I'll admit there have been times these past three months where I've been ready to toss in the towel and quit. Scanning the documents isn't really the problem though - it's getting all those documents, letters, and papers organized first that takes up so much time. Actual scanning consumes a relatively small percentage of time overall.
But, I've stuck with it, though I haven't gotten nearly as much done this past month as in previous months. I scanned 4, 841 pages in the last month for a total of 22,870 pages in three months. The holidays are partly responsible for the lower page count but also the fact that the group of documents I've been working with this month are in extreme disarray. Thus, they have taken longer to prepare for scanning. I'm almost done with that group and the next batch of papers should go a bit quicker (I hope!).
While sorting through all of these papers I've come across several groups of correspondence and documents that for some reason never got entered into my database. (Imagine that!) The temptation to stop scanning and get the data entered is quite strong and I gave into it several times but then remembered that my current goal is to just get the stuff scanned. So now when I find things that still need to be entered, I add them to a list and get back to the task at hand - organizing and scanning.
The end is in sight! I'm hoping to wrap-up this portion of my "organization" project within the next month. I will be SO HAPPY and RELIEVED when this scanning is done! It's been a MAJOR project and time consuming but I think it will be so worth the time and effort to have all of my genealogy "stuff" accessible on the computer. (And that means, anywhere I have my computer, I have access to my genea-documents!)
Other posts in this series:
- Sep 20 It's Almost Here! (ordered the scanner on September 17th)
- Sep 22 First Impressions? I'm in love! (first day of use)
- Oct 23 Second Thoughts on First Impressions (after one month of use 8,335 pages scanned)
- Nov 22 Adventures (?) in Scanning (second month of use 9,694 more pages scanned)
5 comments:
Congratulations on working so hard these last 3 months on your scanning project. You must be very pleased.
Holy Toledo! I'm amazed not only at how much scanning you have done, but at how much work must have been involved in obtaining so many documents to scan in the first place.
Becky,
You are such an inspiration! You're right about not getting sidetracked. There will be plenty of time when you're finished to do the data entry.
-Sally J.
The Practical Archivist
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
Janet - Thank you. Although pleased doesn't really come close to how I feel about getting this done!
Greta - I've been researching for nearly 25 years. Some of what was scanned was copies of portions of books, correspondence, etc. You can check out some of the other posts in the series to see what types of things have been scanned.
Sally - Thank you. The temptation was strong to enter the data as I came across it, but getting it scanned right now was more important.
Becky, I am blown away. WOW - just WOW!
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