation copy that we hope we never need to look at again. If the original papers get destroyed by fire, water, or vermin, we still have the information in those scanned images. Without that preservation copy, everything would be gone forever. Creating that preservation copy is a meticulous but undoubtedly boring project. Scan one page, then scan the next page, the next page, and the next. Keep those images correctly organized and cataloged. Move on to the next file folder, and the next. Fortunately, this is a perfect case of “many hands make light work.” If we happen to have several people who understand the importance of the project, and are willing to take on a half dozen file folders at a time, we could perhaps finish that project in a single year. Note that this Preservation Copy project does not include converting each page to text. We are making no attempt to interpret, transcribe, index, or retype the documents. We are each extremely tempted to make those pages useful. However, that means the project will take literally 10 times as many hours. We’ll never finish! Meanwhile, of course, we do have that row of filing cabinets full of useful information. How do we go about sharing that knowledge? That’s what the next step is all about – creating a manageable Future Updates program. Please share your ideas! Sharing our Knowledge Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
 Surviving the Disk Errors We began Part 1 by posing the question, “Why would I want to join?” For someone under age 30, the answer includes a substantial online presence, and significant interaction. That interaction usually begins as online interaction. Here in Part 11, we need to ask the question, “How do we get this project off the ground?” Our answer is the same – we create that substantial, interesting, and interactive online presence first. Both the Newsletter and the Web site allow us to talk about the project. But we need to also use our Web site to show the project, and become the central point of interacting with our members and potential members. Please share your ideas! |
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